ADHD, All Grown Up: What ADHD Can Look Like in Adulthood
When most people picture Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), they imagine a fidgety child: tapping their feet, leaving their seat in class, interrupting others, struggling to follow instructions, or not finishing homework. These kinds of behaviours are classic ADHD symptoms and match official diagnostic criteria for difficulty sustaining attention or being “on the go” as if “driven by a motor”. But when I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 29, I found it hard to align my day-to-day struggles with this stereotypical picture of it, likely because ADHD doesn’t always appear the same in adults as children. As an adult, being “hyperactive” doesn’t usually look like constant fidgeting or leaving one’s seat. Instead, people describe an internal feeling of restlessness. Adults also tend to mask or manage their behaviours better than children, and inattentive symptoms that dominate adult ADHD diagnoses are “easier” to compensate for.
Because of this, adults with ADHD and those close to them are more likely to notice and report impairments—the functional consequences of symptoms in areas of daily life. Areas such as relationships, school or work, personal responsibilities, and finances. Impairments can look like strained relationships, employment instability, job underperformance, poor college grades, poor money management, and failure to meet milestones such as living independently. While these impairments are not directly symptoms of ADHD, they have been linked to mainly inattentive symptoms of ADHD in adulthood—such as difficulty organizing tasks, failing to follow through on instructions, making careless mistakes, or struggling to finish chores.
So, what do these impairments look like day-to-day?
At home, it might mean a cluttered and messy living space, unfinished laundry or dishes, or forgetting to take out the trash or pay bills. With personal responsibilities, it can look like forgetting medication, skipping meals because you got distracted, or constantly being late for commitments. In relationships, it might mean forgetting to reply to messages, missing details in conversations when your mind drifts, interrupting people, or finishing others’ sentences. At work or school, it often shows up as trouble completing projects, difficulty with routine paperwork or assignments, or frequently changing jobs.
So, adults with ADHD don’t usually notice that they “often lose things necessary for tasks”—a diagnostic symptom of ADHD. They might instead become frequently frustrated by constantly misplacing their keys or their phone. Rather than remark that they have “difficulty sustaining attention”—another symptom—they might struggle to maintain relationships because they appear uninterested in conversation or forget to text back. And you probably won’t see them jump out of their chair during a meeting. Instead, they might rarely sit down to relax, fidgeting inconspicuously when they must. Adults with ADHD might compensate by being overly punctual to avoid lateness, and rely heavily on reminders, timers, and rigid structure to avoid forgetting.
When adults with ADHD can successfully compensate, they underreport their symptoms and impairments, or excuse them as low life satisfaction or having a “bad day.” Adults with ADHD may appear well-functioning, but they worry about being able to reach their full potential and feel exhausted by trying to function normally—something that defined my own experience with ADHD in adulthood. Unlike in adults, dismissing symptoms and impairments is less likely to happen for kids, because their parents and teachers easily recognize overt ADHD behaviours like struggling to sit still or pay attention.
But doesn’t everyone have occasional lapses in attention, and feel distracted?
Yes, situational stress, fatigue, or everyday distractions can produce behaviours that resemble ADHD symptoms. Because of this, experiencing a few relatable symptoms or impairments does not necessarily mean that someone has ADHD and adults should be careful to avoid self-diagnosis. Labeling one’s experiences like occasional forgetfulness as “ADHD” can pathologize typical behaviours, and may divert already scarce resources from those who truly need help. If these challenges sound familiar, are ongoing and getting in the way of your daily life, it might be a good idea to talk to a qualified healthcare professional—it helped me recognize and manage my own ADHD in adulthood!
Blog post written by Alysha Stoakes
