ADHD Symptoms For WomenWomen with ADHD experience emotional instability and sensitivity towards rejection. They can also experience insomnia or poor quality sleep, which may cause the symptoms to become worse.
Women and girls often mask their ADHD symptoms better than males, using strategies to manage their stress and meet social expectations and norms. This can lead both to a misdiagnosis and a delay in treatment.1. Difficulty Focusing
Concentration is the biggest issue for women suffering from ADHD. This neurodevelopmental disorder makes it difficult to concentrate at school, during meetings at work, or when reading and listening to others talk. It can be challenging to complete daily tasks, such as keeping track of appointments or taking medications.
Difficulty focusing is one of the most common adhd symptoms for girls and women, regardless of their gender identity or whether they have hyperactive/impulsive or inattentive ADHD. According to CHADD, women with the inattentive form of the condition can struggle to organize their home and desk. They might be unable to prioritize their tasks. These issues can result in being late for appointments, turning up at the wrong time or place or failing to finish their tasks. They may make them feel bad about themselves and blame themselves for their problems believing they are lazy or forgetful.
Inattentional ADHD can lead to poor performance at work or in school and can lead to the accumulation of debt. They are often triggered by stress or other mental health issues, including depression and anxiety that are often associated with ADHD in women, as per CHADD.
Certain women and girls who suffer from inattentive ADHD are underdiagnosed or overlooked due to the prejudices that teachers and parents might have towards men and boys. They may not be able to express their ADHD add symptoms in adult women as well, especially the hyperactive/impulsive ones, and may have difficulty finding treatment that works for them.
Hormonal changes can also exacerbate symptoms for women who suffer from ADHD. For instance, they could be more evident during menstrual cycles or during perimenopause, which is the time before menopausal, when estrogen levels decrease and cause emotional problems such as mood swings and irritation.
Stimulant medications can help enhance concentration add in adult women adults suffering from ADHD However, it can't treat the condition. Other strategies, such as mindfulness training, lifestyle changes, and cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) can also assist with focus and organization. Some schools and workplaces offer accommodations to help with these issues, as well.
2. Forgetting Things
Forgetfulness can make managing your daily tasks and responsibilities difficult. It may be difficult to remember important information, especially if they occur in a noisy environment. You may also find yourself forgetting appointments or running late to school or work. Forgetting to pay bills or respond to emails is a common occurrence for women suffering from ADHD that can lead to financial stress and leave you feeling stressed. You might have trouble working in a noisy or noisy workplace and frequently get lost in conversations, leaving others feeling unimportant or misunderstood.
Many women and girls who suffer from ADHD also struggle to maintain friendships. They are also at risk of being pushed into sexually inappropriate behavior or becoming victims of intimate partner violence. This is because they have a difficult to manage their emotions and are more likely to be overwhelmed. They may also be struggling with their self-esteem, and they might view their issues as something that is a "personal fault" instead of realizing that their behavior is related to their ADHD symptoms.
Women and girls with ADHD are also often overlooked due to gender bias because their symptoms are less evident than those of boys and men. They might be more likely to camouflage their symptoms with mood disorders or anxiety which could lead to being misdiagnosed and improperly treated.
The symptoms of ADHD vary with hormone fluctuations particularly during puberty, when progesterone levels drop and estrogen rises. This can lead to a greater variation in symptoms throughout the day, which makes it difficult to recognize and treat ADHD correctly.
If you are diagnosed and treated, you will learn to manage ADHD symptoms. You can also change your lifestyle, such as eating an appropriate diet and avoiding stimulants like sugar, caffeine and drinks with sugar that can worsen symptoms. Meditation and mindfulness techniques can calm your mind and reduce anxiety and impulsiveness. They also aid in improving the regulation of emotions. A mental health professional may be able to help you by discussing possible accommodations that can help you manage ADHD symptoms at work or at school.
3. Disruptive Behavior
In most cases, women with ADHD experience more inattentive symptoms than those who are hyperactive or impulsive. It could be because the brains of girls and women differ from the brains of boys and men, or it could have to do with the amount of activity is happening in the parts of the brain responsible for managing disruptive and impulsive behavior.
This means it can be harder for a doctor to identify and diagnose ADHD in women. Many women develop coping strategies to mask their symptoms. Some of these are healthy, but others are unsustainable and can cause other health problems. Women, for instance use excessive alcohol or drugs to manage. They could also develop depression or other mental health issues like anxiety. These unhealthy coping strategies can make it more difficult for someone to recognize they have a problem and delay a proper diagnosis.
Disruptive behavior is a typical adhd symptom for women that can affect work or school performance and relationships. They often include not staying focused on a particular task, not remembering important events or tasks and becoming easily distracted by other things in their environment or in their thoughts. They may fidget, shake their feet or hands, or make a squirming sound. They may also shout or speak loudly, and they may interrupt.
Women with the inattentive subtype can have difficulty in concentrating during lectures or discussions, keeping up with schoolwork writing, reading, or reading assignments, following directions in the classroom or at work, and juggling daily tasks. They might be unorganized and forgetful. They may also be messy. It can be challenging for them to stick with commitments or tasks. They are more likely to lose or lose items like glasses, wallets, keys and even wallets.
Having the predominantly hyperactive/impulsive type of adhd can disrupt work or school, cause social problems, and create relationship challenges. This type of adhd can cause issues at home, at work, and in school, and can trigger feelings of anxiety or boredom. They have a difficult time waiting for their turn at school, at home, or in the workplace and often interrupt others. They are prone to act recklessly and aren't able to manage their behavior.
4. Anxiety
Girls and women with ADHD can have a harder time coping with their symptoms than men and boys. This is due to societal expectations that demand women and mothers be the primary caregivers for their children and household. When a woman with ADHD is unable to manage her obligations, she may experience heightened feelings of anxiety which can lead to low self-esteem. This makes it more difficult to seek treatment.
In addition, women who suffer from ADHD frequently have a difficult time getting diagnosed since their symptoms are not as prominent as those of men and boys. They may present with primarily inattentive symptoms, which do not have the same outward appearance as hyperactive/impulsive ADHD symptoms, making them less likely to receive a referral for treatment from teachers and parents. Furthermore, they are more likely to develop strategies for coping to disguise their ADHD symptoms, such as frequent fidgeting and forgetfulness which could be misinterpreted as symptoms of anxiety disorders.
The symptoms of ADHD can also change over the course of the life of a woman. Women may be afflicted with ADHD symptoms in the course of hormonal changes, like menstrual cycle and pregnancy. This could result in being dismissed or misinterpreted as an overly emotional woman and can cause a feelings of frustration.
The information in this article is based on research about how ADHD affects people based on their sex. Verywell Health acknowledges that sex is a reference to biology, including chromosomal makeup, hormones, and anatomy. whereas gender is a subjective sense of being a man, woman or a nonbinary. This distinction is important because it allows for better understanding of how and the ways ADHD manifests may differ between genders. For this reason, throughout this article, we refer to men and people assigned to male at birth (AMAB) as males and boys and women add and adhd in women people assigned adult female adhd symptoms at birth (AFAB) as girls and women. This is in line with how many research studies use this terminology. To find out more, ADHD symptoms for women check out Verywell Health's guide to gender and sex.