Dr. Russell Barkley

So the two disorders are not that hard.

I mean, ADHD does not lead to fear, worry, anxiety initially.

Now, after about 10 to 20 years of not being treated, anxiety disorders begin to become a coexisting disorder with ADHD, such that by the time you're in your 30s, 35 to 50% of adults with ADHD have developed an anxiety disorder.

But that's because of the chronic failure that ADHD is leading to.

So you don't have to fail in social situations or at work too many times before you get really anxious in those environments.

But that's a different kind of anxiety

that comes from overexposure to negative consequences and even traumatic consequences that other people don't experience.

On the other hand, if you have a legitimate anxiety disorder, yours is much more forward looking.

You are over anticipating punishment, negative consequences, what people think about you,

you know, that you're going to die when you get in the car, that your parents aren't coming home when they leave the house.

Those are anticipatory anxieties.

And that's not what we see in adult ADHD.

Adult ADHD, it's more learned anxiety.

So, you know, one is driven by the past.

That is, I frequently fail in this situation or it's driven by the working memory deficit.

There was a photographer in Atlanta who put it beautifully.

He said, I'm out on a photo shoot and I can't remember whether I agreed to pick up our five-year-old at daycare today or my wife.

And it's four o'clock.

So the kid's been out of school an hour.

Is he sitting at a curb with his teacher because I'm not there?