Dr. Yath Ramesh

When it's obvious that you're acquiring more dependence on those people compared to others, then we start to notice problems with ADHD.

But therein lies the challenge, because if you're very good at masking your symptoms, if your symptoms were there, but you had a sibling who had, let's say, hyperactive symptoms that were more obvious, then

if there were symptoms that were happening, but there was something else going on like parental divorce or conflict, and they could be rationalized or justified in another way.

For all those different reasons, it's very possible to get through childhood where you have symptoms, but they haven't manifested into something that we might consider ADHD.

So then we go on to your early adulthood.

And in this stage, I'd call this the independent stage, because in the independent stage, you're trying to become self-sufficient, but you might find manifestations of ADHD there where you can't.

So I'm talking about the people who do really well academically at school, but

then they go into their university years and everything falls apart their grades fall they struggle with making making friends or they struggle with being able to prioritize the differences between prioritizing school prioritizing work prioritizing friendships relationships and

The old self that used to jump from thing to thing, one excitement to the other, struggles with handling this sort of stage of life.

And then we go on to the next stage, which is the integration stage.

So let's say that you manage to get through life and you learn skills of independence, but when you get to actually trying to bring those skills together, so let's say you're a parent,

you're juggling responsibilities with childcare, with aging parents, or you're taking on a leadership role at your work.

At this stage, you can struggle with trying to bring all of those different skills together.

Why?

Because you don't have the opportunity to mask in the same way that you did before.

All those times that you used to give yourself that downtime, gone.

All those times where you used to be able to prepare for conversations,

prepare for those situations that you knew were going to be anxiety-provoking for you.

Gone.

And at this stage, ADHD can manifest rather than with symptoms, but with a difficulty with managing the complexity of life.