Dr. Yath Ramesh

Some of these challenges completely don't make sense to someone who's neurotypical.

Yes, you might identify with an individual symptom, but not with the whole constellation of issues.

But the second thing is about predictability.

So if we try to conceptualize ADHD for most of the population, it doesn't help us to predict or understand them.

It doesn't at all.

And that's why it's really important to go through the assessment process and to identify these things.

The overlap is very significant.

And I've got to say that this is probably...

the conversation of the debate between these two diagnoses as well and there are many psychiatrists who would argue that we should be screening for adhd and anyone diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and often what we can look at is with adhd

The micro traumas that we experienced in our childhood can contribute to emotional dysregulation and to RSD, and they can sort of feed into that.

With borderline personality disorder,

you might find that there are specific individual traumas that can be a very significant driving force behind a lot of the symptoms within borderline personality disorder.

So some of them may experience symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, re-experiencing of a select few childhood traumas,

And what that means is that ultimately some people with BPD will require a trauma-focused approach in order to help them with dealing with those individual traumas.

But this is where it gets particularly complicated because there can be people who have ADHD but are also exposed to all of these individual traumas that are so painful that they have a trauma response to them as well.

And that complexity might mean that you're handling both ADHD and borderline personality disorder, and you need two approaches for both.

So, yeah, that's it in a nutshell.

It's absolutely not too late for you to have a diagnosis.

And let me talk to you about some practical things to help you with that pathway.

So first of all, if you are having an ADHD diagnosis, it's helpful for us to get as much information as possible about your background.