Do I Have ADHD? Could I? Understanding the Signs in Adults

If you’ve ever asked yourself that question—even quietly—you are not alone.

In this solo episode of Beyond My Diagnosis, Michele Weston explores what ADHD really looks like in adults and why so many people go undiagnosed for years.

ADHD is often associated with children.

But that’s a misconception.

“It is a misconception that ADHD doesn’t affect adults.”

Michele shares her personal experience living with ADHD and walks through how it can show up differently in adulthood—especially when layered with chronic or neurological conditions like MS.

This isn’t about labeling yourself.

It’s about understanding your patterns.

Because when you understand what’s going on, you can begin to work with your brain instead of against it.

💡 Inside this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why ADHD doesn’t disappear in adulthood—it evolves
• What “time blindness” is and how it impacts your daily life
• Why you may procrastinate or struggle to get started
• How executive functioning affects planning, focus, and follow-through
• The difference between distraction and hyperfocus—and why both exist
• How emotional sensitivity and rejection show up in adults
• Why ADHD is often mistaken for laziness or lack of motivation
• How it can impact work, finances, and relationships
• Why proper diagnosis matters—and what ADHD can be confused with

🧠 What’s really happening

ADHD is not about willpower.

It’s about how your brain processes time, attention, and behavior.

“Executive functioning is the ability to plan, remember instructions, and carry out tasks to completion.”

When that system is challenged, it can feel like you’re constantly behind, overwhelmed, or second-guessing yourself.

⚠️ Important reminder

This episode is about awareness—not self-diagnosis.

Many ADHD symptoms overlap with:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Burnout
• Other neurological or developmental conditions

That’s why it’s important to talk to a qualified professional if this resonates with you.

🛠️ Practical ways to support yourself

Michele shares simple, realistic strategies you can start using:

• Use reminders, alarms, and digital tools to stay on track
• Build structure into your day to reduce overwhelm
• Practice mindfulness and self-awareness
• Work with a coach, therapist, or ADHD specialist
• Support your brain with sleep, movement, and nutrition

Her message is clear:

You are not lazy.
 You are not broken.

You just need the right tools.

🔗 Stay Connected with Michele Weston

micheleweston.substack.com

Transcript

0:02

Hello, this is Michele Weston with Beyond My Diagnosis. It's great to be on with you again and I decided to do another solo podcast because there's some things that people always sort of go, "Could I? Do I? Would I?" And this is about ADHD. ADHD is normally considered something that kids have, only kids have it. And that's not really the truth. The truth is, if you ever wondered if you have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you are not alone. Because people aren't sure. Sometimes the signs are more subtle than you think. When people hear the terminology of ADHD, they often think, "Excise said at the beginning that it presents in children." It could. You could continue to have ADHD into your adulthood. Sometimes it shows up in your adulthood and not in your childhood. But people don't always know what ADHD also affects, especially in adults. And it is a misconception that it doesn't affect adults because it's normally not diagnosed effectively after childhood. It's easier to diagnose it in children. They're in school. You can see where those deficits are. You can see where the impulsiveness is. You can see where the procrastination is because they're in school. They're in grade school. They're in high school. They're in junior high. But studies have shown that 15%--well, 15 to 20% is the range of kids with ADHD carried on into adulthood. Now, I'm one of those. My brother and sister, we all sort of had our version of ADHD as kids. But mine continued--went away for a bit and then continued in my 20s. So 50% of those kids as they go into adulthood have some symptoms that affect their daily lives. Why am I talking about this? I want to show this about chronic conditions because this is chronic. So when it's a chronic condition, people forget that that means it's always happening. So years ago, it was a common belief that ADHD disappeared into adulthood. Today, we know that. We know that it doesn't because it looks different in adults than it does in kids, as I said. But researchers have been working very hard to find that many adults have ADHD and they don't even know that they have it. So I want to talk about some of the subtle signs that you may have ADHD. Why? Because a lot of times also with a chronic condition, especially neurological, you can develop or your ADHD reappears when you develop a chronic neurological condition. And that's why I wanted to talk about this. ADHD isn't a horrible thing. ADHD just needs to have a better understanding and then ways that as an adult, you can work on procrastination, you can work on timing and things like that. So one of the first subtle signs is having an altered sense of time. My husband will tell you I have a very altered sense of time. So one of the hallmarks of ADHD is we sort of love to live in the now. We live in the now. We're right here. So people with ADHD find it hard to keep track of time. So I have a tendency, especially, seriously, since I've had MS as the years have gone on, the decades have gone on, I find it hard to keep track of time. And I'm also often late for appointments. That means that I have to have more reminders in my Google phone that go off and that could be an hour before, that could be 12 hours before to remind me, it could be a day before, it could be four hours before, if it's later in the afternoon. I set up my phone with lots of binging sounds because I get distracted. And how you can help yourself with being late for appointments is normally ADHD people can't accurately estimate how long it will take for them to complete a task. We can't actually figure it out. Okay, this should take a certain amount of time. My husband pretty much knows the amount of time that things take him to do, write something, take a shower even, he knows what it's going to take for him to do this thing. And what happens is we have a tendency to leave the more complicated tasks into the last minute. So, what it's called, and I will have a resource list on Michelewestoncoach.com for you, it's called time blindness. Time blindness, I get blind with time. I think I have more time than I have. Nope. So, what happens is that the researchers saying, the experts say that what happens is the brain's prefrontal cortex to the front of the brain, which is responsible for executive functioning skills, it doesn't work as well as managing focus and behavior in adults with ADHD. My hand is up. I am totally right under this. And when I share this information, please, when people say to you, "Well, you're just using it as an excuse," no, you're not. But when you understand your symptoms, then you can go about changing them, adapting them, and working with the challenges that you have that other people don't. So, the naysayers who will say that, I want you to remember that, no, you don't take on everything, but sometimes we say things like, "Well, I have ADHD," and I know, like, my aunt hates when I say that. She goes, "Well, you use it as an excuse." No, sometimes I have to remind myself,"Michele, you have ADHD, and right now you have been procrastinating a great deal," or, "Michele, you're in the time blindness factor right now," because I don't always remember. And it's not done on purpose. It's not done with any intention, with malice. I just sometimes forget. And sometimes I remember very well, and I can go for a while. I can go for years. I can go for months and weeks. But it depends on what's going on in one's life. So, the prefrontal cortex is also the part of the brain that helps you plan for the future. It's what allows you to prepare yourself for what's coming up next, what you're going to do, how you're going to do something, so you can realistically complete whatever the task is. It could be a personal task. It could be a business task. Those of us with ADHD as adults in work, it's really, really helpful to work with an ADHD coach or a therapist or a psychologist, psychiatrist that's good with adult ADHD, because there are lots of exercises and ways to help yourself. Because in an office, people don't know. They just want it done when they get it done. So, those of us who have timeline, we have to figure out how to work within the parameters of our day. So, as a comparison, let's do it this way. Think of people who are nearsighted. They can only read things that are near to the face, right? So they're nearsighted. Similarly, people with ADHD, they sometimes have difficulty anticipating or preparing for future events. The further away an event is, the harder it is to manage it. Now, if you're always working on this, if you're always putting into your calendar, if you're always leaving yourself notes and setting up doing something that is down the river, you get better at it. So this is an opportunity to just work on the challenge. A person with ADHD may find it difficult to organize our thoughts. We may find it difficult to manage our schedule. Again, that's why I use Google when I worked at Conde & Ass and stuff. I actually had not just my calendar, paper calendar, because then it was a file fax. I also had a calendar on the wall for big things that like a shoot was coming up or we had travel because I wanted to not miss it. I had to leave myself a lot of reminders. So having trouble to plan and prioritize the order of tasks is something we struggle with and it makes harder to meet deadlines. So while your executive functioning level will vary from each person to person, some people are really, really super focused. It's great. I love that my brother is like that. He's hyper focused. And many folks with ADHD will find some challenges in some of the following categories when it comes to doing tasks or assignments. So that would be things like organizing or prioritizing or getting started. The simple process of just beginning, they can procrastinate, they can impulsively go to something else. Another one is concentrating and staying focused as well as shifting your attention to a new task. That's a skill. Staying alert, maintaining the same level of effort and understanding what you're doing. Or how do you manage your frustration and emotions? That's something that ADHD people also. Labbing and skills, having tools, having strategies is super important here in this area. So holding and using multiple pieces of information at once and remembering things you've read and learned, I highlight, I use a colored ruler when I'm reading empirical evidence, when I'm reading dense articles, dense things. You also have to think about controlling your actions. What apple I take. That means you have to step back because I'm normally with my ADHD about three blocks ahead of you. So controlling your actions, I have to sort of step back and go, OK, hold it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So you ask me what time we're leaving. It gives me a chance to not jump on them and say, well, we're leaving at this time. I do that a lot. My tone is always a work in progress here. Another area of adult ADHD that is a subtle area is hyper focusing. So while we often hear that one of the key symptoms in ADHD is being easily distracted, one of the gifts of ADHD is the ability to hyper focus on certain activities, which is terrific. So again, the extras believe the reason people with ADHD hyper focus is because it's difficult to switch from one task to the next. So if you can stay hyper focused on one thing and dive in like Alice in Wonderland, you can finish it. You're super focused. People that generally hyper focus on tasks, they find enjoyable or naturally motivated. I fortunately like a lot of things so I can like dive in and get lost. It's different than social media. It's different than being lost, you know, in Alice in Wonderland on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook. This is I have an assignment. I'm going to be doing all this research. I'm going to be putting this together. I'm going to be planning and I can dive in and be hyper focused and put something through. So it also comes with things like this. There are a lot of adults, people with ADHD that can play video games for hours, but they have a difficulty completing a work assignment. Why? Hyper focused video games. It's a period of time you're trying to win. You're going through things hyper, hyper, hyper focused work assignment could be a couple of things. Could be somebody opens the door. Could be the phone rings. Could be, oh, I knew that I knew we have to talk about this. And then you go to another point. So you get distracted. You get not as focused, but the ability of hyper focus can be really beneficial. These experts also say that hyper focus allows you to create. One of the quotes I heard. I love this was create genius to flourish. So you could take your genius and you can use it to flourish because you love diving in for research or you love finding out how to market this or finding out how to explain this to a class. If you're a teacher or a professor. And that also goes into another area that is subtle. Do you have friends that may have some of these subtle symptoms? A lot of us are frequent job changes. No, I'm not. I have not been a frequent job changer. They change more frequently than their colleagues because the most common reasons are the people at ADHD can find it too challenging to manage all the workplace responsibilities at once. So they become bored with the routine or the repetition of their jobs. Actually, I'm going to stand corrected. When I was in the executive training program at Bloomingdale's and I was in the flagship store here in New York City and I had to work through the stages of being a assistant manager. Then I was a manager. Then I worked in the buying office as an associate or assistant buyer. Then an associate buyer. I found personally, I hated being locked inside. Hated it. Hated it. Inside four walls normally in a store. We don't really have windows. Stores are stores. We don't have lots of big windows in department stores like Macy's and Bloomingdale's and Neiman's and all those kinds of stores. So when I got reviewed, I remember my general department manager saying to me,"Michele, I move you to another floor because you asked me to put you in this area. And then I find you on another floor." And I realized something. I was bored. I was feeling captured in the store. And I was able to address that and go, "I need to use the skill of loving fashion and the history of costume and clothing. How could I use this but have more freedom?" I became a fashion editor, a fashion director, a fashion stylist, where I was out in the market all the time or on a shoot all the time or commentating fashion shows and stores. That was the perfect way for me to handle the routine and the repetition of a job. Perfect, perfect job for me because I could do a bazillion things and not feel it was repetitive. Yes, for certain things, repetitive, yes, but I like packing. I love packing coffin suitcases for shoots, even if it's not my shoot. I love the orderliness of that. So it was a good thing for me to do. Now, research has also found that people with ADHD might also experience problems getting along with their bosses or their colleagues. Why? Because some of the most common ADHD symptoms are disorganization. As I said before, impulsivity. Also, some people are very sensitive to criticism and it gets in the way of their job performance. So why do I feel comfortable talking to you about this at this stage after 50? Because I made an intention to change my behavior because I really loved what I did and learned to take criticism better and learn to hear things better and not be as impulsive and hold my thought for a moment and sometimes not speak before I act. So this is important. There was an article in the mid-2000s, 2010, 2013, 12, 13, that discussed how adults with ADHD are more likely to experience lower occupational status and less employment stability. Disagree, maybe for some, but I'm bringing that to your attention regardless of how intelligent they are or the education they've received. If you are in a space of thinking this is what's going on with these symptoms, take on the challenge and use your brain and work towards honing things in. Another subtle symptom is feeling restless. Need to stay active all the time. Can't sit still to watch a TV show. You know, can you find yourself constantly fidgeting in your chair at work? When I'm at home watching a TV show, ask me how many times I am up and down into the kitchen, doing something, folding laundry, la, la, la, doing something else. Example, do you fold your laundry or clean when you're on the phone? Yep, probably. I'm doing something. I'm normally doing two things at once. Sometimes it doesn't work, especially when you're in a work environment with others. They need to see that you are focused, that you are listening, that you are present, not that you're distracted. And some people around you may feel that you're being dismissive in doing something else while they're talking. It's not about you. Attention deficit disorder with adults is not about you. You need to realize that people are active. Adults today are active, but we're not as typically active as kids. So that constant movement with kids is much more apparent than hyperactivity with adults, because it looks different. The need to stay active is still there. It just looks different. So I was diagnosed in first grade with ADHD. And I remember Miss Kratzy, my teacher, called my parents in, and they talked about, I would say I wanted to go to the bathroom, and here I am in first grade in elementary school, and I would disappear, and I would get lost. Like, seriously, I would end up normally under a UV visual machine in the library reading a book, because I was bored. So that's what I'm talking about, the ability to stay focused. We're easily distracted. There's also, and I spoke a little bit about this before, and this is something you can work on. If you know somebody who's going through this, no, you don't say to them, "Well, I think you have ADHD." You better be really close to somebody to say that. But you may see things going on and note them. Just note them, and they may bring it up and come around to it. So this may help you with a family member, with a friend, with your kids, with your parents. I don't know. Emotional sensitivity, a very common symptom in adults with ADHD is something called rejection-sensitive dysphoria. So that means that the person's extremely sensitive emotionally. They're so sensitive that when they receive criticism or even feel rejected, it's actually painful to them. And they may also feel this pain as if they don't live up to their own expectations or the expectations of others. And this can cause them to withdraw. They can withdraw from friends, from colleagues, out of fear of being hurt again. So it may also result in an impulsive emotional response to actual or anticipated criticism, or even perceived rejection. They may get angry. They may feel this sense of rage. They may feel other people for causing their pain. That's not what's going on. They're going through this cycle, again, working through things with a coach, with a therapist, will give you the opportunity to really help yourself with these acknowledgments of your behaviors. Another one, really the last one, is difficulty keeping friends and romantic partners. So many compared with their peers or adults with ADHD often change friends more often than other neurotypical adults. This is due to a combination of timeliness, which I've talked about, emotional sensitivity, and difficulty staying focused in conversation with their friends. Combined with all these symptoms, it can be harder to maintain friendships over time. Again, an opportunity to work on something that's important to you because we want to keep our friends. I have some friends that I've known since I'm five, and I have some friends that I've known since I started magazines 25, 30 years ago. So friendship is important. People with ADD also have trouble with romantic relationships, especially if their partner doesn't understand what it's like to have ADHD. You may have to explain,"This is what's going on. This is why I'm responding this way." Please, I always sometimes say to people that are close to me, "Please let me know if I'm doing this." You have to be close to them so that you don't feel awkward or that they're yelling at you or telling you something. But the couple may encounter problems unique to having a partner who lives with ADHD. What if you're with somebody who forgets anniversaries or birthdays? This can really put a long-term stress on the relationship. So having an honest talk with your partner about how ADHD affects the relationship can help prepare you as a couple for the types of conflicts you may encounter down the road. Oh, lastly, definitely. One of the other areas that's a subtle symptom is poor financial planning skills and impulsive spending. Adults with ADHD don't always make good financial decisions, and they are really less likely to see the value in saving their money. My hands up again. I did not see the value in saving my money. I thought that if I was making a six-figure sum, I would spend a six-figure sum. I'd pay my rent. I'd do whatever. They tend to have more debt and less money saved for retirement. They also tend to spend money impulsively, even if they can't really afford to make a purchase. That could be going out extra for a meal. What you hope you learn is, "Am I paying for extravagant meals, or am I paying to go out and keeping it down below $30?" Okay, cool. Still not great because impulsiveness is impulsiveness, and you're still spending money you may not want to spend in that area, but these money issues are due to something, something that's going on. They have the inability to pay attention to things they don't like doing, like paying bills. I hate doing my budget resolution at the end of the month. Hate it. They're time blindness. Time blindness that makes planning for future financial decisions very difficult. I can't see being an old lady needing certain things. Thankfully, my parents put long-term care into my plan, and I pay it every year, but I always say, "I'm not going to need that." There's that time blindness, lack of impulse control and spending without thinking. Did you think about that? There's that golden rule that I was taught that's been useful. If you want something, is it really necessary if you go and get a pair of gym shoes, did you get the pair of gym shoes because your old gym shoes were worn out and you needed to replace them, or did you just want those gym shoes even though you shouldn't be spending the money because you liked gym shoes? That's an impulsive act. You also may have a difficulty in getting and staying organized. Everybody's different. When you see a doctor, because if you're experiencing these things, you want to receive a diagnosis so you can talk about what is going on. They can talk about the history of your symptoms, whether these symptoms have had a significant negative response to your work, to your relationships. They may ask for permission to interview someone who knows you and your history well because it sometimes helps to speak to a parent, to a partner, a friend, someone who works with you to get another perspective of your behaviors. When diagnosing ADHD in adults, you want to be able to also rule out 16 conditions of groups or conditions that have similar ADHD qualities so that you're not misdiagnosed. What would that be? It could be anxiety disorder. It could be that you're very anxious. It could be that you're on the autism spectrum. Remember this. On that autism spectrum is Steve Job's and Albert Einstein. Super, super smart. We don't call it the autism spectrum anymore. I still do because I still think it's the best descriptive. I like that we're going towards neurodiversity and neurodivergence. I think it's great. That language I'm still working on, but I think neurological diversity differences in us is important. They may have a developmental coordination disorder. It could be an intellectual disability. They could have a language disorder. Maybe there could also be a-- what's the word? When you read things backwards, it could be a learning disorder. It can be-- yeah, you could be dyslexic learning disorder. It could be a mood disorder. It could be a oppositional defiant disorder. Like, I'm going to do it anyway. And it's to such a degree, it's considered another challenge. You could have a sleep disorder. You could have a tick disorder. So when you have a chance to get a diagnosis correctly, do you have to go to medications? No. There are people who do very well working with a therapist, a coach, psychologist, psychiatrist that don't take medications. Depends on your personality. Depends on who you are. Depends on what you need. When I went back to get my master's, definitely needed the medication to help me study and read very dense information. You want to make sure that, can I grow out of this? Can it get worse? You have questions. What treatments work best for me? Why do I have so many bad ADHD days lately? And these are questions that are natural and they're not uncommon. So if you have the right information, you can learn just what ADHD is and really, really help yourself because it's a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects how you, how we, how I behave. And symptoms include, as I've mentioned, again, ongoing persistent patterns of inattention and inability to focus, hyperactivity, hyperfocus, or impulsivity itself. These patterns may lead you to face challenges in how you function daily and develop skills. So a late diagnosis might mean that you had symptoms as a kid, but we didn't know. Make sure that you have an opportunity to really, really dive in. There are some great groups. There's a group called ADDA, Adtention, Adult Deficit Disorder Association, and they're super, super helpful. There is another group that, and you know, NIH and CDC have a lot of information on there. I'm not even going to get into medications because I'm not a doctor. So you can always have that conversation with doctors, but there's self-help, you know, strategies for ADHD. So when you're working with an ADHD focused professional, a peer, self-help strategies may help you better manage your symptoms with that. So investigate how to be better equipped, how to read up on how you will be, you know, find out what the latest news and research is on ADHD, what causes ADHD. There's a lot of blogs out there. There's ADHD blog casts, as I said, Ada is a great way, and some may be helped with lifestyle changes to make. We're back to me being a coach as a health and wellness and well-being coach. Some areas to look at when you're considering making, what, like, you know, making lifestyle changes that can affect and help you with ADHD is an exercise routine that boosts your mood or helps reduce stress. Important for people who have ADHD. If you have a routine that makes quality sleep a priority, the best thing for you, find your time. My husband sleeps on the other side of the clock. I'm better to getting in bed by 12, 1 o'clock at the best, at the highest, or else I'm going to miss my window of sleeping. And sleep is important to people living with a chronic autoimmune disease. It's important for everybody, but it's definitely more important for those of us who need the rest for our neurological systems. And also choosing foods that don't make symptoms worse. When I say that, you, we're talking about inflammatory foods, pure sugar, looking for more darker greens, more fiber, whole foods, as we like to call them. And harness the power of technology. If you have trouble remembering plans or appointments, remember, put it into your phone. Use alarms, use reminders. I use that calendar on Google, whatever works for you, to help you stay organized so you can be the best that you can and reduce the stress associated with running late or missing appointments or forgetting to do something important. And I will share at another time ways to stay organized. This is also an area that is about mindfulness. If you are more mindful for yourself, oh, the other organization that I spoke about, I spoke about, Ada, is the National Alliance for Mental Health, N-A-M-H. You can definitely look there to see what's going on. But I want you to just start to dive in. If this is something you've struggled with, if this is something that has been noted, you have ways of helping yourself. And that's really, really important. And we don't know, you know, you're thinking to yourself, what exactly causes ADHD? We know that there are several factors that can contribute to developing ADHD. And according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the risk factors for ADHD is genetics. If you have a parent with the condition, you are much more likely to develop ADHD than a person without that familial history. So the stats on that are three out of four children who have ADHD having relative who also has the disorder. There's also those maternal factors, cigarette smoking, alcohol use, or any drugs that were used during pregnancy have the ability to contribute to a child developing ADHD. Toxins. Exposure to environmental toxins during pregnancy or at a young age, such as high levels of lead, may be a risk factor. So think of all the neighbors in the projects, the neighborhoods in the projects where you may see more ADHD. If you had low birth weight, if there are brain injuries, God forbid. But the other thing that's interesting to me is ADHD is more common in males than females. And inattention is especially common in females with ADHD. That's an important thing to note as a woman. I think they didn't miss it with me because I also had a brother who was on Ritalin at that point in time. And I was also under that category. So the other thing I want you to remember is people may say, you know, ADHD, you're just lazy. What's really going on? What if you're going through a period of low motivation, or it could be something else? If you are having trouble focusing on work or summoning the energy to complete your to-do list, it's really frustrating, right? So it can be all too easy to put yourself down when you can't meet the goals you set for yourself. You might also be wondering if this could mean you have ADHD. The answer to that is maybe. Maybe. If you have ADHD, symptoms can affect certain aspects of your behavior, and people are often wrongly labeled as lazy. People with ADHD aren't lazy. This myth tends to come from misunderstandings about ADHD and how it affects people. The low motivation sometimes experienced by people with ADHD is just one of the symptoms associated with it. That has to be considered. So if you have trouble focusing on tasks, if you have difficulty paying attention and moving from one activity to another, or you're not as impulsive in your behavior, or you forget I am as appointments or things, or you have low motivation to begin tasks, especially ones that don't interest you, like for me, science or math, some of these symptoms can look like an unwillingness to engage in a task or in an activity or in a project. This is why most likely people with ADHD sometimes are called lazy. You're not lazy. There's actually a reason why that may appear to others that you have that. This is an deficit in your executive functioning skill. I looked at the symptoms of adults to see if there were specific patterns in behavior in executive functioning because it interested me, especially getting my master's. And again, I'm going to clarify. Executive functioning is the ability to plan, remember instructions, carry out tasks to completion. So if you have ADHD, this may be especially challenging, making it seem like you lack motivation because your chemistry in your brain is different. And we've seen studies where they use mice suggesting with certain neurotransmitters, like dopamine, dopamine makes you high, it makes you happy, makes you want to do things. That may play a role in motivation for people living with ADHD. So if there's lower levels of this neurotransmitter, that can affect your reward centers in your brain because you have a lack of enthusiasm for studying or completing something. The experts also suggest that altered patterns in the dopamine pathway may be one reason you may have difficulty with motivation if you live with ADHD. And it may be part of the reason. Another thing is challenges with sustained or divided attention. They, researchers have really been looking at this to support the idea that focusing on an activity or multiple sources of information for a relatively long, undisturbed time can be very challenging for adults with ADHD. It's not like motivation. It's really how ADHD manifests as a symptom. Don't compare ADHD in kids as adults. It's different. So keep that in mind and ask the experts. It's important to go to experts. If you're feeling tiredness or low motivation or a lack of focus, it can also be signs of depression. So if you're having two or three weeks of this, it could be depression. It could be that sadness. It could be hopelessness, that loss of interest in activities that you used to enjoy. Anxiety. Anxiety is another thing they think, "Oh, that person's ADHD perhaps." Anxiety disorders commonly cause feelings of overwhelm that can lead to challenges focusing, which may affect your motivation. So it makes it harder to begin or complete tasks if you're anxious because you have trouble concentrating. You get more restless. You have difficulty remembering things. It could be an existential crisis for goodness sake. You could be having trouble finding meaning in your work or feel like you've lost your direction. This can lead to low enthusiasm. So if you think existential concerns are the word of your feeling less than enthused about your current work or activities, it can help to talk to somebody. You can talk to a friend. You can talk to a therapist. You can talk to a doctor. You can talk to a coach. These are things that I want you just to be aware of. There are a lot of support groups and look for tips to help you manage your impulsive behavior. Look for tips on self-awareness. How can you be more self-aware? Mindfulness. Can I be more mindful? Can I be more aware and mindful of my choices? What if you check in and take action? Checking in and taking action gives you a chance to own it, hold on to it, focus it. Also, learning how to distract the impulse, as I said to you, not buying those gym shoes because you really wanted them. Just buy them when you need them. If you want them later and it's something you want, well, then save your money and use it for that. But don't just run towards it. It's also important to relax, to sleep, to de-stress yourself. That gives you a chance to really regroup. So I hope that this little talk about ADHD and adults has given you some food for thought if you've struggled with it, if you've seen it in others around you. Psychology Today has great articles. Psychology Now magazine has great articles. They're both online. I would definitely go dive into that. Look at healthline.com. You can look at WebMD. I just have a tendency to go to some of the other newer ones. And there's ways to do this. So I will put up five ways to curb things and let you guys dive into it on Michelewestoncoach.com. I thank you for your ear, as always, because it makes a difference in learning how to work through your ADHD and work with your ADHD. And I think that people really find that, you know, it's important to look at that. Also, the last thing I'll say is, look for something called MBCT, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. What you see is improvements on how to measure executive functions. It helps you with self-monitoring. It helps you with working memory. It helps with planning, organization of tasks or work assignments. Because when you learn how to focus, then you can turn it around. You can turn this around. I will constantly be working to make sure that I know how to make my ADHD work for me, not against me. And reward yourself when you motivate yourself, when you get focused by doing things. Take a walk. Watch an episode of a favorite Netflix movie or an old movie on TV. Find a favorite snack. Go out for a favorite meal by yourself, a book that you love. And once you start to set a reward for your task, getting that strategy, getting that tool in place, run with it. Have a great day. And thanks for letting me talk to you about adult ADHD for those that are suffering. I wish you continued tools and activities and ways to help yourself. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Beyond the Diagnosis. If something we talked about today resonated with you, if you're craving deeper understanding, better support, or just want to know you're not alone on this journey, make sure to subscribe to my free substack at Micheleweston.substack.com. That's where I share personal insights, expert takeaways, and extra resources to help you stay informed, empowered, and one step closer to the clarity you deserve. And if you found this episode helpful, leave a review or share it with someone who needs to hear it. Your voice helps this message go further. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep trusting yourself, and keep going Beyond the Diagnosis.