Adult ADHD: Impact on Life

Video Transcript

"ADHD can have a far and wide reaching impact on an adult's life, whether or not that adult was diagnosed with ADHD in childhood. ADHD is pervasive enough to cause dysfunction in just about every area of an adult's life, and the adult is put at a further disadvantage if they weren't diagnosed with ADHD into adulthood. Because that means, most likely, they had a childhood of feeling that they weren't quite right, or a childhood of poor academic performance or failure, impaired social functioning that has contributed to low self-esteem. It's not uncommon for ADHD adults, by the time they reach adulthood and to already have developed a substance abuse disorder, that you have other issues of recreational drug abuse that further complicate life in a sort of totalitarian way. ADHD, even once it's treated, it's not like treating a lung infection. It's a matter of finding the right combination of medication when warranted, and therapy, and just the time that's necessary for those things to work for an ADHD adult. To learn how to manage their disorder, and also how to repair any damage that's been done by the untreated disorder in terms of low self-esteem, or low mood, or substance abuse. "