How do you know if you have ADHD?

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ADHD
Learn how to spot the signs.

Knowing if You Have ADHD

Hallowell and Ratey, authors of an excellent text entitled Driven to Distraction list 20 symptoms that are often evident in a person with ADHD. They are:

• A sense of underachievement, of not meeting one?s goals (regardless of how much one has accomplished)
• Difficulty getting organized
• Chronic procrastination or trouble getting started
• Many projects going simultaneously; trouble with follow-through
• Tendency to say what comes to mind without necessarily considering the timing or appropriateness of the remark
• An ongoing search for high stimulation
• A tendency to be easily bored
• Easy distractibility, trouble focusing attention, tendency to tune out or drift away in the middle of a page or a conversation, often coupled with an ability to focus at times
• Often creative, intuitive, highly intelligent
• Trouble going through established channels, following proper procedure
• Impatient; low tolerance for frustration
• Impulsive, either verbally or in action, as in impulsive spending of money, changing plans, enacting new schemes or career plans, and the like
• Tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about alternating with inattention to or disregard for actual dangers
• Sense of impending doom, insecurity, alternating with high risk-taking
• Depression, especially when disengaged from a project
• Restlessness
• Tendency toward active behavior
• Chronic problems with self-esteem
• Inaccurate self-observation
• Family history of manic-depressive illness, depression, substance abuse, or other disorders of impulse control or mood

First answer by Heather. Last edit by ID1370681233. Question popularity: 139 [recommend question]