What Came First?

Anxiety or ADD????????

I remember having a conversation with my cousin Kelli about anxiety, or for her, the lack of anxiety. She was describing her thoughts and feelings to me and to be honest, I was flabbergasted. I kept saying “really”? I remember specifically asking her “so like, when you say and do things, you don’t constantly worry if you are making someone upset, or think about how they feel, or like worry that you are doing or saying the wrong thing”? Y’all, she said NO. Like very quickly and simply said NO. And I thought it was the most bizarre thing I have ever heard in my entire life. You mean to tell me, that they have people who just go around in this world, only worried about their self? There are people who exist who don‘T make up entire scenarios in their heads to prepare for hypothetical responses or reactions? Weird, just so weird. I really think this is the point I truly realized that not everyone deals with anxiety, obsessive thoughts, catastrophic anxiety, or intrusive thoughts in a daily basis. There are people who just go about their lives without one million “what ifs” running through their mind.

I have often looked for some kind of moment in my life that triggered my anxiety to begin, but honestly it goes so far back, that I do not remember a time without it. I think a lot of it stems from having an overactive brain and also never truly feeling safe (not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well).

I was curious to know how many adults who suffer from anxiety depression in their lives now had ADD or ADHD when they were younger, especially undiagnosed. Studies seem pretty certain that there is definitely a connection between an attention disorder and anxiety, but there is a question of which came first. So there are some indicators that aspects of ADD can cause someone to have trouble regulating their anxiety or coping with it. There are also some indicators that people with anxiety and rapid thoughts will then show symptoms of ADD.

The funny thing about ADD and anxiety together is that they truly feed off each other. When you have ADD, your brain is constantly running, so then you think of a million different things to worry about, which starts the anxiety. You also have anxiety that stems from the worry that you aren’t able to complete tasks or do anything fully, or you get anxious at the thought of not being able to concentrate or even make sense. That is with untreated ADD at least. So then you decide to get on a medication to treat the ADD, yayyyyyy, my brain is quiet and I can actually think entire thoughts now, but this also means your anxiety gets a little more organized, and now you are able to put all of the things that give you anxiety into a nice little outline, so you can still worry, but in an orderly manner now.

Here is a little visual of the overlap of anxiety and ADD/ADHD, which I feel is informative, but could probably have a lot more things added to it.

I can only imagine how many times someone has been diagnosed with one of these conditions, but has truly been suffering from the other one, or is only diagnosed with one and has been suffering from both. My concern is specifically for children. As someone who was in the classroom for over 10 years, I have seen a lot of diagnosis processes play out and honestly, with children, the outcome is usually ADD or ADHD, sometimes a child will be found to have ODD or maybe anxiety/depression. I do think as a society we are quick to put children in the ADD category when there are certain factors that they present with, but I wonder if this would still be the same if kids were sent to some kind of counseling prior to putting them on an attention medicine. Like, what if we are missing something bigger? What if this child is suffering from some mental health issues that are below the surface and are manifesting themselves as ADD or ADHD characteristics. Maybe the actually have anxiety? With ADD I don’t feel like there is a root or something to blame for this, but anxiety, you usually aren’t just born with. There is usually some kind of experience or trauma that has occurred to prompt your anxiety. So what would happen to kids if they were able to get a full evaluation to decide what was going on? Sometimes this happens, but I feel like a lot of times the doctor will be quick to prescribe medicine as an answer. I am pro-meds, but if there is something else we can do first, or some way to guarantee that a child is suffering from ADD and not something else, I would feel a lot better.

I hope as a society, there comes a point, where we really focus on the mental health needs of our children and recognizing that even thought we may think their problems or concerns are minimal, they aren’t small to them, and even if they were, they still matter.