ADULT ADHD
WARNING: What you read on this page may be different from what you read elsewhere, may surprise you or even shock you.
I will never forget the first time someone suggested I had ADHD.
“I’ve always been an A-student I said, and I didn’t even speak much as a child. How can that be possible?”
What is ADHD?
Are you struggling with lack of focus, getting easily distracted, making impulsive decisions you later regret, get bored easily, and seem to lack a sense of time management and are constantly running late for appointments?
You may also be struggling with organization, time management over-reactivity, being “too sensitive”, or have anger issues.
In today’s world, most of us have one or more of the issues, however, when they continually impact your life, they are often classified as adult ADHD. You may already have a diagnosis or you may be thinking that you are one of 1 in 10 adults who have diagnosable Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.
What is ADHD not?
ADHD is not a lack of intelligence. In fact, many people with ADHD are extremely intelligent. Many excel in certain areas such as mathematics, visual arts or performing arts, and some are good at pretty much everything. Despite this fact, they often struggle with emotional intelligence, controlling their impulses or being successful in relationships.
A brilliant Canadian physician, psychologist and author of several books on addiction, trauma and ADHD, Dr. Gabor Matte suggested in his book “Scattered” that Attention Deficit Disorder really stems from the “attention deficit” we have experienced as children. The consistent, nurturing attention that every child needs in order to survive and thrive, and grow into a healthy adult is often lacking or inconsistent in adults with ADHD. It does not necessarily mean that you have had ill-intentioned parents. In fact, most parents hold the best of intentions for their children, however, sometimes the parent’s own trauma or simply life factors such as war, survival needs or poverty can affect parenting styles.
In other words, if this is true, all that ADHD really is childhood trauma.
In fact, looking at the symptoms of ADHD, many are similar to what people suffering from PTSD experience: the inability to regulate emotions, anger, overreacting to criticism or judgement, difficulty connecting, absent-mindedness, and poor organizational skills are all symptoms that are common to both PTSD and ADHD.
I truly believe that ADHD is a blessing in disguise: it is the disguise which comes in the form of self-blame, anxiety, depression and guilt that we need to deal with. Once this is dealt with, the true individual can emerge. What a person struggling with ADHD really is, in my opinion, a “diamond in the rough”: a diamond that needs to be polished, healed and nurtured to let the genius shine through.
Rapid Transformation Therapy can help heal the wounds of childhood and relieve many of the symptoms of ADHD.
The change can be truly transformational. Once the underlying trauma is healed, the emotional over-reactivity reduces, your focus and attention improve, and as a result, your organizational and time management skills will also improve.
What about medication?
Medication can help you focus but doesn’t resolve the underlying trauma, and hence cannot help with all presenting issues.
In addition, many of us develop coping mechanisms as well as additional symptoms, e.g. anxiety, that medication cannot help with and sometimes can even make worse.
So medication may help to an extent or may even be a short-term solution, but to be truly empowered and create the life we deserve, we need to look into ourselves and heal the underlying trauma.
Watch my FREE masterclass on Adult ADHD on YouTube
Why is ADHD often accompanied by anxiety and depression?
People with ADHD are often exceptionally creative. Sometimes, however, our creativity gets stifled. Whether that is intentional or not, when the creative mind cannot find expression in something creative, it often goes into a depression. Depression really means not following your heart’s desire.
When working with ADHD, it often comes down to finding a sense of purpose.
That is why often successful people with ADHD, such as successful entrepreneurs, scientists and artists are very happy, despite the fact they may experience some challenges of ADHD such as organizational skills or time management. They may experience them, but they simply have structures in place that help them manage those challenges, and because they are following their heart’s desire, it makes no difference to them if they are assigned the ADHD diagnosis or not.
In fact, many of them don’t even know they would have it because they never felt the need to explore “what is wrong with them”. Maybe they feel different, but they feel different in a good way. They celebrate themselves, their differences, and their unique outstanding lives.
So can you.
As a wise man once said: “Why are trying so hard to fit in, when you are born to stand out?”
My approach to alleviating the symptoms of adult ADHD
You may have heard that ADHD is affected by multiple factors, including nutrition, for example. In addition, some “symptoms” are best managed through coaching strategies, for example, one can have structures in place that make organization easier.
Hence my approach to healing ADHD combines all of these techniques to bring emotions, mental state, physiology together and: healing the underlying trauma (emotional healing), coaching to improve “life skills” (mindset), and nutritional and physical wellbeing advice in order to improve the physical state (physiology).
If you feel that you have had enough, and you feel ready to resolve the past and create a better future, contact me for a free consultation today.