This isn't normal is it?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
But in a young girl with anxiety, explosive behaviors, and trouble completing tasks like a morning sequence, it may be emergent or something to watch for. Hence the comments earlier saying to watch for it/not rule it out permanently. Many girls are not diagnosed til high school, college or adulthood. |
Anonymous
|
I have not read the whole thread because I realize I need to manage my time and I can't get drawn in to this, as interesting as it is.
I just want to say I really relate to your daughter. She sounds a lot like me as a kid (and quite frankly an adult). Like a PP on here, I would hit/hurt myself when stressed, have dealt with perfectionism, people pleasing etc. Mornings before school were very difficult. Looking back there were a lot of red flags between ages 11-18 that my parents just totally ignored. Therapy was never even brought up for me. I had to untangle all this for myself as an adult (and still am). That said - I'm incredibly successful, high functioning, and happy when I'm not anxious. I have a great family and a great life. And that's without any intervention in my childhood. I think it's great that she's in therapy, and you're thinking about these other things. Though I agree with other posters it doesn't sound like this particular therapy is helpful. Try something else. And what's the harm in neuropsych? But most of all just love, love, love, and figure out how to be patient when she's exploding. As to medication, I'm not familiar with medicating at this age so can't speak to that. As an adult a very small dose helped VERY much. Good luck - feeling for you and your daughter. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP who just posted about relating to the daughter. Also all this. I don't think I was ever on anyone's radar because I loved school when I was young, got good grades etc. It was very easy for me. It started to crumble a bit in middle school. I still managed to do okay in high school, college, and beyond, but it was mostly because I think I was smart, charming, and could fake my way through a lot of stuff - not because I was organized, disciplined, or had any focus to speak of. I very much struggle with attention and completing tasks and keeping things on time and only now decades later am I looking back wondering if there was more going on. |
Anonymous
If you are gone for a week on work travel how does she do with routines w your spouse or a sitter or a grandparent? |
Anonymous
Another +1 from a high achieving girl who had subtle signs but wasn't diagnosed until late twenties! I'm not in the medical field and not qualified to guess anything about OP's daughter's potential diagnosis, I think it could be straight anxiety rather than that plus ADHD, but really want to scream this PSA from rooftops -- ADHD diagnosis in well-behaved, intelligent girls is so easily missed. And anxiety is highly comorbid. Please don't let the traditional understanding of ADHD deter you from getting help earlier for your daughters. For me at that age, I loved school so much (and it was easy for me), you couldn't have seen anything from academic performance, which was stellar and consistent through high school, and then excellent though with some inconsistencies through college and grad school. But for example, mental exhaustion and annoyance around transitions, tons of daydreaming, and was generally slower than other kids at mundane tasks like packing up my school bag to go home or switch classrooms (latter more so in middle school). |
Anonymous
This is me to a T. Always did great academically, successful at work, but my purse and car are always a mess, I struggle to organize around my house while it is really easy for DH, and I have terrible anxiety. Low dose of ADHD meds was life changing. |
Anonymous
| Sure sounds like my ADHD 8yo boy. Get an eval. |
Anonymous
*sigh*. sure, there could be a diagnosis. but emotional reactivity is not an ADHD diagnostic criteria. |
Anonymous
ADHD is over diagnosed exhibit 1001. |
Anonymous
I was a smart, quiet girl with ADHD. My grades were generally fine, but I would daydream and miss the teacher telling us about homework and tests, forget to put completed homework in my backpack, not do the back page of tests or worksheets, etc. My desk and backpack were never organized. If people had been looking for ADD in quiet girls at that time, I would have been diagnosed as a child. |
Anonymous
DP here with a boy who fits the same description. I'm not arguing or suggesting anything about OP's daughter. At all. But, I will join the voices of people who understand this profile. What PP says about bright kids with inattentive ADHD is absolutely true. Many bright kids with inattentive type ADHD get by for a long time without being diagnosed, sometimes into adulthood. It doesn't mean they had no symptoms, it means the symptoms weren't causing adults around them enough problems to seek a diagnosis, and were chalked up to something else, coping in other ways (usually exhausting ways). They were "fine." These kids are described with words like quiet, shy, a little anxious maybe, spacey, slow moving, maybe even average or a little careless or uninterested at worst. Not a problem. A joy to have in class. Then they get to middle school or high school and start to fall apart in ways people start to notice. Then they get a neuropsych: they test low in working memory, attention, processing speed, and EF skills are non-existent. But often high intelligence in the other categories. Then parents kick themselves because hindsight is 20/20. You think people want to see ADHD everywhere, but the truth is most of us bend over backwards not to see it. Once you've been through it and come out the other side, yes, you see it. And when asked to comment, like here, you share what you know. |
Anonymous
|
My daughter is very similar to yours and I was very similar to her as a child. I have massive anxiety and so doesn’t DD. I went to her pediatrician about it and asked about meds and therapy. They recommended getting her bloodwork tested first and she’s low in both iron and vitamin D and we are supplementing both of those at a decently high amount. It’s been about 6 weeks (we’ve gone through an entire bottle of each) and I am cautiously optimistic. Just this week, I can finally tell the difference. Not so moody and irritable. She’s still a bit anxious about things like running late, despite me being an incredibly punctual person, but she actually tells me about it vs going straight to meltdown mode. Also, she did incredibly on her beginning of the year school tests and the math ones usually stress her out so much she does poorly.
Might be worth looking into? |
Anonymous
This is such an important topic to me, I've managed to remember to check on the thread, found the thread and feel compelled to respond to this comment. (Massive apologies to the Original OP for this apparent hijacking of her thread) Back to the ignoramus above. You concluded what you wanted from my post. Look - I have ADHD, that I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you. I wish I didn't have it -- it makes being a working mom in a demanding job with two active little kids very difficult. I think some people are very snide and dismissive about ADHD diagnoses because they think it's some combination of attention seeking or accomodations seeking. If you haven't lived it, you have no idea what the impact on people is; people just want answers and a path forward -- that's what a diagnosis helps with. Outside of my spouse and one close friend, no one knows I have ADHD. Given my own memories of my childhood, I absolutely would not have medicated as a child, and maybe 50-50 in college - the benefits would not have outweighed the costs/risks. I would not have required time and half or whatever academic accommodations either through my entire academic career. But what I could have benefited from is intensive training and guidance in age and situationally appropriate executive function starting from mid-elementary school, and that really would have been beneficial in high school and beyond. Instead I've been "white-knuckling" life, and ensuring I do well by developing unhealthy levels of anxiety (anxiety is useful but there are healthy levels and unhealthy). Now I take meds for both ADHD and anxiety. In terms of what you outwardly see of what our society values as achievement, I've always been doing great -- I graduated valedictorian of my HS class, went to an Ivy league school, graduated summa cum laude with STEM double major, and completed a STEM PhD. Now, I am a mid-level manager of a large team of quantitative staff. ADHD is not a lack of focus or ability -- I'm highly capable and I loved school and learning (almost all subjects), and I like most aspects of my job, so I've always been able to focus and excel there. It's more so that lower than normal dopamine levels that make it hard to do things that we aren't excited about (planning the day-to-day, paying bills, doing returns, cleaning up after myself, teaching and guiding my kids to clean up after themselves, other mundane tasks, work we don't care about, etc etc). And if we do start doing something that we like, it's easy to lose track of time and what you should be doing instead. Even though this will sound like an oxymoron, both transitions between different tasks AND sticking with tasks through completion still remain really hard for me as an adult! All of this leads to a really really messy house, missed bill payments, missed sign-ups for kids, a complete lack of organization in my home and work materials, complete waste of any limited unstructured time I have for myself, worry that I'm ruining my kids or at least setting bad examples for them with the amount of chaos in our physical space and lack of planning, etc. Which unfortunately then leads to high levels of anxiety, shame, and honestly, self-loathing at times. And this is with me knowing about my ADHD diagnosis. If I was not referred out by the school psychologist (who had a strong feeling that it was ADHD but wasn't allowed to diagnose or treat ADHD due on college rules) to a specializing private practice psychiatrist, who then carefully assessed and confirmed that I had ADHD at age 27, I don't know what would have happened to my mental health after that as life was progressively getting more and more complex. I am so grateful for this diagnosis - it helps me understand how my brain is different, and it is the starting point to getting what I need to function better and more confidently in the world we live in. |
Anonymous
| Sounds a little like DD who always had a tough time getting out the door and is prone to strong emotions. She has ADHD and anxiety. We didn’t recognize the ADHD until middle school and I wish we had known sooner. I would have parented differently. I just thought she was being stubborn and dramatic. I’m a pretty patient person and my response was to ignore but the fact is that it didn’t get me very far. Once I knew I was able to remind myself she wasn’t trying to be difficult. Medication made a huge impact. A neuropsych can’t hurt but can help so I would do it. We went through Children’s. It is a long wait for testing so going private pay might help speed things along. When she was older we did a quicker evaluation that was just ADHD specific for college accommodations so I think that’s a possibility if price is a factor. |
Anonymous
|
OP here - thank you all for your thoughtful responses. I am going to look into getting a neuropsych evaluation for DD.
We are moving to in person therapy which I hope also helps. Interestingly for those of you who think she has ADHD and not just anxiety - she doesn't exhibit any signs of being disorganized in any aspect of her life. Quite the opposite. Her room is meticulously clean, she has a daily planner for all of her school work, she comes home and immediately does her work, etc. In fact her sister is the opposite and her room looks like a hoarder of toys lives there. Perhaps DD does have ADHD but does not show any classical signs. I am not sure what to think now. |