According to the CDC boys are far more likely to receive a diagnosis of ADHD. Not necessarily because girls are less prone to the disorder, but because in it presents differently in girls. The symptoms are often more subtle, and they don’t fit the stereotype.
“Girls are not as hyperactive,” says Dr. Patricia Quinn, “People imagine little boys bouncing off the walls and think: That’s what ADHD looks like and if this girl doesn’t look like that then she doesn’t have it.”
Girls with combined-type have significantly higher rates of attempted suicide and self harm, even though 40 percent of them have outgrown their hyperactive and impulsive symptoms in adolescence. “The lack of social and academic skills—the cumulative effect of what they missed when they were younger—take a toll,”
The time between declaring my inability to be a normal person and getting diagnosed was turbulent and frustrating. Every failure chipped away atmy self-esteem. I began to think of myself as broken, stupid, the one of these things that was not like the others.
But suddenly, as I recognized myself in the symptoms, the baffling discrepancy between what I should be able to do and what I actually seemed capable of was no longer an unseen, unnamed thing. It was something outside of myself, something I could understand, something I could plan for and manage. CONTINUE READING
