‘It felt like my head was going to explode’: Parenting with ADHD symptoms

Jewelz Tucker, a Northern California mother of four, had an epiphany as she sat with her husband filling out the form to get one of her sons screened for attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. As she went through the checklist, she wondered aloud to her husband, “Is this me?”

“The world often thinks of ADHD as a young, male disorder,” Tucker said, but here she was: a 42-year-old woman who had been silently suffering from something her entire life she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Millions of adults suffer from ADHD, and although those with a hyperactive-impulsive presentation are often diagnosed as children, those with predominantly inattentive symptoms – such as difficulty focusing, paying attention to details, lack of organization, forgetfulness and trouble finishing tasks – can go undiagnosed, according to Cleveland Clinic. That can be troublesome for women and girls, whose inattentive symptoms might not stand out and who can better mask their symptoms than males.

Before becoming a mom, Tucker says, she was “crazy late for everything” and “chronically disorganized,” so much so she barely graduated from college. “There was so much shame and doubt. I was always wondering, am I intelligent? Am I normal? It really took a toll on my self-esteem.”

Tucker describes the process of getting the neuropsychological evaluation that led to her diagnosis as “the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. It was like having a road map to my brain.” She says getting treatment with the appropriate medication and working with her therapist on ADHD life skills have been “life-changing.”

Even with treatment, coping with her ADHD symptoms is a struggle. As a mom, she’s “hyper-rigid” with routines and often anxious about being late, buffering in time for any given scenario that might occur. “I know I can’t be 45 minutes late for school or a pediatrician appointment,” she explains. “It’s really hard. I’m not the fun-loving mom I want to be, but it’s the only way I can get things done.”

Other parents with ADHD talk about things such as persistent stacks of papers around the house, to-do lists created but never used, uncontrollable emotions and feelings of inadequacy, guilt and frustration because they can’t seem to “get it together.”

“The main thing we see with women being treated with ADHD is a sense of overwhelm,” says Sari Solden, a psychotherapist and author of “Women With Attention Deficit Disorder.” “Women with ADHD often wonder how other women do it. Not being superwoman but being able to do things like stay organized, clean the house, or just moving from thought to action.”

Amber Gwinn, a 37-yearold mother of three from Colorado, knew she suffered from anxiety, but after having her now-2-year-old daughter and deciding to become a stay-at-home mom, she had days she felt so overwhelmed she could barely function. “I couldn’t figure out where to start with things. I’d have all these tabs open in my brain, it felt like my head was going to explode. Everything was so important and I had to do it all – and well. And if I didn’t, then I was failing.” After almost two decades of being misdiagnosed with a variety of depressive disorders, she was finally diagnosed last year with ADHD.

Gwinn described how her undiagnosed ADHD hit her the hardest with cycles of irritability, anger and yelling. “I used to have intense emotions, moments where I couldn’t take one more thing. The shame is just awful,” she says, “yelling at your kids. It just makes me sick to even think about it.”

Now with medication and counseling, she says, she’s been able to take back a sense of control. “I can stop, take a moment and clearly think before I react. I have so much more insight and patience now,” she says, “all because my brain is firing more like it’s supposed to.”

Terry Matlen, a psychotherapist, ADHD coach and founder of ADD-consults. com, a resource for women living with ADHD, says that parenting with ADHD can present a major challenge for women, who are often the primary parents and household managers. “What I hear from a lot of moms with ADHD is that it’s easier to go to work than to be at home with their kids. That’s because you lose the structure of your day when you’re at home.”

To complicate things further, Matlen said, ADHD tends to run in families, meaning parents with ADHD are more likely to have children with ADHD.