Adult ADHD Diagnosis, “Sleep Issues,” and Sex

For those new to ADHD Partner blog and unfamiliar with my other two blogs, I’d like to point you to several helpful posts. After 10 years of moderating the online ADHD Partner group (an international free online group for the partners of adults with ADHD), I know these are “hot topics” and are bound to help you slow your own personal ADHD Roller Coaster. So, fire up your  monitor and find the clues you’ve been seeking:

ADHD and Sleep:

This is a topic I’ve educated about for years, and still many people (including clinicians) are surprised to learn that many ADHD symptoms conspire to impair good sleep–for your partner with ADHD and you.  Click here to read my post on this topic, “To Sleep, Perchance to Turn Off that *&$@# Computer.” Definitely read the many validating, illuminating comments (leave one to help others, if you  like).

Look forward to an e-book I’m writing on the topic, full of helpful sleeptime strategies!

ADHD and Sex:

Who knew? A “little kid’s disorder” that makes them “fidget in the classroom” can create problems with adult sexual intimacy, and indeed any type of intimacy?

I started querying ADHD partner members about this issue 10 years ago, and included pointed questions in the ADHD Partner survey (will reveal those soon!).  Group members and survey respondents reported  the challenges as pervasive (though not universal).  Yet, when I called local sex therapists and even the national association for sex therapists, none had a clue what I was talking about and no doubt a few dismissed me as deranged.  That’s why there’s a chapter devoted to ADHD and sex in my book Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.? Stopping the Roller Coaster when Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder.

To help the public learn about this issue, I wrote an article on my Adult ADHD Relationships blog.  Click here to read the story titled “ADHD and Sex: No Shame, No Blame” (And again, please be sure to read the comments. They’re often the best part!)

Adult ADHD Diagnosis

It seems that most everything about Adult ADHD is confusing, until you get the straight facts, and that includes the Adult ADHD diagnosis itself.  There is a method to the diagnosis. For example, it does not consist of the adult with ADHD asking his family physician, “So, doc, do you think I have ADHD” and the physician responding, “Nah, you have a job and a marriage. Stop reading those advertisements for ADHD medications!”

My book contains an appendix on the evaluation process, for which I interviewed top ADHD expert Thomas E. Brown. It  includes the current official diagnostic criteria as well as the exciting new criteria proposed for Adult ADHD by preeminent ADHD research scientist Russell Barkley and colleagues (the current criteria was never tested for adults, and that’s a problem).

Again, in an effort to make this information freely available to the public, I’ve posted it on my ADHD Roller Coaster blog. Click here to read The  Adult ADHD Diagnosis: How Is It Made?

While you’re at the ADHD Roller Coaster blog and the Adult ADHD Relationships blog, be sure to read through the archives.

I hope you find these answers to “hot topics” will cool down your stress.

Gina Pera