Realizing It Wasn’t Just My Son
If I’m being honest, the first time I started to wonder about myself was when I filled out the ADHD questionnaires the pediatrician gave us for my son. Some of the questions felt uncomfortably familiar — things I had struggled with as a kid in school, things I still found myself wrestling with as an adult. It didn’t look the same in me as it did in him, of course. ADHD often presents differently in women and girls. But that little spark of recognition was enough to plant the thought: “Wait… could I have this too?”
I know I’ve already touched on the differences between boys and girls, but when I look back at my own childhood, it’s so clear now. I was a talker — man, I could not stop talking. My parents even called me a “Chatty Cathy.” My report cards always said “disruptive” or “talks too much in class.” I always wanted to be the first to answer, to give my input, to be seen and heard. If I had a thought or an idea, it had to come out right then, whether it was the right time or not. To some, that probably just looked like a typical talkative kid. And sure, to an extent it was. But the difference between “typical” behavior and ADHD behavior often comes down to impact — how much it interferes with daily life. For me, it interfered a lot.
As I got older, my symptoms didn’t go away — they just changed shape. In high school, schoolwork started to feel overwhelming. I had gone to a Christian school for elementary and middle school and managed fine, but once I hit high school, the cracks started to show. I was the classic last-minute student. Projects? Started the night before. Tests? Studied the night before. And honestly, I convinced myself I “thrived” that way — but looking back, I realize I was just feeding my stress and burnout.
The irony is that even though I procrastinated constantly, I still pulled off good grades most of the time. That was almost worse, because it reinforced the cycle — “Why change if it still works?”
But deep down, I was exhausted.
Tests were especially hard, not just because of the material but because I couldn’t sit still long enough to focus. Even today as an adult, I can’t sit still. I’m constantly shifting, tapping, bouncing a leg, fidgeting with my fingers, repositioning myself. In school, that restlessness looked like endless trips to sharpen my pencil, grab a tissue, or just “walk around” for no reason other than I couldn’t stay in my seat.
And then there’s perfectionism. A lot of people don’t realize that perfectionism and ADHD often go hand in hand. It sounds counterintuitive — how can someone who struggles with focus also obsess over perfection? But for many of us, perfectionism is a coping mechanism. When your brain feels scattered, perfectionism feels like control. For me, it often meant harsh self-criticism, setting unrealistic standards, and over-planning to the point of procrastination. And of course, when I inevitably couldn’t meet those impossible standards, the cycle of guilt and shame just deepened.
Looking back now, I can see how so much of what I thought was just “me being me” — the talking, the procrastination, the fidgeting, the perfectionism — was really ADHD. I just didn’t know it yet.
ADHD or Anxiety? Or Both?
For most of my life, I thought what I was experiencing was just anxiety. I’ve struggled with it as far back as I can remember — racing thoughts, restlessness, feeling overwhelmed, snapping over small things. And after I became a mom, especially postpartum, my anxiety skyrocketed.
I should add, though, that I’ve also carried a lot of childhood trauma. I come from a product of addiction. My mom used while pregnant with me and both of my sisters (you’d think after the first child she would have stopped). Thankfully, I don’t have any physical health issues from that, but I honestly believe that drug use during those key months of development shaped how my brain and body functioned. Add to that the instability of growing up with a parent who was sometimes there, sometimes gone, in and out of jail, and the trauma of an absent father — it’s no wonder I developed deep-rooted anxiety.
I’ve often thought that my anxiety comes from trauma, but it’s also tangled up with ADHD in ways I didn’t understand until much later.
Because here’s the thing: anxiety and ADHD overlap in so many ways. They can both look like:
- Trouble focusing because your brain won’t quiet down.
- Restlessness or the need to constantly move.
- Irritability or being “on edge” for no clear reason.
- Procrastination, perfectionism, and overthinking everything.
For years, I just assumed I had “bad anxiety.” ADHD didn’t even cross my mind, because in my head ADHD was the loud little boy bouncing off the walls in class. That wasn’t me. But after my son’s diagnosis, I started to learn more — and realized so much of what I’d lived with my whole life could be explained by ADHD too.
What hit me hardest was how much my unaddressed ADHD fed my anxiety. I was constantly behind, forgetting things, running late, feeling disorganized — which only made my anxiety spiral further. Instead of realizing my brain was wired differently, I just thought I was failing.
It took me a long time, and honestly watching my son navigate his own struggles, to finally see that I wasn’t “just anxious.” I had been living with ADHD all along, I just didn’t have the language for it.
How My Anxiety Showed Up
Anxiety, for me, has always worn different masks. One big one is control. My space has to look and feel a certain way. Even if my room was messy, I wanted it messy my way. I needed things organized, lined up, feeling “right.” To this day, I’m still like that — and bless my husband for putting up with it.
Another way anxiety showed up was physically. I’ve had stomach issues and pains for as long as I can remember. I was constantly nervous, constantly in a loop of what if, what if, what if. What if I die tomorrow? What if my parents die tomorrow? (And when I say “parents,” I mean my grandparents, who raised me. They were my real parents — not the mom who gave birth to me, and not the man who donated his sperm.)
As a child, I was called a hypochondriac. And honestly? They weren’t wrong. Health anxiety has followed me my whole life. When my kids were born, it got even worse. I was terrified they would die in their sleep. My insomnia is one of the worst results of my anxiety. I’ve had sleep studies done, and no one has ever found anything “wrong.” One specialist even told me, “I think your insomnia is tied to your fear your kids will stop breathing at night.” And when I really thought about it, he was right. Even now, with kids who are 9 and almost 13, I still wake up throughout the night to check on them.
Anxiety and hypochondria have been a vicious cycle for me. For years, I tried therapy with different providers, and it took forever to find someone I truly felt safe with — someone who didn’t judge me, who made me feel seen, and who actually gave me tools to cope. When I finally found the right therapist, she helped me work through so much trauma and taught me strategies I still use today. I’ll always be an advocate for therapy because it changed my life.
But even with therapy, my anxiety evolved into something deeper: death anxiety. To this day, I struggle with it severely. If someone I know, or even a friend of a friend, passes away, it sends me into a spiral of rumination, imagining the worst. I get stuck there until I can finally calm myself down and remind myself that things are okay. It’s so hard to explain what it feels like — because on the outside it sounds “irrational.” But when you’re in it, it feels like your whole body is bracing for catastrophe.
How ADHD, Anxiety, and OCPD Overlap
One of the most confusing things for me has been untangling what’s ADHD, what’s anxiety, and what’s OCPD (Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder) — because honestly, they can all look really similar on the outside.
For example:
- ADHD made me disorganized, forgetful, and constantly behind on things.
- Anxiety made me overthink, worry, and feel like I had to control my environment.
- OCPD tendencies made me perfectionistic, rigid about routines, and obsessed with doing things the “right” way.
Put all of that together and you’ve got a storm of symptoms that feed off one another.
Here’s a simple breakdown of how they can overlap and where they’re different:
- ADHD
- Trouble focusing or paying attention
- Procrastination and last-minute scrambling
- Restlessness and need for movement
- Forgetfulness and losing things
- Hyperfocus on things I love, while ignoring things I “should” do
- Anxiety
- Racing thoughts and constant “what if” scenarios
- Feeling on edge, irritable, or tense
- Sleep issues (insomnia, frequent waking)
- Physical symptoms like stomach aches, headaches, fast heartbeat
- Health anxiety and hypochondria
- OCPD (not OCD)
- Perfectionism that makes it hard to finish tasks (because it’s never “good enough”)
- Being overly rigid with routines or rules
- Feeling frustrated when things aren’t done “my way”
- Over-planning or over-organizing to cope with internal chaos
- Difficulty delegating because I want full control
On paper, some of these look the same — procrastination, restlessness, perfectionism — but the root cause is different. ADHD makes me forgetful or distracted. Anxiety makes me overthink. OCPD makes me hypercritical of myself and others. And together, they often feed off each other.
For example: my ADHD means I forget to finish a task → my anxiety kicks in and tells me I’m failing → my OCPD side wants to over-correct by planning everything to perfection → and then my ADHD makes it impossible to stick to the plan. It’s a cycle I’ve had to learn to recognize and interrupt.
The Evaluation
After years of living in that cycle of ADHD, anxiety, and perfectionism, I finally hit a point where I thought: “Okay, I need real answers for myself.” My son’s diagnosis was the push I needed. If I could go through the evaluation process for him, why couldn’t I do the same for me?
The thing about getting evaluated as an adult is that it feels… strange. You’re sitting there, trying to explain things you’ve lived with your entire life. Things that, to you, just feel like “normal.” Forgetting where you put your keys, never finishing projects, constantly running late, being unable to sit still, procrastinating until the last minute but then pulling it off under pressure — it all felt like me. I didn’t know how much of it was ADHD, how much was anxiety, and how much was just trauma.
The process itself was actually similar to what my son went through, but more reflective. Instead of teachers and caregivers filling out questionnaires, I was the one answering questions about my own daily life. Did I struggle with staying organized? Did I get easily distracted? Did I procrastinate often? Did I talk excessively? Did I fidget? Did I feel restless most of the time? (Spoiler: yes, yes, and yes.)
I remember feeling both nervous and hopeful. Nervous, because part of me worried the doctor would say, “Nope, this isn’t ADHD — you’re just anxious and disorganized.” Hopeful, because I wanted so badly for there to be an explanation that tied everything together.
When the evaluation was done, the answer was clear: I had ADHD.
Hearing that was a wave of emotions. Relief, because it explained so much of my life. Sadness, because I wondered how things might have been different if I had known earlier. Validation, because I wasn’t lazy, broken, or failing — my brain was just wired differently.
