Tag: anxiety

Gus Walz was appointed an unintentional ambassador for neurodivergent youth during the third night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 21. Millions of Americans watched the 17-year-old leap to his feet with tears streaming down his face as he cheered on his father, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, as he accepted his party’s vice presidential nomination.

Gus Walz’s expression of pure love and joy should have been seen for what it was: an unfiltered and positive emotional response to a big moment. Sadly, the moment served as yet another opportunity to divide Americans. While most people saw Gus’s reaction as an historic moment for neurodiversity, a vocal minority sneered, criticized, and hurled insults at an innocent young person.

What Does Neurodivergence Mean?

Neurodivergence is a word used to describe naturally occurring differences in how the human brain develops that result in variations in “wiring” and how we process information. These differences may affect around 20% of the population and occur in people with ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and nonverbal learning disorder (NVLD). These and other conditions can lead to challenges with functioning in key life areas. In young people like Gus, these differences may result in variations in how they process nonverbal information, recognize patterns, develop social skills and awareness, process sensory information, and engage in executive function tasks.

[Take This Test: Nonverbal Learning Disorder (NLD) in Children]

It’s not uncommon for the neurodivergent community, particularly children and young adults, to battle stigma, insults, and misconceptions about their conditions. Gus’s reaction to his father’s speech was another example of how kids who learn and think differently are vulnerable to cruelty — even in their most benign or joy-filled moments. Only this moment was televised. Frankly, I’m glad it was.

Neurodivergence is a relatively new term, but it’s becoming more commonplace in American society. This is likely due to increases in diagnoses and perhaps increases in social media use to amplify individuals’ experiences. For example, a 2022 report from the CDC revealed that about 1 million more children received an ADHD diagnosis in 2022 than did in 2016. Even so, neurodivergence isn’t discussed nearly enough, making it easier for people to make false assumptions that impact children and their families every day.

Parents of neurodivergent children often face challenges in accessing accurate and reputable resources to help them in their day-to-day lives, resulting in feelings of isolation and loneliness. In the absence of awareness and widespread education, navigating learning and thinking differences can be a nightmare for the child — and a massive source of stress for their parents. Understood.org’s Neurodiversity and Stigma survey from 2022 found that nearly 70% of parents felt stigmas surrounding their child’s differences affected their mental health negatively. Another 2024 survey revealed that 96% of parents with neurodivergent children reported feeling stressed during the back-to-school season.

How to Help Neurodivergent Children Navigate Stigmas

As a licensed psychologist with more than 20 years of experience working with neurodivergent people, I’ve participated in dozens of programs designed to help educate the public and reduce stigmas for people with differences. Here are a few takeaways I share with parents:

• Educate yourself on current evidence-based information about your child’s learning and thinking differences.
• Talk to your child about their differences and how it affects them.
• Provide an informational bridge between home and school to help educate and inform teachers about thinking and learning differences and to help your child access accommodations.
• Advocate for inclusion and use of Universal Design for Learning strategies to support neurodivergent and neurotypical students in shared learning environments.
• Provide direct strategies for identifying challenges and asking for help. Role-playing or practicing with a script can help kids and adults ask for what they need to thrive.

[Free Download: Signs of Dyslexia at Every Age]

When I watched Gus Walz’s reactions to his father’s nomination, I was brought to tears by this pure and amazing display. Politics aside, this moment provides us with a remarkable opportunity to amplify and support neurodivergent individuals by having an open dialogue in our country about what it means to learn and think differently. Let’s not let this moment slip by.

Gus Walz and Nurturing sNeurodivergent Children: Next Steps

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I am wildly creative, surprisingly good with a paintbrush, and skilled with words. I know how to make jewelry, soap, candles, and pretty paper. I know how to put together elaborate floral displays and decorate cakes. I can research like an analyst and draft essays like an academic.

I know how to make proper barista coffee, complete with foamy milk hearts, and I can pour a mean tap beer. I can change brake pads on Volvos, paint houses perfectly, as well as clean them like I have OCD. (I can totally say that because I do have OCD.) I have some fun unpolished vocals recorded on a retro pop album floating around cyberspace along with some long forgotten “crazy cat lady” improv clips with five views total (probably all due to me).

I am good at a lot of things, but, by the world’s standards of success, I am a failure. And a big one at that.

No five-year plan here. (Time blindness will do that to you.) I have no idea what I am doing in the next five minutes, let alone in the next five years. And I certainly have not been commended in any field or selected as employee of the month. Let’s just say that if holding the record for shortest time employed were a thing, then my 15-minute stint as a bartender at a bowling alley would win the title.

I have studied acting but I am not an actor. I am a qualified English teacher, but I do not teach. I write poetry, but few read my work. I sometimes author stories or articles, which some people read, for which I’m eternally grateful. People often see how capable and organized I can be and think I must slay at life, but often, life slays me. This is the nature of the brain beast that is ADHD.

Where Is My Mind?

One of the many bosses I have had over my multi-faceted career once said of my job performance, “When you’re on, you’re brilliant, creative, unstoppable. But when you’re off, it’s hard to remember how good you are.”

[Get This Free Download: What to Ask Yourself to Find the Perfect Job]

Harsh, but fair. This was the story of my life — bosses wondering if I was intentionally not doing what they said, why I did things the complete opposite way I had been shown, or if I really was just that confused and forgetful. Most did not have the time or resources to spare on figuring me out, so I would end up fired over and over.

Some bosses asked where my mind went during meetings. Others would scratch their heads, puzzled that I’d be on fire one day, and frazzled, late, and disoriented the next. (It wasn’t uncommon for me to forget my lunch or even the name of the store where I worked.)

Once I even walked into the wrong workplace to clock in. I had previously worked in a jewelry store a few doors down from my new workplace, a skincare store. Easy mistake to make, right?

And don’t get me started on my wonderful, spontaneous, but often inappropriate workplace banter. Time and time again, I would blurt out a thought that would offend others – for its tone, timing, or crudeness. Sometimes, though, people would laugh or even join in with my shenanigans.

[Read: “Did I Overshare by Telling My New Co-Workers That I Habitually Overshare?”]

When I think I am being honest or funny, most people think I am being rude. When I am good at something, I do not know how to pace myself or set boundaries, so I burn out quickly and become incredibly bad at the thing I was good at. When I witness injustice, I am compelled to speak up (thanks, RSD and justice sensitivity), which has seen me in all kinds of deep water in the workplace.

Jack of All Trades, Master of Some

I have had some interesting jobs. I remember riding my motorbike to a fancy mansion dressed as Cleopatra when I worked for a catering company that specialized in themed events. I’ve worked in delis, clothing boutiques, florist shops, fast food joints, call centers, hardware stores, and markets. I’ve worked in education, childcare, and cleaning services. I’ve designed logos, posters, and t-shirts. I’ve directed musicals, weeded gardens, washed cars, and mowed lawns.

I did all this unmedicated, so I want to congratulate myself on making it through. After my ADHD diagnosis at age 38, I went on medication and saw significant changes in my time management, organization, memory retention, and emotional regulation skills. Today, I am finally doing something that I am good at and really enjoy. (Not to brag, but I am kind of my boss’s favorite.) I am kicking ass at the most important job I’ve ever had: being a mama.

My neurodivergent brain makes everything a lot harder, but I have accepted that I’ll just have to work with it and learn on the job. I try to see mistakes as opportunities to improve. I am not perfect at anything because that is the stuff of mythology. But I am brilliant at many things, and I aim for good enough where I can. I have learned not to overthink opinions about my performance on any job, sometimes not even my own. I am a lifelong work in progress – I have my work cut out for me, and if life has taught me anything, it is that I can do hard things.

ADHD and Job Hopping: Next Steps

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“The reality is that, while Maria is clearly a cognitively bright young lady, she wouldn’t necessarily be considered gifted in any particular area.”

“In talking with Maria, it is clear that her family and instructors have historically viewed her as being intellectually quite bright and an underachiever.”

These are not a passive-aggressive bully’s words, a sibling’s backhanded compliment, or careless remarks delivered at a parent-teacher conference. These are the very deliberate words of a neurologist, neuropsychologist, and medical-education specialist following my ADHD evaluation in childhood. The intended audience: my parents, my family physician, and my teachers.

The clinic’s problematic “assessment” and cruel words still haunt me years later. I didn’t read their words until I was in my 40s, and I finally understood why I had a decades-long habit of telling people I have no special talents. The specialists stated in scientific terms that I, a child, was a talentless loser. My parents and my family physician believed them without question. What could my parents have done differently?

[Take This Self-Test: ADHD Symptoms in Women and Girls]

Set in Their Ways

Despite education and experience, we know that experts make mistakes all the time. It’s why we frequently seek second medical opinions. My parents certainly needed one when the politely insulting report described my problems as “common” with ADHD, but the tone of the recommendations was “do better.” A second opinion would have offered my parents another analysis of my behaviors. Most importantly, I could have had a chance at a better life.

But my parents – education experts – were inclined to go along with what the evaluators said, as they shared similar vocational backgrounds. Though my mother still harbored some suspicions that I had ADHD, she and my father ultimately assumed that I was failing my classes on purpose. They made sure to share their theories about my behaviors with my teachers, who were more inclined to default to their opinions rather than their own judgment about my classroom behavior they saw every day.

What I Cannot Forgive

I can forgive science not catching up in time. (After all, it’s been more than 30 years since that evaluation and we’re still working to better understand ADHD in girls.) What I cannot forgive is my parents and the clinic for the cruelty, sexism, and failure to recognize the fact that I didn’t want to do poorly. In any setting, telling someone they do not have any special talents or that they’re an underachiever is an appalling insult.

[Read: “11 Things I’d Tell My Younger Self”]

The rest of the report would eventually prove hilariously inaccurate. “During the evaluation Maria did not demonstrate many of the learning deficits often observed in adolescents with a primary attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” reads part of the report. Thirty-one years later, I received my ADHD diagnosis at age 44.

Ironically, the experts who wrote the report that detailed my carelessness and sloppiness also committed typographical, punctuation, and grammatical errors along with listing my incorrect home address on every page and misspelling my last name. Perhaps they were gifted in other areas? Unfortunately, those doctors didn’t provide their full names in the “scientific” report they authored, so I was never able to track them down to find out. What a relief for them.

Undiagnosed ADD: Next Steps

Maria Reppas lives with her family on the East Coast. Visit her on X and at mariareppas.com.

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Long before I knew my first fact about ADHD, and well before my own ADHD diagnosis, I knew that to be around people was often work. I had to be “on.”

When I’m “on” it feels like my mental faculties are on steroids. It’s like all the electrical fibers of my being are jacked up to the max, all in the name of social camouflage. I am ON.

Call it masking or impression management. Regardless, it’s a cover for us normally fidgety, possibly shy, and distracted interrupters who inhabit ADHD land.

Masking with ADHD Is Draining

“Masking” doesn’t feel how it sounds. “Herculean Hide” or “Backbreak Fake” sound more accurate. If you’ve ever masked, you know why: you’d give anything to be wearing a real mask in these situations.

Imagine having a roomy mask covering the entire front half of your skull, doing the work of being Fake You while Real You got to relax underneath. How luxurious would that be? You could stand there and not do or say a thing. You could relax and take a social nap behind Wonder Woman or Superman.

[Read: 7 Masks We Use to Hide Our Faults]

I wish it were as simple as wearing a literal mask – maybe one with talking powers.

Instead, masking is arduous, confusing, complicated, and draining. It’s multi-tasking to the nines while on stage without a lifeline, no parachute. That’s a far cry from chillaxing behind a cozy Wonder Woman mask. It’s having to be Wonder Woman, blindfolded.

A life with ADHD can give us the sense we’re less than. A mask temporarily fixes that. A mask takes the focus off us. It’s like hiding in tall grass while our hunters say to each other, “Nothing to see here. Let’s move on.”

It’s true that masking gets easier over time. We can become so expert at the practice that it’ll take a while – sometimes decades in the case of a late-stage ADHD diagnosis – until we learn about this ability that we’ve honed since childhood. It dawns on us that the arduousness and exhaustion we experienced all along in social interactions was not a given in the big universe of human experience.

But the maddening thing about masking is that, as we develop the skill, we also worry about how well we’re masking — a worry that sometimes ramps up into depression or anxiety.

So we put all this energy toward suppression, and for what? To only mask more and more until it drains the essence of us.

[Read: “We Are Who We Are. There’s No Shame in That.”]

Masking with ADHD: What Happened When I Let Go

As I began to educate myself on ADHD, I started to experiment with new ways of thinking and doing. One day, not long ago, I asked myself, “What if I let go of some of this masking? Would life be calmer? Would I survive without it?”

It turns out, yes.

I started small, in social situations where I had little to lose, or where I could practice taking off the mask without much notice. As soon as I decided I didn’t have to pretend I was Unreasonably Amazing Stephanie, the world got serene. It slowed down — my interior power grid stopped buzzing so loudly — and not one person seemed to care or notice. I learned that others do not have their attention glued to me as I had feared or assumed.

Since I’ve built the skills to better manage my ADHD, ditching the mask means I can manage my glitches as usual but without excessive social worry. I can’t tell you how freeing (and energy efficient) this is.

Making with ADHD: Next Steps

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I can still vividly recall my daughter’s meltdown during a trip to the Georgia Aquarium. As I sensed she was on the verge of losing it, it felt like someone scooped out every organ in my body. Still, I was fresh out of parent coaching training, and here — right in front of the otters’ exhibit smack in the middle of a giant aquarium — was an opportunity to show off the skills I learned. But, boy, did my daughter put on a show. She screamed and screamed, her tiny body thrashing against the aquarium floor, until her face turned red and her hair clung to her sweaty forehead.

Parent training didn’t prepare me for this. My husband and I stood there, quietly whispering to each other for an excruciating 20 minutes until our daughter finally calmed down. In that time, I was desperate for the screaming, the stares, and others’ well-intentioned, albeit unhelpful, suggestions (to give her a snack or a drink) to stop. This was not the highlight of my mothering career.

Eventually, all those things did (thankfully) come to a halt. My baby stood up quietly after her meltdown, looking disoriented. Then, she stumbled in my direction and finally held my hand instead of running ahead of us like we asked her to, which is what led to the whole fiasco in the first place.

Emotional Dysregulation: A Core But Overlooked Part of ADHD

Emotional dysregulation is not new — to my daughter or to any other person with ADHD. But it was an aspect of ADHD that took me a long time to fully appreciate.

The problem is that the diagnostic criteria for ADHD intentionally exclude emotion dysregulation, despite it being historically conceptualized as a crucial characteristic of the condition. Emotional dysregulation was written about as an issue related to ADHD symptoms as early as the 1700s up until 1968, when the diagnosis of hyperkinetic reaction of childhood was first introduced in the DSM-II. Around this time, emotion dysregulation started to become a forgotten part of the equation for ADHD, and public discussion of ADHD-fueled tantrums and angry outbursts all but halted.

[Get This Free Download: 9 Truths About ADHD and Intense Emotions]

This is why, despite my psychology graduate coursework and training in ADHD, my daughter’s behavior was still confounding. On the one hand, I knew that she struggled with ADHD from an early age because her symptoms were consistent with current diagnostic criteria. On the other, her obvious emotional challenges compared to other girls and children her age, were not reflected in the DSM.

Could My Daughter’s Intense Emotions Be a Sign of DMDD?

Adding to my confusion was the fact that emotion dysregulation isn’t exclusive to ADHD. For example, children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) display irritable mood and emotional outbursts that could be verbal or physical and that occur at least three times per week. It is a condition that goes beyond temper tantrums.

DMDD was added to the DSM-5 because mental health professionals were over-diagnosing bipolar disorder, a condition that causes extreme changes in mood in children. DMDD was meant to account for children who didn’t quite meet criteria for bipolar disorder, and who presented with more general irritability.

Without much mention of emotion dysregulation’s connection to ADHD in my training and in what doctors told me, my daughter’s intense emotional responses made me wonder — could this be a case of DMDD, too?

[Self Test: Does My Child Have Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder?]

The Truth About ADHD and Intense Emotions

William French, M.D., explains that the key to differentiating between DMDD and emotion dysregulation as a part of ADHD is the child’s mood between temper outbursts. Children with ADHD (and adults, too, for that matter) experience emotions intensely, but these emotions are not all negative.

Individuals with ADHD can also be incredibly excited or calm between emotional outbursts. Russell Barkley, Ph.D., says the reason the negative emotions get so much attention is because they lead to obvious social and functional challenges. While someone with ADHD experiences various emotions between periods of intense negative emotional outbursts, a person with DMDD has more persistent irritable mood between episodes.

Without a shred of doubt, I understand today – though it took lots of time and headaches to get here – that my daughter’s intense emotions are part of her ADHD.

But in my own practice, where I see neurodivergent youth, I increasingly see patients come in with an ill-fitting DMDD diagnosis. As I’ve become more and more self-educated about ADHD and emotion dysregulation, I’m convinced that many clinicians, misled by current diagnostic criteria, may be readily misattributing this central feature of ADHD to DMDD.

This is a problem, for one, because inaccurate diagnoses delay access to life-changing treatment and can cause further health complications. In addition. whether we’d like to admit it or not, certain labels carry heavier stigma than do others. Before they see me, many children with the DMDD diagnosis are turned away from other private practices, deemed too “severe” to treat. Children can also be inappropriately judged by schools when they are given labels reflecting severely dysregulated mood.

It’s important to remember that the DSM, in general, aims to simplify. But, far from simple, human beings are nuanced, and so is the way ADHD presents.

If diagnosticians took a step back and actually looked at the ADHD brain and listened to the lived experiences of individuals, maybe then they could start to understand those who are so unnecessarily misjudged, like my daughter could have been.

ADHD and Intense Emotions: Next Steps

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