Adult ADHD: Why You Know What to Do But Can’t Do It

On this episode, we explore ADHD in adults — how to spot it, how to treat it, and how to function with it. We talk with a leading psychologist about what’s behind ADHD’s often frustrating symptoms, hear about what it’s like receiving a diagnosis late in life, and find out why people with ADHD are often very sensitive. People with ADHD often struggle with task initiation — especially when it comes to tasks that they find boring, complicated, or aversive. Pulse reporter Liz Tung offers a day-in-the-life glimpse at what it’s like trying to start one of these tasks … and what she ended up doing instead. We talk with psychologist Russell Ramsay, the co-founder and former co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Adult ADHD Treatment and Research Program, about why ADHD in adults has been neglected for so long, and the many parts of people’s lives it affects — from work, to relationships, to their own self-perception. He also discusses what's behind time blindness, why people with ADHD struggle with long deadlines but excel at short ones, and what's going on in the brain that causes these behaviors. For a lot of adults with ADHD, finally receiving a diagnosis can be a relief — something that explains and reframes a lifetime of struggle. But it can also be destabilizing, especially when the diagnosis comes later in life. Pulse reporter Alan Yu tells the story of how one older woman’s diagnosis transformed her life, her understanding of herself, and her relationship with her daughter. For years, psychiatrist Sasha Hamdani thought she was just sensitive — she would cry at the drop of a hat and spiral when she’d made a mistake. It wasn’t until years later that she encountered a name for what she was experiencing: Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD — a powerful emotional reaction, common in people with ADHD, to perceived criticism or rejection. Hamdani discusses how RSD shaped her professional life, the proposed brain mechanism behind it, and techniques for dealing with it. Her book is “Too Sensitive: Rejection, Resilience, and the Science of Feeling Deeply.”