Happy Monday and welcome to your mental health mini. This week's guest is Kristen Carter, and we're talking all things AD. HDI think that for most people, we have a stereotypical stigma in our head of what ADHD looks like, which is like a little white boy in the classroom kind of bouncing off the walls, maybe being a little, you know, loud with the teacher and interrupting his classmates. But really, ADHD is so much more than that.
And so if someone in their teens is struggling with disorganization, chronic stress, chronic overwhelm, inability to manage things and be able to kind of like juggle all of the balls, so to speak, those are really good things to look out for because so much of what children have to go through, their parents help them. It's very age appropriate. It's very developmentally appropriate for a parent to help a kiddo remember their homework, you know, make sure the forms
are filled out, all of that. But as the support system is lessened because the person is aging out of it developmentally, that's when usually things start to fall apart. So a diagnosis is so helpful because it gives you information. It just allows you to see through a much clearer lens what's going on and the root cause of all of the obnoxious symptoms that are coming up. Because that's the thing with ADHD, is that the symptoms are
really just kind of annoying. And another thing about it that is tricky is that every single human struggles with organization from time to time. Every single human struggles with emotional dysregulation from time to time. So the things that are actual diagnostic criteria for ADHD are things that the majority of the human race struggle with from
time to time. But the difference is for an ADHD are those symptoms are debilitating, Those symptoms are keeping them from reaching their potential. So if you can, I always, always, always encourage people to get a diagnosis. Even if you don't plan to medicate, it's still helpful to have the information because information is power and it can show you where to give support. As a very high functioning now adult with ADHD, I have so much support in place. Doctor Russell Barkley calls it
scaffolding. We have to have that scaffolding of support so that we can really forward without having to worry about all of the organization, all of the problem solving, all of the time management, all of those things that for the typical brain it just comes naturally and for our brains it doesn't. I think that we have so much shame around our struggle that we think we should major air quotes here. We should be able to do it without help. My friends don't need the help,
so why should I have to use it? And it's just really a shameful diagnosis in so many ways. And so cutting through that shame and taking advantage of whatever support it is doesn't give you a leg up. It just levels the playing field so that the starting line is where you're starting and not way, way back. What I like to say to people is no matter what you experience emotionally when you are diagnosed, it's valid and your experience is valid. So if you're relieved and happy, perfect.
If you're angry and feeling tons of regret, perfect. It's supposed to feel this way and then the journey of accepting it can really take a while. You know, there's some flaws in our system when it comes to a diagnosis because a lot of times the clinicians diagnosing, they don't even have a robust understanding of the diagnosis. It often goes misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, especially in women and girls. And So what I would say is make sure to be your own advocate and do all kinds of research.
The statistics right now for the percentage of the population that's diagnosed with ADHDI think is around 3 to 4% of children. I believe that that is most likely an under diagnosis. I think there's a lot more people with ADHD than have been diagnosed. And I think that goes back to all of the symptoms of ADHD are pesky symptoms or things that people struggle with, you know,
every now and again. But now that we have so much access to information, there are so many people saying, wait a second, I don't think it's anxiety that I have or I don't think it's depression that I have or I don't think it's bipolar that I have. I think it's actually ADHD. And so I think it's a result of self advocacy. We're seeing an upswing in diagnosis because of access to information that we haven't always had.
And one of the good things coming out of it is there's a lot of coaches being trained to support people with ADHD. And coaching changed my life. And it's changed, you know, thousands of people that I've worked with. I know that coaching can be an amazing medium for those who have access to the funds for it. It is so powerful to have someone else kind of take your hand and lead you through a journey. It's very, very validating.