By Keri Wiginton
If you’re an adult with ADHD, you’re among millions of other grownups who also live with it. Scientists know your genes play a major role in your chances of having it. They also know there’s a strong association between having trauma when you’re a child and then having ADHD in your adulthood. ADHD is a brain development disorder. Trauma, or traumatic stress, is an emotional response to an alarming or painful event. Both can cause ongoing behavior and attention problems. Studies show adults diagnosed with ADHD are more likely than those without ADHD to also have posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. That’s a mood disorder you might develop after a traumatic event. People with PTSD can have ongoing trauma symptoms, or ones that come and go.
Share This Post!
Should Childhood Trauma Be Treated As A Public Health Crisis?
By Erin Blakemore, NPR When public health officials get wind of an outbreak of Hepatitis A or influenza, they spring into action with public awareness campaigns, monitoring and outreach. But should they [...]
The Healing Power of Dance Movement Therapy
By Helaina Hovitz As I worked more furiously towards the deadline of finishing the edits on my memoir about growing up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder while verbally telling my story over [...]
How to Rewire Your Traumatized Brain
By the Concepción de León I hear some people have trouble with therapy, that it can take years for them to open up to their doctors, let alone cry or break down. Not [...]
Developmental Trauma Disorder: The Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect
By Maureen V. Kilrain, MS, PA-C Child neglect and abuse are perhaps the most significant community health challenge in the United States. Mental health experts in trauma continue to investigate and apply a [...]
Why Don’t Child Sex Abuse Victims Tell?
By David M. Allen, M.D. One of the things that child abuse deniers like the False Memory Syndrome Foundation focus on, besides child abuse apologist Elizabeth Loftus's irrelevant arguments about the unreliability of [...]
Post-Traumatic Childhood
By Bessel A. van der Kolk Brookline, Mass. - As a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam War combat veterans and confronted the astonishing lack of resources to help these men and women [...]