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I'm not diagnosed adhd/add/autism spectrum, but I do have a LOT of the signs. I am diagnosed panic disorder/anxiety/depression. Unexpected sounds are a major trigger for my panic attacks.
A dropped pan, child screaming, or some other unexpected sound can trigger a panic attack in seconds. However, I also love the gun range, loud concerts, loud movies. It's me telling my brain to expect something unusual that makes those things tolerable. I still have moments where I have to drive with no radio, step out of a movie, or head to the restroom at a concert to calm down. It's so weird to me, and my wife sometimes doesn't understand.
I believe Dr. Russell Barkley, a leading ADHD researcher over the last 4-5 decades who is now mostly retired, has a statistic that if you have undiagnosed ADHD and are over the age of 30 then you have an almost 100% chance of developing an anxiety disorder as a comorbidity to your ADHD.
I was diagnosed at a young age with depression and battled that my entire life, prescribed depression meds off and on for 30 years until I decided to explore my ADHD/Autism/synesthesia suspicions and a few other sensory things. When I was diagnosed with ADHD and went on meds for that it completely eliminated my need for depression meds. Turns out the issue wasn’t a chemical imbalance in my brain causing depression but it was my internal negative self messaging that was causing me to be depressed. Who knew that struggling with AdHD and autism my whole life that caused me to try really hard to the point I would burn myself out and fail, a symptom of ADHD, was causing a negative self image of me being a failure. The ADHD meds helped me overcome my executive dysfunction issues and the therapy helped me unwind that negative self image I had, which took care of the depression.
I can honestly say I am now living my best life and I am the most happy/joyous/content I have ever been. It took a lot of work over the last 5 years and YMMV as it is not an easy road to address these issues later in life but the journey is worth it. You owe it to your current and future self to explore ADHD/Autism suspicions.
I realized I could never be happy without first finding out who I am and how my brain works because I couldn’t play this game of life without knowing my strengths, weaknesses or pitfalls to avoid until I learned who I was and how I worked. Once I learned that info I started building my life routines around those symptoms in a healthy and structured way and I feel more real as a person. Not a shell trying to pretend to be normal. Once I was able to unmask and be openly honest with the people and world around me so much of the anxiety, doubt and pain just evaporated. I was using way too many brain processing cycles masking that it was draining the life out of me.
Explore who you are and you may find peace and balance.
Good luck, I’m rooting for you!
Thank you for this. You are the 2nd person I've heard from that have said the same thing about undiagnosed ADHD/ADD. I didn't get panic attacks until post covid, and I'm also over 30. I have seriously considered checking out the ADHD path when I get insurance again. I have come off my anti-anxiety meds in preparation for that path and hope it's the right move.