What are symptoms and characteristics of adult ADD?

An adult with ADHD has a different complex of symptoms than a child does. Often the most prominent characteristic in adults with ADHD is difficulty with executive functioning. As a person matures, the childhood symptoms of ADHD may evolve:

Hyperactivity may evolve into

• uncontrolled arousal
• feeling overwhelmed
• talking excessively.

Inattentiveness may evolve into

• unwilled tuning-out
• the inability to focus on mundane tasks.

Impulsiveness may evolve into

• irritability
• quick anger
• inadequate censorship of rude or insulting thoughts
• poor timing in interactions.

Gabor Maté (author of Scattered) and Hallowell and Ratey (authors of Driven to Distraction) also include these characteristics of Adult ADD:

• may be perceived as aloof and arrogant or tiresomely talkative and boorish
• compulsive joking, often about personal life history and feelings
• pressured rapid-fire speech, seemingly random and aimless hopping from one topic to the next
• procrastination - difficulty starting tasks
• incompletions - tasks or book reading begun but not finished before new projects or new books are started, leaving a never-ending to-do list
• insecurity and self-esteem issues because of unmet high personal expectations
• often high achiever, even overachiever, but with poor self-image because of beliefs that more could be accomplished if not for disorganization