lifelesstraveled

Some of your symptoms sound very similar to mine with regard to the racing thoughts, constant chatter, inability to get stuff done, leaving work at the end of the day feeling exhausted but realizing that you really haven't accomplished anything. This could be anxiety, it could be ADHD, it could be a little bit of both. When I reflect on my case, I realize that although the symptoms above have appear frequently throughout my life they were (are) not always there. In MY case I believe they are more related to anxiety than ADHD. However, I believe ADHD is either a predisposing condition or amplifying condition that leave me vulnerable to these anxiety episodes. I don't know if the ADHD affects way my brain processes stimuli and this leads to anxiety or if the anxiety developed because of my childhood environment. It may not be possible to separate the two conditions.

One difference that I do see between what you describe and how I see my pathology is your recall of your childhood symptoms. As an adult when I first heard about the ADHD dx, I thought jokenly "I had that as a kid." It really didn't occur to me that it was a life long condition, or that it could still be impacting my life as an adult. It was only after my life stresses started to spiral out of control again, I slipped back into a dysfunctional state and I sought help this time that I realized that ADHD was not something you have and grow out of. Once I seriously considered the ADHD diagnosis, I went back into my childhood memories and the red flags started to appear. Elementary report cards every year with loads of double digit comment codes. American parents....you know what I mean... #19: difficulty with independent work, #20: distracts others,...inability to stay on task...blah, blah,blah. There were no ...Pleasure to have in class comments. Honestly, even as knowledgeable as I am now about ADHD...if my kids came home today with report cards like these I would want to beat the crap out of them too. My parents didn't know...

Life....You might consider working on the anxiety issue first. A lot of the things you can do to understand and manage the anxiety will also be helpful in manageing ADHD symptoms. If you can avoid getting caught up in the mental noise loops, you will have more cognitive resources to use in getting your work done. If you can get a handle on not microanalyzing yourself in social situations, you may find that your more aware of and able to better respond to others. Maybe...as the anxiety issues become manageable, it might become more clear if you have a subtle form of ADHD playing out in the background.