ADHD Masking is not a good behavioral trait as it can impact the person's mental health and may avoid treatment. ADHD Masking can have a significant impact on the lives of people as masking takes a lot of energy and effort, and as a result, people with ADHD often feel exhausted.
Is It Possible to Start Masking Before You Get Diagnosed With ADHD? Yes, says Levrini. Before some people get diagnosed, they recognize that they're different and mask those traits that make them different to fit in. Some people also mask unintentionally before they're diagnosed, she says.
Impact of ADHD Masking
ADHD masking can hide symptoms, which may lead to a delay in diagnosis. People who engage in ADHD masking might be unaware that they have undiagnosed ADHD, which can lead them to develop depression and anxiety.
ADHD masking can prevent a diagnosis that may lead to them receiving effective support. Masking ADHD can be stressful, contributing to stress and anxiety. A 2021 study found that amongst adults with autism, social camouflaging was associated with greater symptoms of generalised anxiety, depression, and social anxiety.
Restlessness and fidgety behavior associated with ADHD can be reduced by taking exercise breaks. Walking and running, and activities like yoga or meditation that incorporate deep breathing and mindfulness can be beneficial and induce relaxation and calm.
Untreated ADHD in adults can lead to mental health disorders like anxiety and depression. This is because ADHD symptoms can lead to focus, concentration, and impulsivity problems. When these problems are not managed effectively, they can lead to feelings of frustration, irritability, and low self-esteem.
High IQ may “mask” the diagnosis of ADHD by compensating for deficits in executive functions in treatment-naïve adults with ADHD.
One type of ADHD masking — known as mirroring — involves intentionally or unintentionally mimicking the speech, movements, or behaviors of someone else. While ADHD mirroring and body doubling may seem similar at first glance, you can work alongside a body double without imitating them in any way.
ADHD stimming is repetitive behavior that helps people with ADHD concentrate and get rid of excess energy. Here's what to know about the different types of stimming and how to manage it in children or yourself. Jul 22, 2022.
Impact of ADHD Masking on Mental Health
ADHD Masking is not a good behavioral trait as it can impact the person's mental health and may avoid treatment. ADHD Masking can have a significant impact on the lives of people as masking takes a lot of energy and effort, and as a result, people with ADHD often feel exhausted.
Lastly, symptoms of ADHD in girls are sometimes masked because they work hard to meet adult expectations. Without meaning to, adults have different expectations of girls than boys. In my clinical experience, adults expect girls to be tidy and organized, achieve good grades and to be easygoing.
Why is there so much overlap? In response to trauma, a child's developing brain can become programmed to “look out” for behaviour, activities or events that they perceive as threatening. This “hyper-vigilance” can often mimic hyperactivity and distractibility associated with ADHD.
✦ There are various ways to recover from ADHD burnout, including outsourcing executive functioning tasks, attending to sensory needs, ensuring appropriate accommodations are in place, practicing good boundaries, engaging in activities that are enlivening, and supporting healthy rhythms.
Several studies find that as children with ADHD grow into adults, their self-esteem tends to drop over time because of mounting criticism and challenging life experiences. In severe cases, Chronis-Tuscano says, low self-esteem can make depression and suicide more likely.
Some people with ADHD use echolalia as a stimming behavior to self-stimulate or self-soothe. Treatment for echolalia involves helping the person to expand on their language skills to communicate in more diverse and direct ways, and is typically administered by a speech therapist.
Their perfectionistic tendencies are a strength, not a weakness. They can be quite compensatory for ADHD and even mask it, making some people quite high-functioning, but it can be at a cost (as they tend to take longer to do things and to work harder than their peers).
Individuals with ADHD often perform at a lower level on intelligence tests than those without ADHD, because these tests require sustained mental effort. In addition, as previously mentioned, the structure of most intelligence tests can limit the success of a child with ADHD.
Lack of consistency. Toxic communication — such as contempt, criticism, and sarcasm. Controlling behavior and distrust. Abusive — this is also inclusive of emotionally abusive behaviors, such as gaslighting, love bombing, breadcrumbing etc.
Physical and mental health problems.
The symptoms of ADHD can contribute to a variety of health problems, including compulsive eating, substance abuse, anxiety, chronic stress and tension, and low self-esteem.
“Nobody has perfect memory… but for [people with ADHD], it's extreme. They feel like they're lost all the time,” Almagor said. He believes this is why people don't take ADHD seriously. “I think that's why some people don't respect the severity of what [a person with ADHD] can experience,” he said.