ADHD is often comorbid with other disorders, ones present from birth and ones developed later in life. Anxiety and depression are the most prevalent. Studies show that 50%+ of ADHDers have comorbid depression.
There are two roughly ‘types’ of depression seen in ADHDers: primary and secondary. Primary depression is essentially clinical depression presenting alongside ADHD and can be caused by any number of factors, same as in non-ADHDers.
Secondary depression, meanwhile, is an effect of ADHD, with various possible causes ranging from our emotional dysregulation to repeated failure, to chronic under-stimulation.
You may find that your mood darkens when you have nothing to do, and keeps getting worse the longer you go unstimulated. This is quite common in ADHDers — to be happy, our brains need to be kept stimulated.
Depression can further add to our struggles as, like ADHD, it can cause executive dysfunction. In addition to making it harder to cope with the ADHD symptoms, depression can also mask/ muffle them. I found that my ADHD symptoms got “worse” as my depression got better, which seems to be common, especially my emotion and impulsivity symptoms.
We already know what tends to work for primary depression: treatment such as counselling/therapy and medication.
Counselling can also be quite useful for secondary depression as it can help you learn to manage emotions and frustrations, learn to recognize and deal with under-stimulation.
Counselling really helped me deal with my depression. I also started my ADHD related blogs/ YouTube channel for that very purpose, and I honestly haven’t felt the worst of boredom since then.
I´m so happy to find this blog! This helps me a lot,to understand what´s going on