Your Health Today
ADHD Often Looks Different in Women, and It’s Easy to Miss
Experts believe ADHD is underdiagnosed in women, in part because the signs don’t always look like what people expect.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders affecting children, and it impacts how the brain develops. It affects executive functions, the mental skills that control things like focus, self-control and emotional management.
“It’s something that definitely presents differently in women,” Jeffrey James, a psychiatric nurse practitioner with the Cleveland Clinic, told CNN.
James says people can have one or both types of ADHD. The first type typically shows up in women as inattention. Signs can include constantly losing or misplacing things, having trouble staying focused and on task, getting easily distracted, and being routinely forgetful or absentminded.
The second type involves hyperactivity and impulsivity. That can look like frequent fidgeting, interrupting during conversations, trouble waiting your turn, and difficulty sitting still.
James says women may also keep adding to their workload, “taking on more responsibility at work, volunteering, maybe a second job, starting a small business,” even when their plate is already full. Other signs can include sensitivity to rejection, procrastination, and big emotional reactions that seem out of proportion to what’s happening.
However, James says women tend to mask their symptoms and build coping skills to work through them, which means a diagnosis isn’t always obvious.
“On the surface, it really might look to a lot of people that they’re doing really well, and they certainly are, but that’s not to minimize how difficult it is for them to kind of maintain that,” James said.
By: NBC Palm Springs
October 12, 2026
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