I’ve had a lot of clients tell me that they’d been told they “can’t” have ADHD.

• They can’t because they got good grades in school
• They can’t because they got through graduate school
• They can’t because they were never “hyper”
• They can’t because they never got in trouble

So then I have clients come to me in their 30s, 40s and 50s with Master’s degrees and Ph.D.s but who’ve never been able to handle work issues well enough to have a successful career. And other clients who’ve been lucky enough to find a career that perfectly suits them, only to come home at night and go to pieces from the effort to maintain a normal home and family life. They’ve all spent decades either thinking or being told that they’re lazy, stupid, careless, uncaring, immature, or bizarrely defective, or that traumatic childhood experiences, remembered or not, must have made them unconsciously self-defeating. Some of them have been on practically every doggone psychotropic drug out there with hardly any relief – every med, that is, except the ones for ADHD.

When they finally get on the proper dose for them of an ADHD medication and learn about how ADHD has affected them, the fog clears and they finally start to feel better. Does it mean their ADHD disappears? Unfortunately, no. But their symptoms become manageable. They finally can focus well enough to have a good home life or pursue goals equal to their true abilities.

So is ADHD over-diagnosed? Absolutely not, at least when it comes to adults. There’s good evidence to suggest that it’s been over-diagnosed among low-income children in bad schools, but at the same time it’s probably missed in millions of smart but disorganized kids of all races and classes.

ADHD is real. It’s not caused by psychological trauma, the wrong kinds of food, bad parenting, bad schools, or too much screen time. (These things, especially excessive screen time, can result from it and exacerbate it, but they don’t cause it.) It’s found in every country in similar proportions whenever it’s been looked for, and in every cultural and ethnic group. And the sooner in life it’s recognized and treated for what it is, the greater the chance of not getting stymied by it.

But no matter what age you are, learning you have ADHD is the first step to beginning, finally, to have a more fulfilling life.