The link between ADHD and depression | Experts answer

What’s the link between ADHD and depression? A psychiatrist explores how they’re connected and where the symptoms overlap.

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[josh_flash]

This is great! To add on further, having ADHD typically means you also have a deficit of dopamine. This can lead to and/or exacerbate symptoms of depression in 2 ways.

1) The lack of dopamine itself can have a depressive effect by contributing to feelings of hopelessness, guilt, fatigue, demotivation, and a loss of joy in activities you once enjoyed.

2) It creates a much stronger propensity to engage in dopamine inducing activities. Over-engagement in these activities can result in significantly decreased levels of happiness or even malaise when not doing something stimulating.

[undecidedmiddleground]

As someone diagnosed later in life, it seems to this lay-person that depression can exacerbate ADHD, even help diagnose it. Most of my life I never suffered from depression, but was in fact a very happy-go-lucky person. But, when I suffered a life-long injury and became depressed, it made my ADHD far more apparent as my lack of focus and motivation made my therapist consider ADHD. A simple look into some of my childhood and current challenges made the diagnosis obvious as a life-long struggle. No one even thought to investigate my other symptoms before because I was so capable of masking my challenges before suffering depression.

[DelphineTheWorstBladeEver]

Yeah, anti depressants don't work on me. I've tried every single one. It's not regular depression.

[nahoryb-b]

Kindly allow me to reframe this. ADHD does not cause depression😢 ... On the other hand, the reactions, expectations, biases from people around us, and systems that are involved that constantly invalidate and misunderstand ADHD ... can contribute to events that might contribute to developing different mental health challenges ... 💕