People with cPTSD and ADHD, what differences do you feel in these conditions influencing your daily lives?

I don't know about differences because the two conditions are so intertwined. As an example: Every time I have social interactions and get too excited or over-share I will have crippling anxiety in the aftermath as a result of having been criticized for who I was my entire childhood. That's when the cPTSD part comes into play. Those moments where I don't trust or like myself and beat myself up for the things I can't control due to my ADHD.

I too try to mask my ADHD a lot and have a VERY perfectionistic nature.

Best way I can explain it: when my brain is relaxed/content/not triggered, the ADHD issues are there but more manageable for me, especially as I'm sensory seeking when I'm relaxed, it's easier for me to figure out how I want to navigate life.

But if my brain is in a state of constant panic/overwhelm/anxiety/etc., the ADHD symptoms are not manageable, and I'm sensory avoidant.

This is usually a spectrum for me, but for a while now I've been stuck at the sensory avoidant end. I struggle with strong negative emotional responses, but I also realize that while there was a lot of emotional neglect, there was also exposure to severe anger issues growing up Not knowing how to feel safe in an environment where I (logically) know I am (or at least should be) safe, makes me angry because I know this is wrong, but it feels like a Gordian knot.

I can't separate them. I just know I'm fucked very badly affected by these issues and try to mask/hide/be normal as much as possible.

The way I can differentiate them is through the “intersection” of the two. Three, for me, since I’m autistic too. There’s so much trauma around growing up undiagnosed and without support, and it’s through the ways they interact that I can see all of them.

Masking and perfectionism are great examples. You had to learn to mask because people would mistreat you otherwise, right? Maybe your parents would punish you, or you’d get in trouble at school for not “controlling” yourself. But this is an unrealistic standard to hold kids with ADHD to! So we learn to mask to get by, but this is a trauma response that often relies on dissociating or suppressing our emotions. The same is true for perfectionism: if we’ve had no choice but to manage our executive dysfunction on our own, we become hypervigilant to make sure we aren’t forgetting something that would “get us in trouble.”

Similarly, with emotional dysregulation, I try to look at its causes and how I respond. For me, it’s often caused by autistic traits, like sensory overstimulation or reacting to a sudden change of plans. But my response is to beat myself up over it and withdraw, which comes from a lifetime of repressing my needs to make the people around me comfortable.

Idk, I hope that helps. I think more often than not, the confusion comes in when they’re both contributing to the same problem. But that doesn’t need to invalidate either condition! It’s hard to accept, though, because growing up we’re taught that our difficulties are our fault when they are actually perfectly normal, at least given the circumstances.

(Quick edit to summarize: I think what I’m getting at is that it’s normal to have trauma if you’ve grown up undiagnosed, and that often leads to confusion when symptoms overlap with trauma responses. But if anything, this is almost more proof that you have both!)

Honestly still trying to figure this out myself. Diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive type) in 2018, and have only recently (as in the last 18 months) begun the trauma/cPTSD journey. That said, there are things that are 100% trauma-induced for me, such as some of my triggers, my general outlook on life, and my relationship with my body, while there are things that the ADHD is responsible for, like my RSD stuff, my fear of failure and my inability to see things through.

I believe there is a comorbidity between the two, and it's probably worth approaching things holistically when processing, as the two tend to intertwine to the point of inseparability for me. Getting the ADHD diagnosis was a massive help, not only for treatment, but for giving me the confidence to seek assessment and treatment for cPTSD and ASD.

Sorry if this is incoherent, rather ironically my meds are wearing off.

I just got diagnosed at 28(2 years ago). I realized my life was moving nowhere and figured out I need to do something. I was diagnosed with adhd, never told anyone about childhood trauma. I live in social isolation, I have few friends and get almost no birthday wishes, I don't use social media except reddit which I delete from time to time to start afresh, I have no assets to my name and I live my life in my head. Making new friends feels too much hassle. I am possibly autistic. I have too many things to share but most of the time they wouldn't be interested. I recently made a new friend, she is also supposed to be suffering from the same things, we talked for a few days she had me make an instagram to talk more and I knew I just wanted to be friends but now there's no talk because of some unknown reason, this was also the reason I realized I should go check for cptsd, I mean this is a minor issue and it shouldn't bother me this much at 30, I don't think others are that much bothered but then I realized I am just disappointed. I also dislike half naked people and someone randomly touching me. Ahh also I have called a girl who was interested in me a bot(catfish) so there you have the paranoia. Perfectionism is there too. As for controlling I try to keep myself out of limelight as much as I can. You can go to my house and no one nearby would know who I am. I have worked as freelancer two times making good money but then I just lost the desire so there you have strong self destructive tendencies. It's like whenever I am about to be successful I want to destroy it all when they say it was all for your own good and when they say you can't do it, I do it and with excellence. Just to rub it in their face that I am right and they are wrong.

That being said my life I think is pretty good. I mean I now understand why did I do what I did and that nothing wasn't my fault so I am working on rebuilding it step by step.

There is some studies showing that some ADHD may even be a result of trauma, so it's super hard to say in some cases I think :/

Biggest overlap I struggle with is getting really bad RSD, and then spiraling because I'm scared that because I feel like I did something wrong I'm going to be broken up with and kicked out (cPTSD abandonment issues) but due to the RSD I can become even more annoying - hence raising the probability that I will be kicked out. So it just feels like constant fear over my safety and home all the time, but my partner isn't doing anything wrong I'm just co-morbid and stuck on a loop of how I felt when my parents gave up.

Another issue is having chronic nightmares about when I was growing up, and when I wake up my heart is racing and I have to find something to fixate on to calm down or I start to vomit, but then due to the ADHD I either fixate on it half my day and neglect what I'm supposed to do - or I am unable to cling to a distraction and end up dissociating and just sort of staring at the wall in a catatonic state until I snap out of it. I tried everything I could find to fix my sleep hygiene, but can't make the cPTSD nightmares stop.

It's really hard to tell apart or separate, like sometimes I wonder if I have ADHD at all or it's all just trauma, but I improved so much on dexedrine that I can sort of see the connection.

Even as a kid I wondered, did I not finish my homework because I couldn't focus due to ADHD - or is it because my mother has nightly alcohol-induced meltdowns where she rips the pictures off the walls and throws my father's La-Z-Boy down the stairs? Is it my own fault I can't focus - or is it that I was trapped in an insane environment??

My adhd is task paralysis, trouble organizing, oscillating between over and under stimulated. My cptsd is constant somatic anxiety, flashbacks, inability to be present.

I look at it this way. ADHD is neurodivergence you are born with, while CPTSD is neurodivergence that you acquired after birth. The way I react to others I chalk mostly up to CPTSD, including rejection sensitivity. I attribute the ADHD to how I behave externally, outside of trauma coping behaviors/ticks, including impulsivity and my ability to focus my attention.

ADHD and CPTSD both effect my memory so I can't untangle the intricacies there.

What was key for me was the symptoms I experienced in childhood. Symptoms can’t be from the trauma if they predate the trauma.

No medication seems to work on me. SSRIs just make my Anxiety worse, and depressants make my fatigue even worse. I hope I'm not screwed.

Check out Gabor Mate"s book on adhd, Scattered Minds. Some call it controversial as he contends it's trauma-related, parental problems. As far as evaluation, check out the symptom list. If you have them, you have it. Don't focus on the overlap with cPTSD. That exists with almost every dx.

I’ll add some things that I’ve learned over the years.

Don’t bother getting evaluated for ADHD. It doesn’t diagnose you. It just proves you have attention issues. Chances are, if you are pursuing the test, you have attention issues. Regardless of the cause or diagnosis, treatment is the same. There is no need to know where it came from.

You may not have ADHD, you may just be cPTSD and have the symptoms of ADHD. The truth is, it doesn’t matter. The symptoms are what matter, not the name of the disease. cPTSD can cause the symptoms of ADHD, bipolar, OCD, and more. My best psychiatric professionals always say the field is in its infancy, and they are still figuring everything out, so they simply follow the symptoms. cPTSD specifically is very misunderstood and often misdiagnosed. They can’t run blood tests on your brain, like they can with every other organ, and know definitively what is wrong.

Learning how to calm your triggers is probably the key for you, I’d guess. My ADHD symptoms skyrocket when I get isolated, rejected, condescended to, etc. If I am not triggered, controlling my symptoms becomes much simpler. Exercise, consistent sleep, mindfulness meditation, and engaging with nature make a lifestyle that has very manageable ADHD symptoms. I only really need my amphetamine for waking up in the morning. So learning how to calm triggers is my main battle now.

Perfectionism is a more of a symptom, I’d say. OCD-like behavior is common in most of us, for several reasons. Some claim that ADHD, the disease, should be on the autism spectrum, not far from OCD. I don’t think they are wrong.

Perfectionism is a coping mechanism to deal with the anxiety of poor attention. I tend to forget things, so I must be very thorough, or else I pay the “ADHD tax” later. Being thorough also helped me avoid being yelled at by my father, who had a short temper and an absolutely terrifying yell. Being thorough helps me not get called out at work, which I find triggering, probably because of my father. Perfectionism can also be caused when someone feels emotionally out of control, or feels that they have no control over their life, in general. Strictly controlling their outside environment is a way that many of us use to cope with the lack of control in other areas of our life.

It is hard for me to differentiate sometimes (also recently diagnosed with both). I think what I’d say is even on my best days (not too trauma-influenced), I still seek after dopamine inducing things, producta-crastinate, bounce from task to task, and have high levels of excitement and/or easily bored by things I’m not excited about.

When the ptsd is in full swing, my emotions are over the top, I snap at things adhd wouldn’t normally make me snap at, and I can’t manage to push through executive dysfunction at all. The ptsd makes adhd worse, but I wonder how much adhd has made me susceptible to ptsd.

The undiagnosed adhd fueled the cptsd

I read in the book, The Body Keeps The Score, that trauma symptoms look very similar to neurodivergence (ADHD, ASD). I have a lot of the same symptoms as you. I’m not formally diagnosed but I am on a mood stabilizer and SSRI for PTSD and Bipolar.

I don’t think there’s been enough research on neurodivergence in general, especially how it affects women :/

Yeah it’s tough. I’m convinced I have ADHD but my therapist keeps arguing that trauma and ADHD can look identical and more time and testing may help but she’s leaning toward CPTSD/trauma. I tick almost every adult ADHD box though

I have both. I started with trauma therapy long before we even suspected I had adhd. And what happened when I realized that's what I had was I had a big change in my life and I ended up moving into my own place and within a month of living on my own for the first time in like 15 years every single ADHD symptom that could not be explained by my cptsd exploded out of me and I was really confused. I thought I was losing my mind!

When I went in for evaluation later that year, something I had really noticed was that my trauma progress had plateaued. Big time! And all of these other symptoms I could not otherwise account for were happening. For me it had to do with things like losing track of time which I did not usually do, noticed that my emotional regulation had gotten way out of whack again, and I was able to realize just how difficult it was for me to physically like retrieve working memory tasks. As in I could usually anxiously force myself to remember a few things, but I was forgetting literally everything all of the time. Like no exaggeration I would be holding something in my hand several times a day and would forget it. It was constant.

There are a bunch of things and I can't even remember them all, but it was every single symptom on inattentive type that was not already comorbid with my trauma.

In general, it also noticed in my experience that my trauma symptoms felt like they were more physical? And made ADHD symptoms felt more internal. I'm not sure if I can even articulate that difference. But a lot of my trauma I've learned is literally just like a reflex. Whereas my ADHD feels like a clogged filter that everything has to go through first. Especially once I got diagnosed and medicated for my adhd, I was able to make enormous and sudden progress in my trauma therapy. And then now that my trauma symptoms have tempered a little bit, then a few more of my ADHD symptoms came up again once I no longer had as much being dominated by trauma responses. It's a lot of back and forth for me.

26f with both, following to read

CPTSD exacerbates the ADHD. They feed off each other and I spiral. But if I had not been diagnosed with ADHD, I would not have even figured out that I had CPTSD. The diagnosis gave me space to exist.

I have been diagnosed with both and I can't separate them.

I have both and I can't separate the 2, nor am I even sure they are actually 2 different things going on in my brain. Honestly CPTSD gives you ADHD-like symptoms and it's been speculated by some experts in the field of psychiatry that trauma/neglect can cause the ADHD to develop to begin with AND/OR that people *with CPTSD* usually do have ADHD because people's who's brains don't compartmentalize in that way might not even be able to process some types of trauma and survive them. Basically what I'm trying to say is not only can I personally not tell you "which is which", but some believe that if you have CPTSD you likely have what can be diagnosed as ADHD and IDK if they can be separated into entirely different sets of symptoms. Of course you could be diagnosed with ADHD and not CPTSD, but the other way around? IDEK lol

*edited to add*

With adhd my thoughts are so quick and all over the place. This really shows when I do my everyday tasks. CPTSD does make my thoughts race but only when it’s trauma related, and once learning to recognize when I’m in a triggered state, I can tell the difference.

I try to manage my adhd with no meds. I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. For example, if I’m triggered, but my adhd makes me think of something else , I roll with it. Then I’ll do the next thing and the next thing, and now I’ve forgotten why I was upset in the first place.

For me a key aspect of differentiation came when I really got the CPTSD under control and in a very healed place and STILL struggled in my academic career. By that point I could almost physically feel the difference between symptoms caused by one vs the other. It's hard to articulate. Once we began targeting ADHD, after the CPTSD was managed, my quality of life improved so much.

I have ADHD every day. Unmedicated- I bother others with my ADHD every day.

Medicated- I can manage ADHD, stress, relationships, daily functioning, etc. ( that’s 10 pills medicated + 1 amazing therapist a week)

CPTSD stays under a rock like a snake, ready to strike any moment a big life disturbance happens.

Which it does, always. Right now, the CPTSD snake is just biting me over and over again. I’m dissociating.

I guess the “goal” is to best work on the skills to manage the adhd and CPTSD when life stressors happen. Because they will, but adhd and CPTSD make handling that stress and figuring out ways to overcome it a lot more challenging.

There’s a lot of help though.

I (38f) was going to write so much but I don’t have it in me. I have both. I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until September 2023. Last year I was also retraumatized via being assaulted by a family member. I tried so hard to get help. Long story short I lost my job of 6 years (residential counselor) in February of this year. I was fired for having a “poor attitude”.

I’m waiting to be evaluated by a psychiatrist at the end of this month. At this point I feel like I’m disabled by these issues. I developed IBS and anxiety nausea after the assault last year. I’m struggling with back twitching and brain fog. I can’t take another rejection in my life. I have tried so so hard to be a functioning member of this world. It’s been debilitating.

I don't find that living with the symptoms of ADHD is particularly distressing in and of itself. I mean, yeah, it sucks in a way but I find it relatively manageable compared to the effects of trauma.

The trauma is what makes every perceived failing or flaw launch me into an endless shame spiral of doom and worry that I'll die alone and will never be worthy of love.

ADHD meds help with my emotional regulation, for sure. I have done lots of therapy and EMDR too, so the combo means I am better at observing feelings than getting so caught up.

The symptoms like forgetfulness and lack of focus got way better with adhd meds, and some of rejection sensitivity/ some anxiety over that too.

I know for a fact the emotional dysregulation is at least partly due to trauma for me, and im still not sure where the repetive behaviours come from.

You can figure out part of whats what if you see a benefit in it, but its also true that there will be some overlap with a bunch of different diagnoses. If you have more than one diagnosis with a few of the same symptoms, you can get treatment for both, so its definitely worth checking it out.

For the diagnosis they will likely focus mostly on your early youth, you will probably be asked to find someone who knew you as a baby to fill in a question form with them. Whith adhd and other things like that symptoms often are recognisable from such an early age that its easier to determine if its adhd or something else by simply looking at what was first.

How I view it

With thinking:
ADHD = Wandering mind
cPTSD = Ruminate over anxious thoughts

With socializing:
ADHD = Jump from topic to topic, hard to follow the conversation
cPTSD = Avoid certain topics due to lack of trust

With daily routines:
ADHD = [not found]
cPTSD = Doing the chores pleases the imaginary people

Im in the same boat, but i was diagnosed with ADHD first at age 24 or 25, now n the process for getting diagnosed for ptsd. I got diagnosed with ADHD during my time in the military but i recently i started to question if its PTSD and not ADHD. After the military i noticed that the symptoms was significantly worse Its very conflicting because due to my experiences its telling me its adhd and the other is experiences its from ptsd. Im really confused if its just that i have both at the same time. Before i did have adhd like symptoms but it wasnt such a big struggle that i needed to rely on adderall to function normally once ive left. Ive seen online that adderall doesnt work well for ptsd and makes it worst, but ive never had anything but positive results from it making me think its not ptsd. Its like a consistent battle between the two the more i learn about it and really frustrating. The things that are "trauma" to me are things i never thought of were a big deal, always just something minor like they are just negative experiences in my opinion but i was told its something that maybe i was subconsciously doing to help me cope? I am open to getting a re-evaluation for ADHD because it felt like the diagnosis i had wasnt very in depth as my friends when he talked about when he got his.

Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local emergency services, or use our list of crisis resources. For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the wiki. For those posting or replying, please view the etiquette guidelines.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

Obvious adhd side:

• Hyperfocus

• Unable to start/complete basic tasks (for example it can take weeks for me to finish the clothes washing as there's too many stages).

• Unable to finish things, including things I enjoy, like games, paintings etc

• Forgetting to do things, or only getting them done in panic mode. I lose my phone constantly. Especially when I was moving house with my friends a few years back. They kept having to call my phone for me so I could find it. Happened multiple times a day...

• RSD/anxiety/frustration rage when objects don't work right.

• Having a ton of hobbies.

Looking back at my childhood:

• Unable to sit still, I needed to move to focus and when I didn't I was daydreaming.

• Shouting out answers because I needed my class to move faster to doing the classwork.

• Being very good at the subjects I enjoyed and awful at others.

• Being overly hyper.

• Being so hyperfocused I wouldn't hear my teacher, or I would and it just didn't compute. They had my heating tested and then decided I was just ignoring them. I got in so much trouble over it when I had absolutely no idea anyone was talking to me. I still do it sometimes. My friends get it thankfully.

Cptsd things

• Constant low level anxiety. Not just my brain won't shut the hell up and went to a bad place, this is full on constant tension in the stomach, if that makes sense?

• Being on alert if someone around me isn't feeling happy, my brain will go into panic mode.

• Jumping at slamming doors.

• Scared of people yelling aggressively.

• Terrified to make any kind of mistake because someone is going to get mad. Could be a glass breaking or forgetting something by accident. I'd get my ass beaten so badly, screamed at and kicked out for something I didn't do on purpose.

I was always scared to produce bad art, even when learning a new medium because my mum would lose it at me. Everything had to be perfect. Art is way more enjoyable as an adult because I can just play around.

• Emotional flashbacks. Feelings that have absolutely no meaning in the moment will hit.

• Scared to try something new because I don't want to be bad at it. If I can do it alone, it's ok, if not I get anxious because mum would fly into rages if I didn't get things right away.

There's probably a lot more, but I wrote this off the top of my head.

Add meds will work if you have ADD they won’t with CPTSD even if the symptoms appear the same.