ADHD Chatter Podcast"ADHD gets worse with age, unless you do THIS' | World Leading ADHD Expert, Dr Jo Perkins
At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
How ADHD interacts with aging, hormones, shame, and future planning
- ADHD can feel worse with age largely because responsibilities increase while external structure decreases, putting more strain on executive function and emotional regulation.
- Cumulative experiences of perceived or real failures can compound into shame, anxiety, burnout, and avoidance behaviors, especially without diagnosis or supportive strategies.
- Working-memory lapses in ADHD can be mistaken for cognitive decline, but ADHD-related memory issues are typically intermittent and stress-dependent rather than progressively worsening like dementia.
- For AuDHD, aging can intensify autistic needs for routine while ADHD seeks novelty, creating either supportive “scaffolding” or internal conflict with big swings between control and chaos.
- Perimenopause and menopause can significantly exacerbate ADHD symptoms through hormonal changes, making education, symptom tracking, and health routines (sleep, exercise, nutrition, stimulant moderation) especially important.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasADHD often feels harder with age because life gets heavier, not because you ‘get worse’.
More commitments (work, family, logistics) raise executive-function load while school/home scaffolding fades, so coping strategies that once worked can stop fitting new circumstances.
Executive dysfunction and emotional dysregulation amplify each other.
Overcommitment, sleep loss, and stress degrade planning and attention, which then triggers more overwhelm and mood swings—creating a self-reinforcing cycle unless interrupted with structure and support.
Late awareness can be transformative even without changing everything.
A diagnosis or strong self-understanding can reduce shame (“I’m not lazy/stupid”) and calm the nervous system; some people mainly benefit from compassion and small tweaks rather than a full life overhaul.
ADHD memory lapses are usually about encoding attention, not ‘losing’ memory storage.
If information isn’t taken in (multitasking, mind elsewhere), it never becomes retrievable; using “sit down, eyes-on, write it down” agreements and step-by-step instructions prevents many scary gaps.
Dementia concern: look for progressive decline, not intermittent stress-linked forgetfulness.
Perkins contrasts ADHD’s variable, context-dependent forgetfulness with cognitive decline that tends to worsen over time; if worried, track patterns and seek medical guidance, but don’t assume worst-case from classic ADHD lapses.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesAnd the thing, all of the, the kind of increased pressures, and y- you know, the, the, the challenges that can put on anyone, but particularly when we're ADHD, it just means that we're working so much harder-
— Dr. Jo Perkins
Oh, it, it, it can be debilitating- and, and overwhelming and all-consuming.
— Dr. Jo Perkins
So, you know, and a, a tip to working with that, especially if you're with someone in work or a partner, if you know you're ADHD and that's what's happening with your memory, say to your partner, "Don't tell me anything important unless we're actually both sitting down, I'm fully with you, and I'm actually tuned in."
— Dr. Jo Perkins
Aging well psychologically means understanding yourself, cutting yourself some slack, acknowledging what you're good at, what you're not great at, what you don't enjoy, giving yourself permission to go, "Do you know what? I'm gonna stop torturing myself and others with this, and stop pushing through these things and telling myself I should be able to do this, and I should like this."
— Dr. Jo Perkins
I am not a failure. I am not, you know, stupid or lazy- or whatever the range of beliefs that we've carried, the shame- to be able to go, "Ah, it makes sense."
— Dr. Jo Perkins
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
