ADHD Isn’t New-We Just Didn’t See It
ADHD didn’t suddenly appear on TikTok — the symptoms have been documented for over 200 years.
While social media has sparked more visibility, descriptions of ADHD-like symptoms date back to the 18th century. The first formal diagnostic categories were introduced in the early 1900s. What changed wasn’t the condition — it was our willingness to recognise it, especially in adults.
ADHD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition, shaped by biology, psychology, and environment. Around 70–80% of ADHD is heritable, and its effects ripple across every stage of life — often misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or missed altogether.
Adult ADHD wasn’t formally acknowledged until the 1990s. For those of us who grew up without words for what we were experiencing, the result was often shame, underachievement, and burnout.
And diagnosis? It still depends on criteria that miss key parts of the picture: emotional dysregulation, sensory overload, masking, trauma, executive dysfunction. These aren’t side notes. They’re central to the lived experience.
Those least likely to be diagnosed — people from marginalised backgrounds, women, and those who don’t present “typically” — are often the most impacted. Historically, ADHD research and diagnostic criteria focused predominantly on white school-aged boys. Thankfully, this is now beginning to change, with more inclusive research and a broader understanding of how ADHD presents across genders, cultures, and ages.
So if you’re only now beginning to connect the dots, wondering if ADHD is part of your story — you’re not behind.
You’re arriving. And you’re not alone.
In the next post, we’ll look inside the ADHD brain — and explore what’s really going on beneath the surface.
💬 What’s something you believed about ADHD that you now know isn’t true?
Share your reflections below — they might help someone else feel seen.
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- American Psychiatric Association. (1994). DSM-IV.
- American Psychiatric Association. (2022). DSM-5-TR. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425787
- Martínez‑Badía, J., & Martínez‑Raga, J. (2015, December 22). Who says this is a modern disorder? The early history of attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder. World Journal of Psychiatry, 5(4), 379–386. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v5.i4.379
- Quinn, P. O., & Madhoo, M. (2014). A review of ADHD in women and girls. Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.4088/PCC.13r01596
- Coker, T. R., Elliott, M. N., Toomey, S. L., Schwebel, D. C., Cuccaro, P., Tortolero Emery, S., Davies, S. L., Visser, S. N., & Schuster, M. A. (2016). Racial and ethnic disparities in ADHD diagnosis and treatment. Pediatrics, 138(3), e20160407. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-0407
