Red Flags Your 'Anxiety' Might Actually Be ADHD
- Torre Boyd
- Jan 9
- 5 min read
You've been in therapy for anxiety. You've tried the breathing exercises, challenged the negative thoughts, maybe even started medication. And yet... you're still struggling.
You still can't start that project until the deadline is breathing down your neck. You still lose track of time and show up late despite leaving "plenty early." You still feel like you're constantly forgetting something important, and that nagging sense of dread follows you everywhere.
Your therapist says it's anxiety. Your doctor agrees. But something doesn't quite add up.
Here's what nobody has told you: ADHD and anxiety look remarkably similar on the surface—but they require completely different approaches to treat.
And if you've been treating ADHD symptoms as if they're anxiety? That explains why nothing's working.
The Anxiety-ADHD Overlap Nobody Talks About
Let me be direct: most high-achieving adults with ADHD get misdiagnosed with anxiety first. Sometimes for years.
Why? Because the two conditions share some obvious surface symptoms:
Racing thoughts
Difficulty concentrating
Restlessness
Sleep problems
Feeling overwhelmed
Constant worry about forgetting things or making mistakes
But here's the crucial difference: Anxiety is fear-based. ADHD is executive function-based.
With anxiety, your brain is predicting threat and trying to protect you. With ADHD, your brain is struggling to regulate attention, prioritize, initiate tasks, and manage time—and then you feel anxious about those struggles.
One is the root problem. The other is your reasonable response to that problem.
Guess which one anxiety treatment addresses?
Red Flag #1: Your Anxiety Gets Worse When You Try to Focus
Classic anxiety improves when you're engaged in a task you enjoy. Your mind has something to anchor to, and the worry quiets down.
ADHD anxiety spikes when you try to do focused work—especially if it's boring, multi-step, or requires sustained attention.
Ask yourself:
Does your anxiety skyrocket when you sit down to work on something important but not particularly interesting?
Do you feel most calm when you're doing multiple things at once or in crisis mode?
Does your mind race more when you try to slow down and focus on one thing?
If yes—that's not anxiety avoidance. That's your brain struggling with executive function and then panicking about it.
Red Flag #2: Anxiety Treatment Helped... But Not With That
Maybe therapy did help you. You're better at identifying cognitive distortions, you've got some solid coping skills, you understand your triggers.
But you still:
Lose your keys, wallet, or phone multiple times a week
Interrupt people in conversation without meaning to
Start 10 projects and finish none of them
Feel physically restless during meetings or long conversations
Forget appointments even when you write them down
Procrastinate until the last possible second despite genuine intention to start early
Experience time blindness (where did the last 3 hours go?)
Your therapist might say: "You're still anxious, let's try another approach."
In Reality: Anxiety treatment doesn't address executive dysfunction, working memory deficits, or attention regulation. Because those aren't anxiety symptoms—they're ADHD symptoms.
Red Flag #3: You're "Too Successful" to Have ADHD (According to Everyone Who Doesn't Understand ADHD)
Let's dismantle a myth: High-achievers don't have ADHD.
Wrong. Dead wrong.
High-achievers with ADHD are everywhere—they've just been masking it through extreme effort, rigid systems, or raw intelligence for years. Until they can't anymore.
Maybe you:
Got straight A's through high school because structure + fear of disappointing people was enough
Crashed in college or grad school when nobody was monitoring you
Excel in your career but your personal life is chaos
Can run a meeting brilliantly but can't remember to pay your bills on time
Appear totally put-together while internally feeling like a fraud who's constantly on the verge of being exposed
That's high-functioning ADHD. And it comes with a special kind of anxiety—the anxiety of knowing you're capable but feeling like you're constantly white knuckling your way through life.
The question isn't "Are you successful enough to have ADHD?"
The question is "How much energy are you spending to appear successful and is it sustainable?"
Red Flag #4: Stimulants (Caffeine, etc.) Make You Feel... Calm?
This one surprises people.
If you've ever noticed that coffee doesn't make you jittery—it makes you focused—pay attention. If energy drinks help you think clearly rather than speed you up, that's significant.
People with ADHD often have a paradoxical response to stimulants. Why? Because ADHD brains are under-stimulated in the prefrontal cortex (the part responsible for executive function). Stimulants bring that area up to optimal functioning, which feels like calm, clarity, and control.
Anxiety brains? Stimulants typically make anxiety worse—more jittery, more racing thoughts, more physical restlessness.
If caffeine helps you focus rather than winds you up, your "anxiety" might be your brain trying to compensate for inconsistent attention regulation.
Red Flag #5: Your "Anxiety" Responds to Structure, Not Relaxation
Anxiety treatment often involves calming techniques: deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, reducing stressors.
But what if you've noticed you feel worse when you have too much unstructured time? What if your anxiety improves when you're busy, have clear deadlines, or someone else is holding you accountable?
That's not anxiety. That's ADHD.
ADHD brains rely on external structure because internal regulation is inconsistent. You're not anxious about being busy—you're anxious about the chaos that unfolds when you don't have enough external pressure to keep you on track.
What This Means for You
If you're reading this and thinking "wait... this sounds like me," you're not alone.
The anxiety-ADHD overlap is incredibly common, especially in high-achieving adults who've learned to compensate through intelligence, external pressure, or sheer force of will. You've probably been called "anxious" for so long that you've never questioned whether something else might be at play.
Why a Comprehensive Assessment Matters
A 15-minute conversation with your doctor—or even a quick screening questionnaire—isn't enough to differentiate between anxiety, ADHD, and the overlap between the two.
A comprehensive ADHD assessment looks at:
Your developmental history (how symptoms showed up across your lifespan)
Functional impairment (how it's actually affecting your life, not just a checklist)
Differential diagnosis (ruling out or identifying co-occurring conditions like anxiety, autism, or depression)
The why behind your struggles (not just "do you have ADHD?" but "how does your brain work, and what will actually help?")
This isn't about getting a label. It's about getting clarity—so you can stop fighting yourself and start working with your brain instead of against it.
Next Steps
If you recognized yourself in these red flags, here's what I recommend:
Start with this question: When you think about your "anxiety," does it feel more like fear of something bad happening—or frustration and shame about your own brain not cooperating?
If it's the latter, you might be dealing with ADHD and secondary anxiety (anxiety about ADHD symptoms, not primary anxiety disorder).
A comprehensive assessment can tell you for sure. It can differentiate between what's anxiety, what's ADHD, and what's the complicated overlap between the two. And more importantly, it gives you a roadmap for what will actually help.
Because you deserve to understand your brain—not spend another year trying anxiety strategies that were never designed to address executive dysfunction.
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