ADHD and the Midlife Crisis Crisis

additudemag.com:

The concept of the midlife crisis began a century ago with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, who argued that greater self-awareness and self-actualization in midlife leads to a fear of impending death.

Critics challenge whether mortality-related anxiety is actually to blame for the drastic life changes so commonly associated with midlife crisis: divorce, job loss, and convertible acquisition.Research suggests that 10% to 20% of adults will experience a midlife crisis.1 Among adults with ADHD, that number is considerably higher: 59% of men aged 40 and older, and 51% of women aged 40 and older said they have experienced a “period of emotional turmoil in middle age frequently characterized by a strong desire for change,” according to a recent ADDitude survey of 1,829 adults with ADHD.The 690 women and 228 men who responded in the affirmative shared stories of career upheaval, infidelity, divorce, money problems, substance abuse, and burnout.

For some, the change was more like a “midlife catharsis” that was long overdue; for others, it was traumatic.“I divorced my narcissistic ex, started graduate school to become an educator, met the best man I’ve ever known, fell in love (for real this time), and earned two black belts during about an 18-month span of time,” wrote one 49-year-old mother in Washington.[Take This Self-Test: Do I Have ADHD?]“I didn’t feel I was able to function in the world,” wrote a 49-year-old male who rated his ADHD symptoms as “life-altering” in his 40s. “I left a seven-year relationship with my partner and stepdaughter, quit my job with no other job to go to, and went to live at a Buddhist monastery.”These may seem like extreme examples, but the root causes of these crises — namely, ADHD traits like.