Does/can ADD (Inattentive type) cause some symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder? I've read a few posts on other ADD forums where people with ADD have the same symptoms as I do. Most of these symptoms are the same as most of the symptoms in SAD, but from what they've said all they had was ADD...

I have social anxiety pretty bad. I have combined type ADD.

Does/can ADD (Inattentive type) cause some symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder? I've read a few posts on other ADD forums where people with ADD have the same symptoms as I do. Most of these symptoms are the same as most of the symptoms in SAD, but from what they've said all they had was ADD...

I don't have it bad now, but did most of my life(I'm ADD inattentive).

I didn't even realize what it was till just about a year ago when my 17 yo daughter was DX with it (no ADD, that shows up yet). I had forgot my struggles as a young child, a teen and in my 20's.

When my daughter said to me crying " you just don't understand what's it's like" I then told her my story, she now knows just how much I understand.

Does/can ADD (Inattentive type) cause some symptoms of Social Anxiety Disorder? I've read a few posts on other ADD forums where people with ADD have the same symptoms as I do. Most of these symptoms are the same as most of the symptoms in SAD, but from what they've said all they had was ADD...
ADDA, an interesting article discussing seasonal depresstion and other symptoms. SolarLife has had some interesting changes in social anxiety disorder when starting meds. Look for his thread Diagnosis and Treatment (I think) I have seasonal depression and a bit of social anxiety. Lots of regular anxiety.

WELCOME TO THE FORUM, BTW! ;)

Strategies to Reduce Misdiagnosis of Bipolar Depression

Charles L. Bowden, M.D., Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The full text of this paper is posted in the following thread,

http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15701 (http://www.addforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15701)

(I paraphrased the parts of the article (it’s really long) that I found interesting and which seem to apply most to me personally, because of my treatment resistant depression, SAD and anxiety)

“The author discusses complexities in the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, especially in distinguishing bipolar from unipolar depression.

Patients with bipolar depression and bipolar manic patients had much higher scores on extraversion, novelty seeking, and being less judgmental.

Depression—and indeed all mood episodes—in the postpartum period are more likely to reflect an underlying bipolar disorder (20,21).

Depression occurring on a seasonal basis is more likely to be within the bipolar spectrum.

Some patients with bipolar II disorder have even milder manic excursions than described above. These persons generally have hyperthymic temperaments, evidenced by high energy, remarkable capacity for productive work, impatience, and a tendency to be easily annoyed.

Anxiety disorders often co-occur with bipolar disorder (38) and, when prominent, can mask evidence of bipolar disorder.

Anxiety is an intrinsic symptom of manic states. "

Not sure why this was moved to the Social Anxiety Disorder forum since I was asking about ADD causing some symptoms of Social Axiety, rather than Social Anxiety causing ADD symptoms... Took me a bit to find it.. >.<

Anyway, thank for the replies everyone. I will be reading through them now.

ADDers are a lot more likely to have anxiety issues of all kinds -- according to Tom Brown of Yale (Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults) the ADD brain doesn't just have trouble filtering out distractions, it also has trouble regulating emotions and filtering out the emotional "noise".


About 30% of ADDers have an anxiety disorder, and they have 6 x the risk of having some other condition besides ADD. Brown says that ADD is the umbrella condition and a lot of other condition are affected because of the executive impairement dysfunctions with ADD.

Scattered