{"id":6400,"date":"2022-12-04T16:02:58","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T20:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=6400"},"modified":"2022-12-05T16:31:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T20:31:12","slug":"psychiatrist-asra-hamzavi-says-adhd-can-be-your-superpower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/psychiatrist-asra-hamzavi-says-adhd-can-be-your-superpower\/","title":{"rendered":"Psychiatrist Asra Hamzavi says ADHD can be your superpower"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo Credit: Asra Hamzavi<\/em><\/p>\n

Nargis Rahman <\/a>
\n<\/span>WDET<\/p>\n

October is National ADHD Awareness Month. According to the group\u00a0Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit\/Hyperactivity Disorder<\/a>\u00a0or (CHADD), 3.5 percent of all adults worldwide have ADHD.<\/p>\n

Dr. Asra Hamzavi is an adult psychiatrist who treats adults with ADHD. She founded the\u00a0Hamzavi Psychiatry and Wellness Center.<\/a><\/p>\n

Hamzavi says ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that people are born with, and most don\u2019t outgrow it.<\/p>\n

She explains attention deficit\/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), previously known as attention deficit disorder (ADD), is identified as three types: predominantly hyperactive, predominantly inattentive, or combined type.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might have difficulty with focusing on details, a problem with focusing on kind of forgetfulness, \u2018where do you put your keys, where\u2019s your phone?\u2019 Those are things that everyone kind of goes through from time to time, but for someone with ADHD, it\u2019s something that they deal with on a daily basis,\u201d said Hamzavi.<\/p>\n

Hamzavi adds emotional dysregulation and rejection-sensitive dysphoria, or people who have trouble regulating their tempers and feelings, are other signs of ADHD.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside of the diagnostic criteria is really problems with self-esteem. It\u2019s one of the biggest things that I see feeling that they are not reaching their potential. It\u2019s not about intelligence, it\u2019s about whether or not you\u2019re able to execute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamzavi says ADHD is one of the most under-diagnosed treatable conditions, and that many times people don\u2019t get treatment until adulthood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s really a range. I have diagnosed 65-year-olds with ADHD. I think that as the demands depend on a few factors: socioeconomic status, what kind of safety nets does that individual have? What kind of scaffolding do they have around them to support them so that it can maybe get masked? So as that starts to disappear and you enter adulthood.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADHD is not a mark of intelligence\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Hamzavi says some of the most intelligent people have ADHD, and it can develop from things out of your control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not correlated with IQ. Now, you may be more prone to having the diagnosis of ADHD and, you know, in an urban setting, for example, there\u2019s things like lead toxicity that can contribute to the diagnosis of ADHD, you\u2019re more likely to have lead toxicity depending on the area that you live in.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says although it\u2019s a misconception that people are taking medication for ADHD as enhancing agents, medicine creates a more level playing field.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that an ADHD individual does is more difficult. So just kind of getting out of bed on time getting to places on time doing things on time, meeting deadlines on running a household, running an organization or being a part of a team. All those things are more difficult with ADD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking for ways to cope with ADHD<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Hamzavi says people have found creative ways to cope with ADHD \u2014 from partnering with people who do not have ADHD to manage the tasks they may struggle with \u2014 to choosing a lifestyle that supports an ADHD brain with high intensity, like an emergency room doctor or a firefighter.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecifically in a marriage, you could have a really high functioning non-ADHD individual with a high functioning ADHD individual who says, \u2018Well, I\u2019m going to do the creative stuff. I\u2019m going to do the fun stuff with the kids, and you do all the bill paying.’\u201d<\/p>\n

ADHD is predominately treated with stimulant or non-stimulant medications, and sometimes therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherapy is very helpful because one of the most damaging aspects of ADHD is the gap between their potential and their performance,\u201d Hamzavi says.<\/p>\n

She wants people to know that they can be successful with ADHD.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some people, it is their superpower. So when they\u2019re the person in the room who comes up with solid bright ideas, not everyone in the room might know that this is actually a person with ADHD. Treatment can make the difference filling in those gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says there are ways that people can also support those with ADHD, such as by giving deadlines and allowing people to start at a later work time.<\/p>\n

Almost five percent of the U.S. population has ADHD. However, Hamzavi says it is typically under-diagnosed for women.<\/p>\n

\u201cFemales are less likely to be picked up as having ADHD, and there are probably multiple reasons for that. One of them is (the) societal expectations girls are raised to be well-behaved. Stay in your lane. Don\u2019t be disruptive and there\u2019s that social pressure, then those hyperactive elements are kind of suppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional mental health resources:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  1. Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit\/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD)\u00a0<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. ADDitude Magazine<\/a><\/li>\n
  3. Books on ADHD by Russel Barkley, Ph.D.<\/a><\/li>\n
  4. Books about women with ADHD by\u00a0Sari Solden, M.S.<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Books about women with ADHD by\u00a0Terry Matlen, LMSW, ACSW<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    <\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo Credit: Asra Hamzavi Nargis Rahman WDET October is National ADHD Awareness Month. According to the group\u00a0Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit\/Hyperactivity Disorder\u00a0or (CHADD), 3.5 percent of all adults worldwide have ADHD. Dr. Asra Hamzavi is an adult psychiatrist who treats adults with ADHD. She founded the\u00a0Hamzavi Psychiatry and Wellness Center. Hamzavi says ADHD is a […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6400"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6406,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6400\/revisions\/6406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}