Happy New Year Auld Lang Syne!

Let’s imagine for a minute two versions of 2026

VERSION A: Everything you touch turns to gold. Every goal you have for your business, your health goals stick, your bank account thrives along with your family. Everything you set your mind to works out. You follow through on plans, show up for yourself, never miss appointments. You start inviting people over, travel to dream destinations, and surround yourself with friends who fill you up.

Or

VERSION B: You make plans you never start. Your business stalls because follow-through feels impossible. Friends get frustrated when you’re always 30 minutes late. You can’t book travel because deciding feels paralyzing. Important conversations drift, and relationships strain.

Here’s the thing: Both people have ADHD.

The difference?

One has been diagnosed, learned how to harness hyper-focus at the right moments, and is thriving — just like 46% of people diagnosed with ADHD later in life. ¹

So what changed everything?

Discovery. Management. And the right diagnosis.

It’s January again. You’re staring at your untouched planner, feeling that familiar mix of dread, exhaustion and fear, what’s this year going to be like? – only you should be asking, “What am I so curious about that I can go into hyper-focus and make something happen?”

Many women try medication for anxiety or for depression because they were mis-diagnosed in the Dr.’s office. They never solved the functional problem. They still over think things, they still get worried only now its muted.

Statistics show pervasive misdiagnosis of ADHD in women, with estimates suggest up to 75% of adult women with ADHD are misdiagnosed, often with anxiety or depression, leading to delayed diagnosis by years; studies reveal females with inattentive ADHD often receive prior diagnoses of anxiety (17-26%) or depression (13-18%) before an ADHD diagnosis. This happens because women’s internalizing symptoms (like worry, fatigue) mimic mood disorders, and diagnostic tools often miss female-presentation ADHD, which is less hyperactive and more subtle. 

Heres’ the thing, if you have undiagnosed ADHD the anxiety and depression are not the main thing . . . they are symptoms of the main culprit. They are merely side effects of an ADHD brain that’s been running on empty for years. Dopamine starvation.

Is There Really An Overlap?

Yes! There really is!

About 50% of adults with ADHD also have an anxiety disorder. 20-50% have depression. Untreated ADHD often causes anxiety and depression: Waves of overwhelm that ebb and flow, shame, fatigue and worry spirals. Shared symptoms include: trouble staying on task, restlessness that makes you question your decisions endlessly, irritability and sleep issues to name a few. 2

View From A New Moon

THE KEY DIFFERENCE:

Anxiety spins relentlessly about future threats.
ADHD spins too — but gets stuck in a state of entropy, endlessly thinking without the executive fuel to act. – (this is how it feels to me anyway)

ENTROPY
“a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.”the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases with time” -Oxford Language Dictionary

There’s a marked difference.

Depression stagnates in rumination.
ADHD wants out of the rumination but hits a wall — no clear path through the maze.

REAL LIFE EXAMPLES

The household loop: One woman looked at the post-Christmas mess and thought, “I’ll never get decluttered enough to entertain. People have called me lazy. I’ll end up isolated.”
Turns out it wasn’t just depression — it was ADHD executive dysfunction fueling the shame.

Parties as Survivor: Another woman described walking into a party like an episode of Survivor:
Who do I impress? Who’s an ally? Who’s voting me off the island?
What looked like social anxiety was actually an ADHD habit of bracing for rejection.

If You Are Raising Your Hand and Saying – “That Has Been Me!” – Happy New Year!

Like all the bad songs of 2025 – Let’s make it stop.

Here’s what to do if this sounds like you:

1. Get properly assessed. Late diagnosis is incredibly common, especially in women. Seek a full evaluation (the kind that takes hours, not minutes) from someone who truly understands adult ADHD.
2. Experiment with ADHD tools first. You’ll find plenty here all year — and if I’m not your vibe, find a coach who is. Many women (me included) watch anxiety and depression lift dramatically once ADHD is supported.
3. Remember: You might have all three — and that’s okay. Treating the ADHD often makes everything else far more manageable.

After my diagnosis, I called my doctor and said:
“I haven’t felt this clear and relaxed since I was about 7 years old. Music sounds sharper. Moments stop stacking. I’m not preparing for a Supreme Court case in every conversation. And when someone’s being an ass, I no longer take responsibility for their crap.” That’s huge.

Oh and by the way. . . That pile in the corner now feels like “Just stuff” — not a guilt-ridden walk down memory lane. I haven’t turned into a neat nick yet, but, bit by bit my life has become not just managable, but doable, exciting, something I Spring out of bed most days and look forward to. . .I’m not kidding.

New Years Toast. . .

This year, instead of another resolution to “fix” your anxiety or depression, what if you asked:
Is this ADHD talking?

You’re not broken or old or damaged without a fix. You might just finally have the right map. Let’s raise a glass to the a better magical version to the old you — and to the version of you who’s about to thrive.

Auld Lang Syne, love.
Here’s to 2026. Clink.

Xo,
Libby

* Based on studies showing improved outcomes post-diagnosis (e.g., quality of life improvements in ~46% of late-diagnosed adults).
** 2025 review in Frontiers in Psychiatry and ADAA data: up to 50% comorbidity with anxiety, 18.6–53.3% with depression.