Is It Anxiety or ADHD? Understanding the Overlap When You’re Scattered, Overthinking, and Exhausted

When your mind feels scattered, your thoughts won’t stay in one place, and you’re constantly bouncing between overthinking and forgetting the thing you were just doing, it’s easy to wonder: Is this anxiety? ADHD? Or both? For so many women, the overlap is real—and confusing. Anxiety can make your mind race, while ADHD can make your focus slip, and together they create a perfect storm of exhaustion, self-doubt, and feeling “all over the place.” If you’ve been blaming yourself for not being able to keep up, you’re not alone—and there’s a reason it feels this way.

You’re not scattered or “too much”—your mind is overwhelmed.

Why Anxiety and ADHD Look So Similar

Anxiety and ADHD share more symptoms than most people realize. Trouble concentrating. Racing thoughts. Restlessness. Feeling mentally overloaded. Difficulty starting tasks—or finishing them. From the outside, it can look the same: you’re distracted, overwhelmed, or mentally tapped out. But internally, the experience is very different. ADHD is considered a neurodevelopmental disorder, and most people with ADHD struggle with executive functioning, which differs from anxiety.

With anxiety, your mind is on high alert. You’re scanning for danger, worrying about outcomes, and mentally rehearsing “what ifs.” Focus becomes difficult because your brain is too busy anticipating every possible scenario. You might jump to the worst case scenario very quickly.

With ADHD, your brain struggles to regulate attention. It’s not that you don’t care or aren’t motivated—it’s that your mind jumps quickly, gets pulled into stimulation, and has trouble sticking with tasks that feel boring, repetitive, or overwhelming. You may procrastinate, struggle to start tasks, and struggle with day to day tasks like organizing your home, or being on time for work.

The overlap creates what many women describe as “mental static”—a constant hum of thoughts that makes it hard to feel grounded. When you don’t feel grounded or regulated, it can be hard to focus and complete tasks, and to communicate with others.

How the Two Conditions Amplify Each Other

Here’s where things get tricky: anxiety can make ADHD symptoms worse, and ADHD can make anxiety spike.

When ADHD makes you forget things, run late, lose your keys, or miss details, anxiety rushes in with the shame spiral: “Why can’t I get it together?” You may feel like it’s your fault, when the truth is that your brain is just wired differently. The key is to work with your brain, not against it.
When anxiety floods your mind with worries, your ADHD brain struggles even more to prioritize, organize, or slow down. When you feel dysregulated and preoccupied, you might struggle to complete day to day tasks and focus on work.

The result? Feeling scattered and overwhelmed. Overthinking and distractible. Tired but wired. Motivated but unable to start. It’s not laziness—it’s the way these systems interact. Anxiety can be exhausting, and when you already struggle with motivation and procrastination, this can be really difficult to manage.

Why So Many Women Don’t Get Diagnosed

Many women grow up being praised for being “responsible,” “smart,” or “good at school,” even if they were secretly struggling. High-functioning anxiety often masks ADHD symptoms through over-preparing, over-performing, or working twice as hard to compensate. On the outside, it may seem like everything is going well. On the inside, you might feel like you’re falling apart.

Meanwhile, emotional sensitivity, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and burnout get mistaken for personality traits—when they’re actually signs of chronic mental overload. This also stems from something deeper, such as family and social stressors.

If you’ve always felt like you’re trying harder than everyone else just to stay afloat, that’s not a character flaw. It might be a missed diagnosis. It can be worth it to consult with a psychiatrist or a neurologist to get an ADHD diagnosis. Many women feel validated once they get diagnosed. A diagnosis can help you understand why it feels so difficult to manage, and you can develop a plan that works for you.

You’re not “too emotional” or “trying too hard”—you’ve been carrying a mental load no one ever saw.

What Helps When You’re Living in the Overlap

The goal isn’t to force yourself to “focus harder” or “calm down.” It’s to support both systems—your nervous system and your executive functioning. Different strategies work for different people. When you know what strategies work for you, it can make a difference.

Here’s what can help:

• External structure: calendars, routines, gentle reminders. Setting reminders on your phone or using post it notes

• Mindfulness practices: especially grounding and DBT “What” skills

• Breaking tasks into micro-steps to reduce overwhelm. Creating a to-do list and then numbering each task in order of priority

• Nervous system regulation: breathwork, movement, sensory grounding

• Self-compassion: replacing “What’s wrong with me?” with “What do I need right now?”

• For time blindness: Turn on a podcast or a playlist right before you start a task. When the playlist or podcast ends, that’s when you know it’s time to stop.

When your brain and your body feel supported, everything becomes more manageable. It is possible to manage ADHD and anxiety with the right tools.

Moving Forward with Clarity and Compassion

When you understand the overlap between anxiety and ADHD, you finally have a language for what you’ve been feeling—not an excuse, but an explanation. You can stop telling yourself the story that you’re “too much,” “too scattered,” or “not disciplined enough,” and start recognizing that your brain has been working overtime without the support it deserves. Healing begins when you shift from self-criticism to curiosity, from pushing harder to asking what your mind actually needs. And with the right tools, strategies, and compassion, it is possible to feel grounded, focused, and more like yourself again. Once you get a diagnosis and a plan that works for you, life can feel more manageable.

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