SPECIALTY
Is it the anxiety, or the system you built around the ADHD?
You're managing both, but you've never been sure which one is actually driving. The anxiety could be its own thing, or it could be what happens when you've spent years compensating for a brain that never got support. Telehealth across New York State.
If anxiety is the main thing, the anxiety-focused page goes deeper on that. If ADHD is the main thing, the ADHD-focused page does the same. This page is for when you're not sure which one is driving.
These often come together:
01 WHAT IT ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
ADHD and anxiety aren't two separate problems taking turns. For a lot of people, one built the other.
You forget things, so you triple-check everything, so now you're anxious about forgetting instead of just forgetting. You miss a deadline once, so you build an elaborate system of alarms and reminders, and the system itself becomes a source of dread. The anxiety didn't show up on its own — it showed up doing the job your executive function couldn't.
This isn't two conditions competing for airtime.
For a lot of adults, especially those diagnosed with ADHD later in life, the anxiety is downstream: years of near-misses, of being almost late, almost forgetting, almost dropping something important, built a hypervigilance that now runs independently of the ADHD that caused it. You can't treat one without noticing the other is doing structural work.
Most people who come to me for this don't say “ADHD and anxiety” first. They say things like:
- “I don’t know if I’m anxious or if I’m just terrified of forgetting something again.”
- “My whole system for managing my ADHD is anxiety. That’s the engine.”
- “I’m exhausted from being vigilant about my own brain.”
- “Everyone says I seem so on top of things. They don’t see the three alarms and the panic underneath it.”
- “I got the ADHD diagnosis and thought the anxiety would get better. It didn’t.”
- “I can’t tell anymore what’s actually dangerous and what’s just my brain being loud.”
02 WHY WHAT YOU'VE TRIED ISN'T WORKING
Treating them separately usually treats neither one well.
You've probably tried anxiety tools that assume a nervous system without an attention problem underneath it — breathing exercises that fall apart the second your mind wanders somewhere more urgent. Or ADHD tools that assume a calm-enough baseline to actually implement them, which the anxiety never lets you reach.
Neither approach is wrong on its own. They just weren't built for the loop where each one keeps the other running.
“For a lot of people, the anxiety isn't sitting next to the ADHD. It's what the ADHD turned into after years of trying to manage it alone.”
03 HOW WE'D ACTUALLY WORK ON THIS
We figure out which one is driving, in which moment — and build for both.
I have ADHD and anxiety myself, so this isn't theoretical for me. I know what it's like to not be sure if you're anxious or if you just forgot something and your body found out before your brain did.
The first thing we'd do is start separating the two in real time — not as a permanent label, but as an ongoing skill: is this anxiety that needs regulating, or is this executive function that needs a system? Some days it's genuinely both, and that's fine too.
From there we build executive-function supports that don't collapse under anxiety, and nervous-system regulation that accounts for a brain that's already working overtime. Not two treatment plans running in parallel — one plan that assumes both are true at once.
04 WHAT YOU MIGHT NOTICE
You start to tell the two apart, at least most of the time.
The vigilance loosens because the systems underneath it get more reliable.
“I always thought I just had bad anxiety. Realizing how much of it was actually ADHD I'd never dealt with changed the whole way I approached both.”
Client, 29 · ADHD + anxiety · one year in
Testimonials shared with permission. Identifying details changed.
05STARTING
If this sounds like the right fit, let's talk.
The 15-min consult is where we figure out if we're a good match. No commitment. If I'm not the right person, I'll help you find someone who is.
You send a note.
Takes a minute. Tell me what’s bringing you in, or just say “hi, I want to talk.” No intake form, no questionnaire.
We do a 15-min call.
No cost, no commitment. We see if it’s a fit. If it’s not, I’ll help you find someone it is.
We book a first session.
Evenings and weekends available. Telehealth from anywhere in New York State.
Or email Angela@nystateofmindtherapy.com