r/adhdwomen • u/Mamahei2 • 1d ago

General Question/Discussion Do some of y’all have genetic ADHD?

Literally my mom, my sister, my niece, my nephew, and I all have ADHD as well as me and my mom having autism.

Edit: I’m more so talking about ADHD being a dominant trait (at least for my family)

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u/hiddenvalleyoflife 1d ago

I don't know where I got it from, honestly. My parents don't share my struggles. Feels quite lonely, especially when most other people with ADHD seem to be able to identify it in their family members.

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u/tiredoftryingtobe 1d ago

My family has it but I'm the first diagnosed. The rest of them refuse to believe me and one sibling doesn't believe ADHD or Autism are real. My mom,who is a retired teacher, told me to my face a few months ago that I'm not ADHD because I did good in school and didn't cause problems. It's lonely this way too.

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u/hiddenvalleyoflife 1d ago

In my case, my mother is the world's most neurotypical person and my father is a workaholic (and has been for decades) who doesn't relate to the vast majority of my ADHD symptoms, so even if he did have ADHD it would be much milder than my own.

I won't lie, seeing people in this thread say that it must always be genetic makes me feel quite unsupported and not valid. Not ruling out that it is genetic in my case, of course, but with no other family members I know struggling like this, what am I supposed to think?

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u/vpblackheart ADHD-C 1d ago

I don't think it's all genetic. We don't know enough about how the brain works to declare that as 💯 fact. We may never know.

My family has Bipolar, autism, depression, anxiety, OCD, ADHD, etc. Some are diagnosed and some are not.