# What ADHD actually is and why psychology didn't teach it

- **Episode:** [173](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/173.md) (2025-02-20)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** adhd, psychology, education
- **Time:** 4:16–5:11 (start 256s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/173?t=256](https://truthliesandwork.com/173?t=256)

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[4:16] Leanne Elliott: I want to start at the beginning and make no assumptions. I think everybody listening would've heard of ADHD, but can you maybe define it for us and particularly what it might look like in adults who might get a later diagnosis?
[4:28] Skye Waterson: Yeah. And I think it's fair not to fully understand it because, I mean, I studied in psychology and they didn't really talk about adults. I was very confused when I found out I had it. Um, and so You know, it really is persistent and pervasive, and I think that's really important struggles that you can have around executive functioning and impulsivity, um, mainly. So you can have now the— you can have ADHD, uh, mainly inattentive, which means you're more on the distracted side, um, or ADHD mainly hyperactive, which means you're more in the like driven by a motor, struggles to sit still side, or you can have combined type, which is what I have