Can an ADHD medication suddenly start causing anxiety, even after it’s been working for months?
That’s a question I never thought I’d be asking.
The last few months have been especially challenging, and I wanted to share our experience in case another parent is trying to make sense of similar changes. Sometimes it simply helps to know you aren’t the only one navigating this.
Before I go any further, I want to be clear that every child responds differently to ADHD medications. I’m sharing what happened with our daughter, not suggesting this is what everyone will experience. If you notice changes in your child, it’s always worth discussing them with your prescribing clinician.
Our daughter had been taking the same stimulant for about a year. It seemed to be working well, and we thought we had finally found some stability.
Then something changed.
Our daughter slowly developed an intense fear of taking a shower. This wasn’t typical resistance. She was genuinely terrified. She screamed, cried, and panicked every time it was time to shower.
At first, I assumed it was another sensory phase. We’ve worked through plenty of those over the years, so I expected this one would eventually pass too.
Then new fears started appearing.
She became terrified of bugs—even bugs outside the window. She also became unusually clingy. If I walked into another room, she wanted to know where I was. If I took a shower, she sat outside the bathroom waiting for me to come out.
Looking back now, these changes happened gradually enough that I didn’t immediately connect them.
At her next appointment, we talked with her psychiatrist about her increasing anxiety. We made a small adjustment to one of her medications and scheduled another follow-up.
Instead of improving, her anxiety became even more intense.
She held her hands tightly clenched or stretched rigidly open. She startled easily. She constantly seemed on edge, as though she was waiting for something bad to happen.
One of the hardest parts was that she couldn’t explain to me why showers suddenly felt terrifying or why bugs made her panic. She wasn’t trying to be difficult. She simply knew something felt wrong. As her mom, I wanted so badly to fix it, but first we had to figure out what was causing it.
I hadn’t connected these changes to her medication because she had been taking the same stimulant successfully for about a year. But I didn’t have to know what was causing them to tell her psychiatrist what I was seeing.
I emailed her psychiatrist with updates between appointments.
Over the next several weeks, with her psychiatrist’s guidance, we gradually lowered her stimulant dose, hoping to find a balance between reducing her anxiety while still helping her focus and manage her emotions.
Then, at our next appointment, her psychiatrist asked a question I wasn’t expecting.
Would I be willing to stop the stimulant completely?
My stomach dropped.
One of the hardest parts was knowing that every medication decision came with trade-offs. If we stopped the stimulant, would her anxiety improve but her ADHD become unmanageable? If we continued it, were we asking her to live with fears she couldn’t control? Those aren’t decisions any parent feels completely prepared to make.
I wasn’t sure how my daughter would function without it. Would her focus disappear? Would the anger return? Would schoolwork become impossible again?
The next morning, following her psychiatrist’s plan, we stopped her stimulant.
She continued taking her anxiety medication, but for the first time in years, she wasn’t taking any medication for her ADHD.
That first day was exactly what I feared.
She had endless energy.
She bounced from one activity to another.
Getting ready to leave the house felt nearly impossible.
Her tutoring session seemed wildly unproductive.
Her body seemed like it couldn’t slow down.
Then, by the end of the day, something unexpected happened.
By the end of the day, the fear seemed to be gone.
The screaming about showers stopped.
She wasn’t panicking over bugs.
She wasn’t following me from room to room.
We were dealing with plenty of ADHD symptoms again, but the anxiety that had slowly taken over our days had almost completely disappeared.
Now we’re beginning the process of trying a different ADHD medication.
We don’t know yet if it’s the right one.
The biggest lesson I’ve taken from this experience is not to assume I know what is—or isn’t—connected.
Because my daughter had been taking the same stimulant for about a year, medication wasn’t the first thing I suspected when these new fears appeared. I had assumed that because it had been working for so long, it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with what we were seeing.
But I didn’t need to figure out what was causing the change before talking to her psychiatrist.
I didn’t need to have the answer before asking the question.
My job was to pay attention to what I was seeing, notice the patterns, and communicate those changes to her doctor.
If something suddenly feels different with your child, write it down. When did it start? What changed? Is it becoming more frequent or intense? Bring those observations to the clinician managing your child’s medication rather than trying to figure it all out yourself.
We’re still figuring out what works best for our daughter. Maybe this new medication will be the right fit. Maybe we’ll need to make more changes.
For now, we’ll keep observing, asking questions, and working with her doctor.
If you’re walking through ADHD, anxiety, learning differences, or simply the messy reality of parenting a child who experiences the world differently, I hope these stories remind you that you’re not alone.
I share our family’s real experiences—the successes, the setbacks, and everything we’re still figuring out along the way. If that sounds like something you need right now, you’re always welcome to subscribe below for future posts.
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