Women, Girls & ADHD: talking to Sky News
Did you know that 1 in 4 women with ADHD have attempted suicide, or that it’s 5x more likely to be diagnosed in boys than girls? Many people automatically think of hyperactive boys when they hear about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - myself included, when I was diagnosed at age 25. 4 years on, now working an ADHD Coach & author, I talk to women and girls every day who share my story, after years of needlessly struggling in the dark by themselves.
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition related to symptoms of inattention (poor concentration & memory), impulsivity (in emotion, thought & action), and hyperactivity - both physical and mental. I can easily go a month without exercising, but my brain can’t go a minute without exploding with thoughts.
As a child, I was literally always falling asleep in class. It was only from writing, ‘ADHD: an A to Z’, that I learned this can be a symptom of ADHD - where your nervous system disengages from boredom. This might just sound awkward in a classroom setting, but how about whilst driving a car? I’ve crashed every single car I’ve driven, fortunately deciding to stop by myself after writing off the third, before I ended up killing myself or somebody else.
This was before I was diagnosed with ADHD. Before then, I had also experienced severe depression, eating disorders, self-harm, anxiety, lived on chocolate, binge drunk alcohol to solve my problems, and couldn’t sit down long enough to apply for a job. I knew the way I was living was not normal, but it felt like someone else had a remote control to my brain - I couldn’t trust myself with being a functional adult.
From the outside, I had a law degree, straight A’s in my A Levels (without cheating, as my economics teacher had asked the entire class in surprise), and was living a picture-perfect life on Instagram. When I finally tried to get help myself, doctors told me I was fine, because I had a law degree. They said maybe I just had ‘emotional problems’ and should go to therapy. I’d leave therapy sessions after speaking non-stop for 55 minutes, cementing myself into another week of ruminating on the past.
By the time I’d decided to pay £400 to see a private psychiatrist, blaming myself for not being pushy enough, I’d Google-diagnosed myself with about 6 different mental illnesses. ADHD was not one of them. I didn’t even have a GP at the time, let alone a stable job, place to live, or support network of friends and family. I had given up on living and this was my last hope - but it shouldn’t have had to reach that point for me to get help.
Since being diagnosed and learning about ADHD, my life has changed beyond recognition - I have all of these things and more, in being able to understand and accept my neurodiverse brain. I was able to start living my life like everybody else I knew.
I think part of the reason it was missed in me and other women or girls for so long is due to:
a) ‘untraditional symptoms’ - like overthinking, wildly strong mood swings reacting to the situation (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), an addiction to screens, hyper-focusing, suicidal ideation, indecisiveness, daydreaming, and so on. Medical professionals are more likely to associate these symptoms with other conditions, especially if a girl isn’t physically hyperactive.
b) ADHD being masked by co-existing conditions or poor lifestyle conditions - there’s a strong crossover with Autism, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, self-harm, and pre-menstrual syndrome (as it’s strongly affected by estrogen). ADHD brains seek dopamine, which can make them more susceptible to addictions and poor choices - an estimated 30% of prisoners have ADHD.
c) communication styles - whereas men tend to be more direct, women tend to be more prone to people pleasing and saying what they think people want to hear - especially ones with ADHD. If a doctor said I was fine, I’d end up agreeing with them, until I left their office. It can be very difficult to insist that you need help and to get that help - especially if you feel awkward asking for help in the first place, as many people with ADHD do.
d) situational-aspects of ADHD - due to symptoms showing up differently across a persons’ life, they may think they’re fine because they can get good grades, or because they’re super clean, for example. However, it often shows up in areas where we’d least expect it. For example, I could do a month’s worth of work in a day when I worked in law, but filling in an excel spreadsheet that should take a couple of minutes would take me an entire week, sending me into a spiral of anxiety.
I wrote ADHD: an A to Z after my GP told me about the 7 year waiting list for ADHD assessments on the NHS. I couldn’t believe that this was possible, just thinking that I’d be dead if I hadn’t been diagnosed - so what are other people meant to do that can’t afford to pay thousands of pounds? Even after then, what happens if their GP refuses their diagnosis?
Learning about ADHD and how your brain operates is all it takes. Frustrated by how useless much of the information online was, I wrote a book compiling the strategies I’d developed to handle things like concentrating, studying, and organisation, and the ones I’d learned from having ADHD coaching & learning everything I could about it.
I published it a year ago today, and to see it featured on Sky News is pretty surreal. You don’t necessarily need medication or a diagnosis to get help, but just information, understanding and self-compassion. If I’d read this book as a child, I would have been able to avoid a lot of the unhappiness and confusion I experienced in trying to navigate this world by myself. Don’t stop until you get the answers that feel right to you - you deserve them.
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