What being a woman with ADHD Really Means

We really do need the doo doo doo doo doo.

Ooh, yeah, like elevator music.

Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle and Vida from ND Out Loud. We're here today talking about what being a woman with ADHD, ADHD, other forms of neurodivergence really means.

Uh, it can be a wild ride.

So you were diagnosed late in life with both, correct?

Yes.

Okay, so I have a very different experience. I was diagnosed as ADHD as a child but mentally retarded otherwise. We didn't diagnose me as, uh, autistic until I was 22, 24, something like that.

It's okay. My sister was diagnosed with autism at 2, but her support needs are more pronounced. I was one— I was an only child for 14 years, and so, um, when you are an only child, you have a lot of direct attention, and people will correct you very quickly. However, I was the precocious child. I was the so grown up for her age child. I was a people pleaser, like all the stereotypical tropes of a late diagnosed woman. Like when you look back on your life, it's like, how did they miss that? But we understand more about the brain now than we did in 1970, 1980. All of that stuff, and like so many women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, I got diagnosed when I was filling out the paperwork for my children. And I was a public school teacher. I was a special ed teacher, and so I knew all of these things.

things.

But sometimes when you're too close to the situation, you don't ever look in. And so when I started going through all of the— this checklist that the, the pediatrician will give you, a checklist when you're trying to go, um, talk to them about ADHD, and that's where it started. And it's like, well, I do all these things, and the ones that I don't do, their dad does. You know, and my my husband though, even though he was not officially diagnosed as a child, his mom would be like, "Oh yeah, he had ADHD. Everybody knew it. We just made him run around in the backyard," or you know, they whipped it out of him, or whatever that people did in the '80s. My parents were in strict denial because I was a gifted and talented child, and I didn't cause problems at school, and I was uh. A star athlete, and I had friends. Like that's always the crux, right? When my own child, when my daughter, who is eighteen in three days, she was we were going through all the stuff to get her diagnosed, and the teachers at her school fought me on it because she had friends. And I'm like that is not the deal breaker. For an ADHD diagnosis.

Don't get me started on any of those things. Those things drive me crazy because I was diagnosed again, really rural community. I was diagnosed as mentally retarded. They just thought because I didn't, I didn't read well, I didn't speak well. If it like I was, I couldn't talk because autistic and or trauma or they, they put all of these things on me. Except for when somebody finally taught me, I got up to grade level from, from not having grade level, no comprehension, no not being able to read all of these things in less than three months, which is the teacher was like, yeah, you were learning the whole entire time. You just didn't have the structure to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together, and this happened so much. And then I got my son diagnosed. When he was like, we knew from day one something was— holy crud. I mean, day one home from the hospital, I'm like, wow, what is up with this child? This child is crazy. And then obviously as a toddler, it was even worse. And it got him diagnosed at 5 years old. And I was like, I'm filling out the paperwork. My husband and I are filling it out together. And he goes, you do that. Oh, you do that. Oh, I do this. Oh, you do that. Oh, I do this. Like between the two of us. Who, of course, being the age that we are, just weren't diagnosed as kids because we were— now me, I was the one that sat in the back of the classroom they didn't bother with, but my husband was extremely gifted and talented, like genius. And he's been tested now and he is genius-level intellect, and nobody had to teach him nothing. He just learned how to do things on his own and in 2 seconds flat. And so, so he was— they ignored him because he was the perfect kid. He didn't make anybody mad. He never got in trouble. He never did any of the things.

Well, and one of the articles that has come out in the last week, there's been tons of stuff about women and ADHD in the media, but one of the articles is talking about this surge in late diagnosis in women. Is raising a lot of concerns in the doctor and scientific community. Like, there were a lot of misdiagnoses. So firstly, yes, there is a lot of misdiagnosis. Secondly, I am going to use my autistic superpower, and I'm just going to believe that everyone had the best intentions and was working with the information they had at the time.

Mm-hmm.

So yes, it is concerning. But if we continue this pattern, even though we know more about the brain and we know that women exhibit ADHD and autism differently, if we continue the pattern of not diagnosing when it's there or misdiagnosing, that is the problem. When you know what you're— what should happen and you're not doing it anyway, that is the problem. I think Maya Angelou says, when we know better, we do better. And so we know better now, so let's do better. Let's, let's take care of our neurodivergent community regardless if there are— of their gender, right? Things are exhibited different ways, and there's all kinds of Subtle ways that these things manifest, um, in different people. But people have this stereotypical, like, boy— and this is from an educator standpoint, people, when you go through all your educator classes and stuff— the stereotypical boy that can't sit still and has outbursts and messes with his neighbors and stuff like that, those are the kids that get the most attention. Uh, those are the ones that get the diagnosis. Those are the kids that have a support system around them because they are constantly in trouble. They are constantly the squeaky wheel and—

Causing the chaos. They're the chaos generators.

Right. You can be a bad student, but if you are quiet and complacent and smile, you will get so much less attention. Well, I know it.

I think the other part of it, and this is part of like our mission here, is that when you have the right support structures around you, or scaffolding as Vida says, the support systems around you, you don't notice the ADHD, the AuDHD, the autism, the, the whatever. As much because we're— by having those correct supports around you, you decrease the overwhelm that goes with being ADHD, AuDHD, whatever. So in school, we have that for what, 10 hours a day, 8 hours a day, something like that?

Yeah. Okay. So when I used to— I, I was a teacher and then I When I got my master's degree, I worked in the behavior department. And so we would look at behavior incidences in school and try to figure out what was going on. Were they undiagnosed? Were they hungry? Were they homeless? Was it a teacher-student conflict? What was it? And I can put behavior incidents on a spreadsheet. I can show you when they occur normally. How often they occur at different times of day, when the weather changes, when it's a full moon. I have data coming out my ears, and I'm going to tell you that most behavior incidences happen after a transition, and more so in the afternoon.

Mm-hmm.

Because they are done. They've masked enough and they're out of spoons. They're out of anything in their toolbox.

So again, why do women get diagnosed late? What, what being ADHD as a woman means? Why, why is this coming up now? We know better. One, better diagnostic tools. Two, you don't have the support systems around you that you did in elementary school and even in college. And while college isn't quite to the extent that elementary school and high school is, There's still some support systems around you that you can utilize, and it comes natural to you because you had them in school. But as an adult, we don't have those things. We don't have a village. We don't have the things that we need, and that's why our ADHD, ADHD, whatever has become this huge, unscalable mountain to us.

I also think that women as adults, especially women that end up getting diagnosed because of their kids. I'm filling out the paperwork. I think adult women that are on a self-healing journey advocate for themselves more than they did when they were a 10-year-old girl sitting in a classroom, because we're afraid of rocking the boat as a kid. We're afraid of being another— the other, the bad kid, the problem kid. We're afraid of not people pleasing. And then, you know, when you get into your 40s, you're like, I don't care. Like, if you don't like me or I rocked the boat, like, I have auditory processing issues, so I'm going to need you to repeat that, you know, like, whatever. We'll advocate for ourselves more. And even advocating for ourselves, even being extremely open about my diagnosis if people ask and things like that, my mom still has trouble processing the fact That I am an ADHD woman.

And a lot of older parents see it as a failure on their part. We just had somebody ask a question. How do you navigate people that when they get overstimulated show anger, especially men? Okay, so this is overstimulated people don't have the spoons to not get angry, not get frustrated, not whatever the thing is. So you have to remove overwhelm. When you're overstimulated, angry, I don't care if male, female, whatever, it's removing levels of overwhelm. The more overwhelm you remove from other areas in life, the more you're able to deal with this area, this thing that's the problem right now.

So first off, make sure you're safe, right? That's 100%. You have to keep yourself safe. Secondly, like, if this is your husband, spouse, brother, Adults and whatever. The things that work for your little person work for your big people. So change your location, change your temperature. They are having trouble regulating. Is it hot where you're at? Because y'all need to go someplace that it's cooler. No one is ever going to calm down when it's 100 degrees.

Just not gonna happen.

You know. If you can't get— if you can't get away from the heat wherever you are, get them a glass of ice water, you know. Uh, but it's better if you can change your location because it breaks the cycle of whatever they're going through. They have to transition to a new location. You change your temperature, it helps them start regulating their, um, their vagus nerve because of the cooler temperature. And activities sometimes help. So a lot of times I'll, I'll ask my husband, I'm like, would you like to go for a walk with me?

Even just fidgeting with something, handing them something to fidget with. And I don't care what it is— petting a dog, hugging a dog, picking up a cat, uh, playing with a fidget, getting an ice cube and playing with it. And you're like, why an ice cube? Because that actually helps reset your nervous system.

I also saw something the other day and it was so freaking cool. It does lots of things, right? You have to change your location, you have to change your temperature. But people got a bowl of ice out of their ice machine and they went outside and they threw it at the sidewalk. So they broke the ice, like they let their anger and their frustration out. This was a physical activity, but it was cold in their hands because they had to touch the ice. They changed their location. I was just like, I want to do that right now. Exactly.

There, there's so many ways to decrease the overstimulation. And, and part of that is, again, structure, support systems, having somebody else who can, who can repeat that to you. Yesterday, I had a disaster and, and I, I had to look to Vida and Gina and other people Um, in my life to help me figure out what I needed today because I couldn't process for my own brain. I could process for your brain all day long. I'm good at that. But I needed somebody else to tell me what I needed to do. And I ended up taking a 2-hour nap because I needed— I just, I, I needed to disconnect and sleep in order to recover from the disaster. So what having a support structure that is not you and stop relying on myself was one of the biggest things that helped me become less overstimulated, less overwhelmed all of the time, because I don't have to rely on myself to figure out what I need. Somebody else—

Right.

Who understands how my brain works. And, and it's not always necessarily the going to an ADHD coach to figure out how my brain works. Sometimes it's going to my bestie who's like, do you Did you drink your coffee today? Have you had some water today, Danielle? Just—

Are you going to take a nap this afternoon?

Right. And sometimes it's just these simple things, but it's understanding that looking— somebody else is better placed to help us get out of that overstimulation and overwhelm than we are 90% of the time. And go to another neurodivergent person because another neurodivergent person is Your ideal person.

Yes.

Don't go to a Facebook group. And I'm just saying that because they're overwhelming. They're loud. They get too many opinions and things. And then you get overwhelmed with decision fatigue and all of that. You need somebody who you get intimate with.

Yeah.

You need somebody who you get intimate with, who gets to know you, who gets to know that— Danielle, how many cups of coffee have you had today? Danielle, have you taken a nap today?

And I think so many of us as neurodivergent adults, um, one, we can sense condescension, right? We definitely don't want you to treat us like a baby. And I think that's where a lot of people get hung up with the emotional regulation part because they feel like they're being managed. And so when you are helping people de-escalate, you have to be extremely cognizant of how you're going about it.

And, and some of my clients, I'll be like, oh man, I'm so sorry you're, you're struggling today. Hey, have you taken a minute to just redirect yourself, change your location, change your temperature? Have you done that today? Has that— will that help? Oh man, that's not working. Sometimes it's just making suggestions. Sometimes it's Vita going, Danielle, Chill.

Yeah.

Sometimes we need somebody harsher. Sometimes we need a gentle, and sometimes we need somebody to go, uh huh, uh huh. Go drink some water. Just let's let's skip to the end here. You need, and again, that's where like a coach specifically is that intimate who gets to know your brain intimately, and you intimately, and your habits intimately to help you reset.

Absolutely.

So if you have questions and you're like, I don't understand, I don't understand why I'm so frustrated, I never had this much trouble before, I knew I had ADHD, come to us. We have so many pieces of information for you. Come ask questions. Join us at ndoutloud.com. Uh, you have so many pieces of, uh, resources you can find from us. Just ask a question, DM us, Leave a comment, leave a message. We're happy to help at any time. And pretty soon we've got new ways for us to be able to support you coming out, and, and we're learning new software so that we can support you even better. So if you have questions, please ask. Have an amazing, amazing day and know that you aren't alone. That's the one thing I want you to take away from every single video. You aren't alone. There's a whole entire community of us. Come be crazy with us and be ND out loud. Have a good one, everyone. Bye, guys.