Photo by Julie Johnson on Unsplash
For me, receiving an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis was a clarifying moment in my life. I was 27 years old in a therapist’s office, initially for Situational Depression. We were through the storm and ready to talk about more everyday things when she asked me if anyone ever suggested that I have ADHD. Which would have been impossible because this was my first therapist so no, no one ever told me I had ADHD. At the most, a psych student in college once described me as having a “flexible mind” – her way of acknowledging I can’t always stay focused. My therapist explained that my energy level, topic bouncing and near-constant interrupting were hallmarks of the disorder. She kicked me out with some homework: research the disorder, especially how it presents in women. She wanted me to report back on whether or not I felt it was accurate.
What I learned between that session and our next one blew my mind. Suddenly all these weird little quirks I thought I had made sense after learning about how ADHD presents in and affects women. In the 90’s when I grew up, the standard ADHD diagnosis reflected how the disorder presented in boys. Boys with the disorder were flagged for help, and girls with the disorder were able to fly under the radar because our symptoms are different.
“Women and girls are less likely to be diagnosed because ADHD presents itself differently physiologically and socially. Young girls may exhibit hyperactivity differently than boys, and girls are also more likely than boys to suffer from inattentive ADHD. The symptoms of the inattentive subtype tend to be less disruptive and obvious than those of hyperactive ADHD. A hyperactive boy who repeatedly bangs on his desk will be noticed before the inattentive girl who daydreams while staring out the window.” (source: Attitude Magazine)
I think having ADHD is an asset as a mom: I’m able to juggle many things at once and have ridiculous bursts of energy to tackle all the daily parenting challenges. When we have people over or are at parties, I am very comfortable pinging around to all the conversations and then circling back to throw some kids in the pool or sword fight some dragons.
As adults, because we are under-diagnosed, a lot of women have quite remarkable coping strategies that enable them to mask some of the annoying “quirks”. For example, a common issue for people who have ADHD is chronic lateness, which I avoid by overcompensating with extreme earliness. I am ALWAYS 30 minutes early for things because if I’m not, I’ll be late. Women reported feeling as though they were “passing for normal” which is absolutely how I would describe how I feel all the time. I have vivid memories from high school where in an effort to not call-out all the answers (which I now know is a form of impulse control) I would redirect my energy into elaborate drawings. I would flip over the pages and draw and draw and draw until the bell rang, so that way I wouldn’t have to stand in the hallway because the teacher threw me out again for repeatedly shouting out the answers. This strategy worked well for me and allowed me to fly further under the radar.
ADHD Positives
A lot of what I read about ADHD was presented as a negative thought and that surprised me. For all the nonsense with the disorder, it has really allowed me some key advantages. I think having ADHD is an asset as a mom: I’m able to juggle many things at once and have ridiculous bursts of energy to tackle all the daily parenting challenges. When we have people over or are at parties, I am very comfortable pinging around to all the conversations and then circling back to throw some kids in the pool or sword fight some dragons. Yes, my house can be a mess, but when I apply my Octopus Arms-style cleaning combined with the energy bursts us ADHD women have, it can also be military style clean – just depends on where my attention goes that day.
Another helpful part of having ADHD is the hyper-focus superpower we have when it comes to projects and topics that interest us. When we aren’t interested yes we tune out, call out and distract ourselves away, but when we are interested in something, we focus intently. I have a profound love of reading and simply cannot let a story go unfinished. This can result in four to five hours of non-stop reading if I like a story. This was absolutely an advantage for me when I worked at a talent agency where I had to read an enormous amount of TV and movie scripts. I had no problem whatsoever bringing a stack of scripts to a pool and spending hours upon hours reading them. On the flipside though, I did have considerable trouble keeping my desk organized and staying detail-oriented enough on administrative tasks because I found them incredibly boring and thanks to the ADHD was ridiculously distracted during those tasks. If I had to update an XCEL grid, something that might take a person without ADHD thirty minutes, I would take days to finish it. That or outsource it to an intern knowing it would bore me into mistakes and take me three times as much time as the intern.
Learning to Embrace My Awesomeness
During my research, I read a lot about how women with ADHD often have profound self-esteem issues. Imposter syndrome came up a lot, which is when successful women feel as though they’re faking it and not deserving of their success. I can relate to this for sure, I’m always feeling like “oh if they really knew what I disaster I am they wouldn’t be so impressed”. But the reality is I do have it going on, I just can’t always recognize that because I feel like I’m constantly in a frenzied state.
This post has been difficult to write for me because I keep getting distracted and walking away from it. Normally when I write I sit down in one session and hyper focus all the way to the end. If I get up and get pulled out of the thought, very often and in this case, I come back and delete the entire thing and rewrite it from scratch. It’s a very frustrating process sometimes. But at the end of the day it gets done, I make it work and for all the distractions ADHD gives me, it’s also blessed me with the creativity to solve my problems.
If you’re a woman who thinks she may have ADHD, I found these resources helpful in my research.
- Decades of failing to recognize ADHD in girls has created a “lost generation” of women (Quartz)
- An ADHD Symptom Checklist for Women (ADDitude)
- It’s Different for Girls with ADHD (The Atlantic)
It is recommended that women who think they have ADHD seek professional treatment so that they can implement healthy coping strategies to help you seek balance. If this article resonates with you, I suggest clicking on the above links for further research. If you’re like me, an ADHD diagnosis is not scary or shameful, it just makes a whole bunch of life events suddenly make sense. And, I think despite its nonsense it’s still more of an asset than a hindrance. Now if you’ll excuse me, I see a shiny object across the room that I must investigate.
