I’m a late diagnosee- and yes to all the above, with the caveat that menopause has a significant impact on women’s ADHD. Hormonal changes -our chemistry-can intensify our ADHD, and now, FINALLY, researchers are actually studying how our ADHD works. So it’s not just a series of “aha moments” as we get older. For many of us the onset of perimenopause then menopause exacerbates our ADHD, making it really hard to mask any longer. And that usually occurs in our 40’s.
Your article is a great help in laying out what female ADHD feels like and how it presents so thank you!
I tick all the boxes here. Two sons diagnosed and I did months of research before agreeing to try meds for the oldest. And I absolutely found my own life in that research. At age 33, in 2003, I talked to the psychiatrist that diagnosed my sons and was brushed off. I talked to another and was told, "You don't have ADHD because you're sitting in a chair and talking to me." It was finally my family doctor that listened and suggested meds, because his son had Inattentive type and he believed me. Stimulant meds changed my life for the better. One thing I try to inform late-diagnosed adults, especially women, is there will very likely be a period of extreme grief after their diagnosis. I don't remember how long it lasted for me but it was at least a year. Grief for the person I could have been had I had the support I desperately needed. I'm tearing up now, remembering that period of my life.
I was also diagnosed very late in life (62) and by my GP. The ADHD/Depression combo. Shortly after I learned that I learned that one of my best friends had the same combo. He was also diagnosed in his 60s. Then a woman I worked with shared her diagnosis with me. Her experience was exactly like the one described, she recognized the symptoms after her children’s diagnosis. All of us had the same should have could have regrets. I responded well to medication but it still took at least a year to learn to leave the guilt behind (most days). The hunter farmer framework really helps me understand things better and time my medication and activities for a better match.
Another powerful writing, Thom, with this focus particularly on women.
I was writing a post, pretty into it, when my phone screen slipped to the right and disappeared.
But, also, All on the autism spectrum have been misunderstood, mislabeled, LABELED in itself a violation.
All on the spectrum are here to re-orient the world to our deeper connective intelligences: the empathy, intuition, thinking in patterns, Thom lists, and the others, for the world now is stuck and suffering from relying on only one of our talents, which is linear thinking, using numbers and letters only, to define our societies. This one focus only leads to separation, and a repeating cycle of decline and failure.
The reason: that faulty, increasingly narrowing focus creates structures and systems that lack intuitive wholeness and well-being, along with beauty, and every other admirable quality which lives inherently within us.
We are all here to create a thriving humanity, individually freed of any wrong labels, each to then create following our personal path, or with another, complimentarily with their orientation.
The sadness and heaviness in the waking to who we are...and, have always been...let this slowly move to finally, joy, for that is our birthright.
ADD for all on the spectrum: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Asperger's syndrome, and autism RE-DEFINED is: Attention Differently Directed, NOT Attention Deficit Disorder.
(I believe you made a recommendation for me, Thom, to another. If so, thank you.)
YouTube talk: Spectrum Learning Differences, Not Disorders. 1:10.
I’m a late diagnosee- and yes to all the above, with the caveat that menopause has a significant impact on women’s ADHD. Hormonal changes -our chemistry-can intensify our ADHD, and now, FINALLY, researchers are actually studying how our ADHD works. So it’s not just a series of “aha moments” as we get older. For many of us the onset of perimenopause then menopause exacerbates our ADHD, making it really hard to mask any longer. And that usually occurs in our 40’s.
Your article is a great help in laying out what female ADHD feels like and how it presents so thank you!
I tick all the boxes here. Two sons diagnosed and I did months of research before agreeing to try meds for the oldest. And I absolutely found my own life in that research. At age 33, in 2003, I talked to the psychiatrist that diagnosed my sons and was brushed off. I talked to another and was told, "You don't have ADHD because you're sitting in a chair and talking to me." It was finally my family doctor that listened and suggested meds, because his son had Inattentive type and he believed me. Stimulant meds changed my life for the better. One thing I try to inform late-diagnosed adults, especially women, is there will very likely be a period of extreme grief after their diagnosis. I don't remember how long it lasted for me but it was at least a year. Grief for the person I could have been had I had the support I desperately needed. I'm tearing up now, remembering that period of my life.
I was also diagnosed very late in life (62) and by my GP. The ADHD/Depression combo. Shortly after I learned that I learned that one of my best friends had the same combo. He was also diagnosed in his 60s. Then a woman I worked with shared her diagnosis with me. Her experience was exactly like the one described, she recognized the symptoms after her children’s diagnosis. All of us had the same should have could have regrets. I responded well to medication but it still took at least a year to learn to leave the guilt behind (most days). The hunter farmer framework really helps me understand things better and time my medication and activities for a better match.
Another powerful writing, Thom, with this focus particularly on women.
I was writing a post, pretty into it, when my phone screen slipped to the right and disappeared.
But, also, All on the autism spectrum have been misunderstood, mislabeled, LABELED in itself a violation.
All on the spectrum are here to re-orient the world to our deeper connective intelligences: the empathy, intuition, thinking in patterns, Thom lists, and the others, for the world now is stuck and suffering from relying on only one of our talents, which is linear thinking, using numbers and letters only, to define our societies. This one focus only leads to separation, and a repeating cycle of decline and failure.
The reason: that faulty, increasingly narrowing focus creates structures and systems that lack intuitive wholeness and well-being, along with beauty, and every other admirable quality which lives inherently within us.
We are all here to create a thriving humanity, individually freed of any wrong labels, each to then create following our personal path, or with another, complimentarily with their orientation.
The sadness and heaviness in the waking to who we are...and, have always been...let this slowly move to finally, joy, for that is our birthright.
ADD for all on the spectrum: ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, Asperger's syndrome, and autism RE-DEFINED is: Attention Differently Directed, NOT Attention Deficit Disorder.
(I believe you made a recommendation for me, Thom, to another. If so, thank you.)
YouTube talk: Spectrum Learning Differences, Not Disorders. 1:10.
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