What it's like to be a woman with ADHD (for me)
I recently asked a friend how I'd changed after being diagnosed with ADHD. Her answer was something I had never even realised before:
'Every time we'd agree to meet up, you'd always invite other random people. Then you'd usually be late or leave after 10 minutes to go to another meet up you'd planned at the same time, leaving this awkward group of new people. It felt like you didn't care.'
This is very ironic to hear, because I literally spent every second of my life thinking about other people.
How to make them like me. How to make them happy. How to do things for them so they'd want to hang out. How to say yes to everybody. How to help everyone else but myself. How to have conversations with people without needing to be drunk. I would make friends with literally anybody, and include them in whatever I was doing, because I knew what it was like to feel alone.
This would all fill the hole of loneliness, as I watched the people I'd connected hang out with each other instead. I'd be constantly hit by the feeling of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, not understanding why 'friends' simply cut me out of their lives. Learning about ADHD helped me to understand that I wasn't simply a terrible person that nobody wanted to be friends with, but I was creating these cycles.
Taking responsibility for this meant I could 'name it to tame it'.
This is why I'm running an ADHD retreat for women, because our existence can be incredibly lonely. From the mothers to the teenage girls I've coached, one undercurrent remains the same: you are not enough.
Understanding the 30% developmental delay in executive functioning skills associated with ADHD can empower us to change this narrative.
Here's the top 3 ways that I see them impacting women with ADHD in particular:
1) Self-awareness
ADHD-ers may struggle to be aware of their feelings, needs, and experiences. This has served me well over a lifetime of fashion modelling: my size 8 feet can fit into size 3 shoes. I can be in excruciating pain but not even realise it.
Ignoring our own existence or needs to be a 'human doing' instead of a 'human being' means we might fail to 'put our oxygen mask on first' before helping others. We are the superhuman helpers, the 'yes' people, the ones who don't even think to ask for help - because it would simply be too stressful to even trust somebody else to do it.
However, putting ourselves last means that we don't get to live our lives for us, meaning our happiness might depend on others - which we cannot control. We might find it extremely difficult to think about our goals or advocate for ourselves, which is often what makes us such great advocates for others. We may naturally minimise our own needs until they explode into burnout.
You deserve the same love, care, support, and passion you provide for others.
I wanted to run this retreat to empower women to experience what it's like to put themselves first. To help them process a lifetime of undiagnosed ADHD and beating themselves up, whilst understanding how to harness these strengths and develop this self-awareness to ask for help and live life on their terms.
2) Emotional Regulation
Learning about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria changed everything for me, because I understood that I wasn't just 'making it all up'. I finally accepted that I wasn't just 'dramatic' and 'emotional', as I'd heard throughout my life.
The impact on emotional regulation by ADHD means that we may experience intense emotional pain towards real or perceived rejection. This can drive us to tie ourselves in knots so people will like us, ruminating on whether we said the wrong thing, dissecting text messages and even looks from strangers to find proof that we are not enough.
This isn't straight-cut rejection in the form of being broken up with, for example. This is hyper-vigilance, born from a lifetime of growing up understanding that we are doing things 'wrong', and therefore somehow 'broken'. This is what happens when a neurodivergent person is conditioned with neurotypical standards, such as being able to clean, cook, work in a well paid job, look after others, and be pretty (and thin, obviously) whilst doing it. 'Mask it til you make it' was my life motto - but this is exhausting.
Society tells us to be a 'good girl'. That we should be seen and not heard. That we should have a huge group of girlfriends. Married by 30, with equally perfect children. I was part of this conditioning myself, modelling in Vogue at age 13, and having to strap on a fake baby bump at age 21, whilst also being pressured to lose weight as a size 8 model.
You are enough as you are, and the only person's validation you need is your own. People like you for who you are, not what you can do for them.
I wanted to run this retreat to put this into action: to help women see that they do not need to be saving the world to be allowed to be happy. To help them to see that they are not broken, and they do not need fixing. Once we stop beating ourselves up, life becomes so much easier.
3) Impulsivity
Women with ADHD often tell me how they are not 'hyperactive', until they understand that this can be internal. Having a million thoughts a minute, jumping from problem to problem, overwhelming us like a radio blasting 180 different radio channels at us: this is the hyperactivity and impulsivity elements of ADHD.
The internal monologue that will not shut up. I always skipped P.E as a child, and can easily stay in my flat for days on end as an adult, but my brain might as well be running a constant marathon. I actually impulsively skipped yoga to write this at 8am, after being unable to sleep due to a brain that wouldn't stop thinking.
I firmly believe that this is why 1 in 4 women with ADHD have attempted suicide. A cocktail of impacted self-awareness, emotional regulation and impulsivity, means that ADHD can be extremely dangerous. This is what led me to get diagnosed, because I very nearly became one of those women.
If I had, none of this would exist. My life would have ended at 25, and I never would have known I had ADHD. I never would have published any books, I wouldn't have ever used the qualifications I'd somehow managed to get, I never would have been able to build healthy relationships with people in my life. I wouldn't have been able to stay in a country or job longer than a few months, never would have understood that all of this wasn't my fault. I just would have been gone. 'A waste of potential', maybe.
You deserve to live your life on your terms. You deserve stability, safety, and success. You can choose to work with your brain, instead of against it.
This is why I do what I do. If I'd had to wait 7 years to get an ADHD assessment on the NHS, I would not be here.
Before I was diagnosed, I used to wake up every day wishing that I hadn't. Now I wake up every day wanting to help other people not feel that way. I can't change the past for myself, but I can turn it into purpose. So can you.
If you want to join the retreat of 20 women with ADHD happening October 12-15 in the Lake District, head here.
If you want to join the October 5 minute ADHD a day course with 4 x weekly group coaching sessions with me, head here: https://adhdworks.thinkific.com/courses/make-adhd-work-for-you-october (for everyone!)
To get coaching, head here - or to become an ADHD Works coach in April, head here.