When I was diagnosed with ADHD at 48, it didn’t feel like a beginning. It felt like an explanation.
For decades, I had built a life and career in coaching, counseling, and supporting others—yet underneath that competence was a quieter, more complicated reality. I lived with constant mental noise, inconsistent focus, and a persistent sense that I was working harder than others just to stay in step. I had developed systems, habits, and coping strategies that allowed me to function—and often excel—but they came at a cost. The cost was often emotional dysregulation that impacted my personal and professional relationships: one divorce and some work challenges.
The Diagnosis Reframed Everything
Suddenly, the patterns made sense. The bursts of creativity alongside periods of paralysis. The ability to deeply connect with people, paired with difficulty managing administrative tasks. The intensity, the sensitivity, the drive—and the exhaustion. What I had once interpreted as personal shortcomings began to resolve into something far more accurate: a different neurocognitive wiring.
Like many adults diagnosed later in life, I experienced a mix of relief and grief. Relief, because there was a name for what I had been navigating alone. Grief, because I wondered what might have been different if I had understood this earlier. I had long suffered with low level depression that led to worsening symptoms and challenges as I aged. As an example, I often wondered, if I had had the ADHD diagnosis earlier in life, would my depressive symptoms have been less severe? How might I have been supported differently? What would I have told my younger self, who worked so hard to appear “together”?
Menopause Amplified the Struggle
But the story doesn’t end with diagnosis. ADHD is not something that gets “resolved.” It evolves—and at times, it intensifies.
For me, that became especially clear during menopause. The hormonal shifts didn’t just affect mood or energy; they amplified my ADHD symptoms in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Focus became more elusive, memory less reliable, and the systems I had relied on for years no longer worked in the same way. It was disorienting—and, at times, discouraging.
Research shows I’m far from alone. Studies confirm that declining estrogen levels during perimenopause disrupt dopamine and serotonin—the brain chemicals central to ADHD regulation—leading to worse inattention, executive dysfunction, and emotional dysregulation. For many women, symptoms peak between 40-59, often unmasking ADHD for the first time or making medications less effective. Over 60% report this transition as when ADHD most disrupts daily life.
A New Professional Focus
This experience clarified my path forward. I began to see how many women, particularly high-functioning professionals, navigate this intersection of ADHD and midlife transition—often without adequate language, support, or recognition. Women who had spent decades compensating, only to find those strategies breaking down. Women questioning their competence, when in fact their neurobiology was shifting.
My work has increasingly focused on supporting professionals with ADHD and/or high-functioning autism, with a growing emphasis on midlife adults—particularly women—whose challenges are often overlooked or misunderstood. These are individuals who are capable, insightful, and deeply committed, yet operating in environments that don’t always align with how their brains work best.
These talented, dedicated and highly intelligent woman don’t need to be fixed. They need translation, alignment, and strategy. My coaching focuses on how attention, energy, and motivation truly work, not on idealised versions. We build systems that are sustainable, not aspirational. We work with strengths, rather than constantly compensating for perceived deficits. And we address the emotional layers: the years of self-doubt, shame, the internalized narratives, and the quiet erosion of confidence that can come from feeling out of sync. My sessions include cognitive reframing, challenging limiting beliefs and creating an ability to pause before reacting, to name a few tools in my toolbelt. I lean into my doctorate degree in mental health counselling frequently and have grown my understanding of neuroscience and continue to bring my learnings to each session.
Turning Challenge into Contribution
There is something uniquely powerful about being supported by someone who not only understands the theory but has also lived experience—across different life stages.
My ADHD did not derail my career—it shaped it. At 48, I received a diagnosis. In my 60s, I continue to navigate its complexities, especially as life changes like menopause bring new challenges. But I also see, more clearly than ever, how this journey has allowed me to align my work with those I am best equipped to support.
If there is one message I would share, it is this: understanding yourself is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing process—and at any stage of life, it can become a powerful foundation not just for coping, but for contribution.
ADHD was never something I had considered in my own life. Despite being an experienced mental health professional, like others, I held outdated, stereotypical ideas about what ADHD was. It wasn’t until I began working with women who were being diagnosed later in life that something shifted. I started to understand ADHD differently.
Over time, parts of these women’s stories began to feel unexpectedly familiar. I remember the exact moment it clicked. I was mid-session, helping a client navigate the very real challenge of actually finishing laundry. I was sharing strategies, my strategies, when something stopped me. Why did I have so many personal workarounds for this and the other struggles that these women were coming to me with?
Even then, I doubted myself. I did well in school. I got good grades. Never caused trouble; a classic overachiever by every outward measure. Sure, I was regularly told to stop talking in class, slow down speaking, stop distracting my friends while they were trying to work… but that was just my personality. Right?
Getting an ADHD diagnosis changed that story entirely. It didn’t break anything. It explained everything.
An Incomplete Picture
For a long time, ADHD was understood through one narrow lens, which left a lot of people out.
Research now shows that ADHD presents very differently across genders, and the common presentation in girls and women has historically been missed. Rather than overt hyperactivity, it often looks like inattentiveness mistaken for daydreaming, or a mind that never settles even when the body is still.
Hyperactivity exists, but it’s turned inward. It’s an emotional intensity and a sensitivity to rejection that leaves women being told, and feeling, they’re “too much” or “too sensitive.” Difficulties with time management, follow-through, or organization are often misinterpreted as laziness or a lack of effort. Over time, this can lead to anxiety, self-doubt, and a sense of falling short, despite a great deal of effort being invested.
These symptoms are no less disruptive but they are quieter. Quiet struggles are easy to miss.
The Exhaustion of Masking
One reason women with ADHD fly under the radar for so long is that many become extraordinarily skilled at masking; adapting, compensating, and hiding their difficulties, often even from themselves.
Masking does not always look like disorganization. It can often look like being highly organized, or dependable because you arrive early and complete tasks immediately.
However, this is done out of a concern that things will otherwise be forgotten. It’s over preparing or stopping your day to make that one appointment.
This was me. I was super organized, everything was done immediately. I was always on time, usually early. From the outside, I looked completely capable and put together.
What no one could see was what it cost. I was hypervigilant about tasks and time in a way that consumed me, leaving little room for anything else. What people saw as capability was often survival, masking, and compensation running at full speed, all the time.
I had no idea how much I had been masking. The overachieving, the strategies, the systems quietly built around difficulties I never thought to question. It had all felt so normal, I didn’t know if could be anything different.
When masking works well enough, ADHD can remain undetected for decades. A new job, a baby, perimenopause; any major transition can finally overload the coping strategies holding everything together. Suddenly the system breaks down, and many women are left wondering: what happened? What’s wrong with me?
Why Transitions Like the Postpartum Period and Midlife Matter
Many women begin to question ADHD during periods of significant change, such as becoming a parent or entering perimenopause.
These transitions often involve shifts in roles, responsibilities, and routines, as well as biological changes. Estrogen plays an important role in dopamine regulation; a system closely tied to attention, motivation, and emotional regulation. When estrogen levels fluctuate or decline, these processes can become more difficult to manage.
As a result, focus may feel harder to sustain, memory less reliable, and emotional responses more intense.
For women who have spent years unknowingly relying on coping strategies they didn't even know they had, these transitions can be the moment those strategies simply stop working and the woman who always managed, suddenly can't.
What Diagnosis Offers
For many women, receiving an ADHD diagnosis is not about adding a label, it is about gaining understanding. For me, it didn’t change who I was. It changed how I understood myself.
Experiences that had once been interpreted as personal shortcomings began to make more sense in a different context. The constant effort, the systems, the workarounds, none of it had been random.
This shift in understanding often brings a sense of relief. It allows for greater self-compassion and opens the door to strategies that are better aligned with how the brain actually works.
Alongside the challenges, ADHD also brings strengths, such as creativity, curiosity, the ability to solve problems quickly, or to make connections others might not immediately see. Many of us are natural outside-the-box thinkers, with an ability to approach problems in creative and unconventional ways. I honestly believe ADHD strengths enable me to be a better therapist. I can often see the connections others miss.
Awareness of how ADHD presents in women is helping more people find clarity later in life, make sense of their experiences, and most importantly, find ways of working with their brain, rather than against it.
Bio
Melinda Aspell is a Registered Social Worker and the founder of Selene Therapy & Wellness, a virtual practice specializing in ADHD in adults, perimenopause, and women's mental health. With over 20 years of experience and advanced certifications in both ADHD (ADHD-CCSP) and menopause mental health (MMHCP), she brings both clinical depth and lived experience to her work, including her own late ADHD diagnosis.
I grew up knowing I was a little different.
I was the kid who hyper-fixated on animals, who felt everything deeply, sometimes to a fault. I was endlessly creative, always finding new ways to express myself. And I talked—a lot. Fast, excited, constant. At three years old, it was seen as cute and endearing. Adults laughed, calling me bright and expressive.
But as I got older, those same traits became a problem.
What was once “cute” turned into “disruptive.” My energy, my voice, my constant need to engage with the world around me started to be seen as distracting. I was often sent out of the classroom for walks—not as support, but as a way to give the teacher a break from the talkative kid. At first, it felt like a small thing. But over time, it added up. I was missing more and more class, falling further behind without even realizing why.
Being a girl with ADHD made it even easier to overlook. My behaviours were brushed off as quirks, personality traits, or things I just needed to “try harder” to fix. Instead of support, I got comments: lazy, distracted, not applying herself.
Eventually, I started to believe them.
I remember sitting in Grade 1 and thinking I wasn’t going to amount to anything—that I just wasn’t as capable as the other kids in my class. Grade 1. When I think about that now, it breaks my heart. No child should carry that kind of belief so early in life.
I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 14, after a few visits to the guidance counsellor’s office, my counsellor noticed a pattern with my transcript comments from past teachers and I was referred to doctors for testing. I can’t fully put into words what that moment felt like. For the first time, I felt seen, not as the “problem,” not as the narrative others had created, but as myself. A compassionate, creative girl who was struggling in a world that wasn’t built for the way her brain worked.
That diagnosis changed everything.
Over the next few years, I began to learn coping strategies. With support, structure, and an Individual Education Plan (IEP), my grades improved dramatically—from a 65 average to a 92. But more importantly, my self-worth began to heal. I started to understand that I wasn’t incapable—I just needed different tools.
As I got older, though, my ADHD didn’t disappear. It evolved.
What once looked like fidgeting, talking, and classroom disruptions started to show up in new ways: job hopping, feeling constantly unsatisfied, struggling with consistency, and being outspoken- Again, sometimes to a fault. I still had that same energy, that same fire, but without the right outlet, it often worked against me.
And once again, I found myself doubting who I was and what I was capable of.
Eventually, I made the decision to explore medication. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the right one for me. Combined with the coping strategies I had developed over the years, it changed so much. For the first time, I felt like I could channel my energy instead of being controlled by it.
I learned how to adapt—not by changing who I was, but by understanding myself better.
And somewhere along the way, something shifted.
I stopped seeing my ADHD as something that made me “less than,” and started recognizing the beauty in it. My passion, my empathy, my energy—those things didn’t hold me back. They pushed me forward. They became my strength.
Today, I’ve found my career path and passion in not for profit and education, and I’m a mother to two beautiful daughters, both of whom also have ADHD. And that has given my journey an even deeper purpose.
I’m determined not just to succeed for myself, but to show them what’s possible for people like us.
I want them to grow up knowing that just in because things might be harder, just because they may struggle in ways others don’t, it does not mean they are any less capable. It does not mean they won’t succeed!
The ADHD diagnosis of a child is often a pivotal moment within families. Due to the heritability of ADHD, a child’s diagnosis often prompts parents to think back on their own experiences. Years spent wondering about differences may finally start to make sense as we start thinking about previously undiagnosed ADHD. This recognition may bring clarity and validation while also evoking complex emotions such as grief, shame, and questions about identity. Parents may find themselves processing their child’s diagnosis and struggles along with their own; when adults or children are diagnosed, it is often from a deficit-based lens. Difficult emotional responses to diagnosis may be complicated as we wonder what might have been, if we had been understood and supported while young. Internalized messages shaped by educational and family systems that framed differences as “laziness”, “disorganization”, and so on may intensify parental reactions to both parent and child diagnoses. Parents may question past decisions, or worry about repeating harmful patterns. Recognizing grief and complex emotions as part of a normal response to late-diagnosed ADHD helps support identity reconstruction, and creates space for sensitive parenting.
Increasing parents’ self-compassion plays a central role in acknowledging past challenges without shifting into self-blame, and can improve parent-child healthy attachment and communication. As parents learn to self-regulate, they can model co-regulation, boundary setting, and self-advocacy for their children. This might look like recognizing a need to take a break when overwhelmed, using fidgets to ensure we meet our needs for movement, and modelling language around movement breaks at school. Another area for deep connection with your child could be sharing your special interests with children and learning about theirs. Among mine are neurodivergence and bees, while my son has an insatiable curiosity about nuclear disasters and Dogman. Engaging in creative activities that build on your and your child’s need to work with curiosity and tangents, rather than masking and trying to fit into a world not always made for neurodivergent minds and bodies, is also healthy modelling of our intrinsic value and capacity for intense focus.
Once you learn more about ADHD and accommodations, such as those listed by CADDAC, you may become a powerful ally for your child and finally learn to work with your own unique strengths and gifts. It is not always easy; I personally had to move my child to another school after nearly a year of daily office visits because my neurodivergent child, who was four at the time, could not sit still. My own experiences led me to spend twenty years as a special education resource teacher and, now, as a psychotherapist focused on supporting others with ADHD. What was once criticized can truly become a source of compassion and connection in our family and community. Late-identified parental ADHD presents both challenges and opportunities; when grief, shame, and intergenerational patterns are acknowledged and addressed, diagnosis can serve as a catalyst for repair and resilience.
My name is Veronica, and I was a working mom to a 5-year-old little guy on the autism spectrum. My days were busy… 6am wake-ups to get lunches made and clothes ready. Drop-offs at school, driving to work, working all day, picking up my son, heading to therapies, then finally home by 7pm. And all of this seemed reasonable. That was my life. I was burning the candle at both ends and didn’t even think it was abnormal. That was until we were all forced to stop and sit still during the pandemic.
Dylan had just started junior kindergarten in September. He was hyperactive and out of his normal routine — and working a full-time virtual job with a neurodivergent 5-year-old who refused to sit in front of an iPad for virtual school? Nearly impossible.
When I was home with him, I would set up my laptop on the kitchen table next to his iPad and say “Let’s do some work!” to try to get him to sit for even a few minutes to participate in the daily lessons. But nothing held his attention. So, I would leave the iPad on so that he could still hear the teacher and kids, as he played in the living room, lining up his toys or colouring.
Part of my job was to host virtual orientations for new employees on Mondays. This became the most challenging day to deal with Dylan. I would try to set him up in his room with the TV on, playing a movie he liked, his iPad charged and loaded with games, books, blocks and toys he loved, and try to convince him to ‘play’ for the 2.5 hours I needed to present. You can imagine, this didn’t work out as planned.
One time, he stripped down to nothing and walked into the background of my virtual orientation. I quickly saw his little butt reflected in my screen and turned off my camera… but forgot to mute myself. Thankfully, these orientations are a two-person team and my coworker quickly jumped on and covered the orientation while I tried to get Dylan out of the room, but because I forgot to mute myself, they could hear me yelling at him to go put on some clothes and go back to his room. Not my best moment. And this is where I think it all started to crack for me.
As the days went on, I became anxious and heightened. I would snap at anything, and I would get upset easily. I started avoiding doing household tasks because it all seemed like too much. I didn’t know how to sit still for too long. I often went on hour-long drives with Dylan, just to get us out of the house.
And during this time, I developed a BFRB (body-focused repetitive behaviour) where I picked at my face, legs, and bit my cuticles raw. I spoke to my doctor and she prescribed an antidepressant. But the skin-picking was truly bad, and I decided to start a 6-week therapy group for BFRBs.
One of the causes, the psychotherapist mentioned while explaining what might cause someone to skin-pick was, ADHD as a potential cause. She said that there was high comorbidity between the two, explained by the need for stimulation, poor impulse control, and that it could be driven by dopamine deficiency.
This piqued my curiosity.
When my son was diagnosed at 3.5 years old, I started doing a lot of research into autism and its causes. Genetics was one of the main drivers, and this made sense to me. My brother was diagnosed with ADD when he was just 5 years old and started medication, as he was a super hyperactive child. But I was not like that. I wasn’t hyperactive. I did, however, always talk too much in class and get in trouble for it. I would not sit still (always shaking my leg) and usually needed something to fidget with during lessons. I was forgetful and disorganised. And I was always “too sensitive” according to everyone around. I started projects and never finished them. But I could get hyper-fixated on a topic and learn everything about it. I hated being called on to read out loud or answer a question in class. All things I now know are ADHD traits in girls.
I asked my psychotherapist if I could book a separate appointment to discuss this with her.
At that appointment, we chatted about my past experiences, and she completed the DSM-5 questionnaire for ADHD, and guess what? She concluded that I did, in fact, qualify for a diagnosis of ADHD.
It did take a long time to get an official diagnosis. But eventually, I was weaned off the antidepressant and started taking Vyvanse. And this medication changed everything for me.
For the first time in my whole life, my mind was quiet. I cried the first time I took it.
For so many years, I would describe to people that my brain was like a computer with multiple tabs open, all running at the same time. And now, I would take my medication and I would be able to focus on just one task. And complete it. And had the motivation to do it.
It was insane to me how much of my life I realised I was struggling. Masking. Just getting by because I had to.
Getting diagnosed as an adult is something that seems to be happening to a lot of people recently, from what I can read and see on social media. People telling stories of years of struggles and the relief they felt once they knew exactly why they were the way they were.
It may have taken the craziness of the pandemic to throw me into a spiral to finally get this figured out, but my goodness, am I happy it did.
Life inside an ADHD brain can be…unpleasant at times.
When everything feels like too much, it’s natural to want to escape. For years, I felt guilty about the moments I needed to put my own consciousness on pause, largely because of how I did it: sugar binges, social media scrolls, Netflix marathons that went on far longer than I intended.
But the guilt ran deeper than that. As a regular therapy‑goer, I believed the negative thoughts themselves shouldn’t go unchallenged. I thought that as soon as they appeared, I should be doing something productive with them: pulling out cognitive distortion worksheets, journaling my way through, making meaning so I could argue back.
But more often than not, when I turned my attention toward the spiralling thoughts in the heat of the moment, trying to challenge them, reason with them, or make sense of them, I would get completely taken out by them.
Instead of feeling relief, I would sink further into despair.
It wasn’t until I started learning about the nervous system (particularly through the lens of Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory) that I began to understand why this instinct, while well-intentioned, can sometimes be the worst possible course of action.
So today, I'm arguing why learning to intentionally and safely step away from our minds in moments of dysregulation isn’t a failure of coping, but a mission‑critical skill for anyone living with an ADHD nervous system.
One of the first things I learned about the nervous system that changed everything for me was this: our nervous system isn’t just reacting to life; it’s actively shaping how we experience it. This idea sits at the foundation of Dr. Stephen Porges’ work, which posits that:
Unfortunately, for the ADHDer, we can spend a lot of time in this state.
Dysregulation is driven by overwhelm: when demands, stimuli, and internal pressure outpace the nervous system’s ability to regulate, recover, and return to safety. And this is frequently what is happening inside the ADHD brain. Our brains take in more and filter less, making overwhelm a common part of our daily experience.
One of the clearest signs you’ve crossed that threshold of overwhelm is the tone of your thoughts: the harsher, more absolute, and more hopeless they become, the more dysregulated your nervous system likely is.
So here is my argument: do not try to argue with a dysregulated brain. It just won't go well.
Do not try to rationalize your way out of the spiral. According to polyvagal theory, you quite literally don’t have access to the circuits required for insight, flexibility, or kindness toward yourself.
So the skill I’m inviting ADHDers to hone is something I’m calling a graceful exit.
A graceful exit is the intentional choice to step away from the mental spiral in moments of intense dysregulation.
Rather than engaging with those thoughts or trying to reason your way out, a graceful exit means giving your nervous system a safe, regulating way out of the spiral, and allowing capacity to return before you ask anything more of yourself.
I'm inviting you to challenge the idea you might have in your head that all escape is bad. Escape can be bad when it is unplanned, reactive and driven by dopamine. In those moments, we reach for whatever is most immediately numbing or stimulating, even if it ultimately leaves us more depleted. But when done with intention, escape can be adaptive, not pathological.
Below is a list of a few of my own favourite ways I like to exit gracefully from my mind in moments of dysregulation:
If there’s one permission I hope you take from this, it’s this: you are allowed to step away. You are allowed to stop engaging with your thoughts when they’ve turned harsh, absolute, and overwhelming. You are not giving up. You are changing the order of operations.
First, exit the spiral. Second, help your body regulate. And only then, come back to reflect, process, or make meaning of the painful thoughts.
You may just find that a surprising number of your meanest thoughts don’t survive a regulated nervous system!
Growing up, my late father told me that I was “born to move”. When I was born, the doctor who caught me almost dropped me because I was squirming so much. I am still fond of that story, because it is undoubtedly true. To me, it was normal to have an abundance of energy, as if everyone else in the world had that energy. It was my special super power where I felt confident and happy to move how I wanted to; I always felt a release and sense of calm after movement, exercise or stretching. It was a small moment in time in between life, where my brain shut off, and the chatter would cease to exist.
Skip forward to thirty-eight years later where I was given a late-stage diagnosis of combined ADHD. A light bulb went off in my brain; it all made sense; hyperactivity, hyper focus, the lack of impulse control, the inability to organize, simple tasks that I hated to do like cleaning and dishes, lack of focus while listening to podcasts or watching a movie and, lastly what most affects me is emotional regulation. It became an upwards battle, being stubborn and not wanting to think I was different or that something was “wrong with me,” it took a while to realize that something needed attention.
I was starting to have trouble with managing anxiety; crying at every stress, not focusing at work and not being able to manage daily life. It was also a period in my life where I was processing the trauma that I experienced at the age of thirteen when I saw my mother die due to cancer treatments. I have read several books about trauma and the nervous system, searching for answers to figure out why I reacted so strongly to life’s events, changes and social interactions (always with a nervous energy). It wasn’t until I started looking into ADHD that it all fell into place. Through my research about trauma, I discovered that neurodivergent brains already have a sensitive nervous system and find it harder to respond to stress. In my case, I got overstimulated and burnt out. Mixed with trauma, it is what I like to call a Neuro- F**** roller coaster.
Looking back, when I was a teenager, lacking one primary care giver and not knowing about ADHD, it was not surprising that I found an outlet to manage my symptoms. I loved running, weight training, dance and really any movement to help calm my system. Eventually, it lead to jobs and careers in the fitness industry and to my current job as a Registered Massage Therapist and Mobility Specialist.
The ADHD diagnosis has helped to clarify how my brain works and made me feel less ashamed. It created an in depth body awareness and deep learning about how the body-mind deals with stress and to find therapeutic ways to manage. I had always tried so hard to function and pushed myself to perform big accomplishments in order to seem normal, when really, I didn’t know what was going on.
It wasn’t until I was maybe thirty- five to thirty -eight, when my hormones started to change, that my ADHD symptoms skyrocketed. So here I am now in my fourth month of taking medications to help manage my symptoms, and life is quite different! I am more attentive, I have less burn out, I don’t need to run for hours to just get a dopamine hit, at work I am more present and I feel more motivated to do the hobbies that I love.
I think it’s important to understand that medication will not solve everything but it will give you the tools to function better and have better relationships, less burnt out and more focus in your career. The one area that I still struggle with a little bit is during my monthly cycle when hormones fluctuate. As estrogen rises and falls so does attention and focus - all the different chemical reactions and neurotransmitters sometimes becomes muddled. It has not been officially diagnosed but I am pretty sure that I display symptoms of PMDD; Pre- Menstral Dysphoria, basically a mood disorder and a sensitive system to changes in neurochemicals. Yikes!
At first I was angry that ADHD was not brought to my attention sooner, since it does run in my family and is genetic. It was comforting that my sister Anya, brought to my attention that our parents loved us children and they accepted that their daughter had high energy. I felt that had I known about the ADHD I could have navigated life better, but learning acceptance and compassion has been a big lesson and made me have a deeper understanding of myself and the world (its OK to rest!) - perhaps that’s why I am a good massage therapist.
ADHD, in my opinion, is a gift and can be harnessed to do so many wonderful pursuits. My favourite aspect about having hyper focus is that you can be engrossed in what you love to do; reading fantasy and history books for hours, hiking or running in the forest, deep conversations with friends and family. Even though it is hard to feel the stressors and difficult emotions you also feel the good emotions and it encompasses your whole body.
Luckily, there are foods, supplements and lifestyle changes that have been wonderful. Managing stress is a huge component, finding ways to ground oneself is crucial. Below I have complied a list of strategies that have been helpful to me. I like to pull out each one based on my needs. I understand that each person is unique and has different needs; my intention is to provide an example of the resources I have used in order help others.
Therapy
I have seen many therapists of the years, from counsellors to psychotherapists, and found that a therapist with training in Brain Spotting is very helpful to help process and heal traumatic events. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is also beneficial when it comes to using your brain from a top down process to logically state the reality of a scenario. However, I found that I needed something deeper that helped my brain to process trauma. Brain Spotting is a brain- body therapy that uses eye positions to help process trauma, stress and emotional blockages. With the idea that where you look affects how you feel and trauma gets stuck in the visual field. Brain spotting session’s create peace and changes the way you perceive that event and therefore creates healing.
Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra, or Yoga Sleep is the practice of introspection with a guide. There are several ways this yoga practice works; you can lye down or sit in chair, there is a guided voice talking to you. Using breathe, or sensing the breathe, gentle movement, sensory or somatic movements, visual meditation, and gaining introspection; body awareness. It is a state of mind between wakefulness and sleep, enabling one to be fully present.
Exercise and Yoga
I have always loved running, swimming or cardio based exercises. It allows me to rest my brain, and focus on what is happening in the moment. Repetitive movement has especially been helpful since it focuses on the task at hand. Especially if its outside in nature.
Yoga is very therapeutic since it’s a whole body movement that use the breathe and to move with intention and flow. Yin yoga, Vinyasa Flow and Restorative are some of my favourites.
Dancing
I have taken several forms of dance; from Belly Dancing to the basics of Break Dancing and Contemporary Dance. Dance opens up different ways of moving, it involves coordination, spacial awareness and the music make’s you feel free to “shake it off”.
Weight Training
My first full-time career was working as a Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor. I really enjoy strength training. I think mixing cardio and strength training is the way to go for full-body health. Steady strength training with gradual increases in weight brings confidence and creates self-worth. The added bonus of strength training, especially lower-body strength, is important for cognitive health.
Hobbies
As for hobbies, I enjoy making art collages; using a variety of mediums from magazines to fabrics, paint, parts of jewellery etc. It allows me to escape for a while. Writing stories is fun and I enjoy the research part of creating a story; or you can just sit down and write about whatever comes to your mind! Colouring books creates mindfulness by focusing on the item you are working on. Most recently, I got back into collecting Lego sets (mostly Harry Potter) and building book nooks. These allow a steady focus and challenges the brain to follow instructions while you immerse yourself in creating other worlds.
Health Professional Support
Registered Massage Therapy; Indie Head Massage, Deep Tissue, Sports, Fascial Stretching
Osteopath; Visceral Manipulation
Pelvic Floor Physiotherapy
Books and Videos
Scattered Minds, Gabor Mate
The Woman’s Brain Book: Neuroscience of Health, Hormones and Happiness
Sarah Mckay
Krista Gansterer
RMT
CSEP PT®
Kinstretch®
Yoga Teacher
Many of us ADHDers have heard about the analogy that our brain is a Ferrari with bicycle breaks created by Dr. Hallowell. And while I respect him and understand that this is only an analogy and that ADHD is not easily defined, as a car enthusiast, I beg to differ.
If we are going to use a car to describe the ADHD brain it’s definitely not a refined Ferrari but more like an old muscle car, inefficient brakes, ridiculously overpowered, and essentially the suspension of a horse wagon.
As an ADHDer you are behind the wheel of a car that just doesn’t want to turn enough when you need to turn (understeer = decision paralysis) and that when you step on the gas a little harder its back slides out and spin more than you want (oversteer = impulsivity).
So you have to compensate for those errors all the time… ALL. THE. TIME.
Every millisecond you are trying to use it to navigate life, you are calculating, predicting, correcting, correcting the correction, screaming for dear life (rejection sensitivity), trying to remain behind the wheel, pulling yourself using said wheel as a handle rather than as a direction control instrument, all while experiencing a deep feeling of shame for being a worthless driver (self-discrepancy gap).
And it doesn’t stop there. The gas pedal sometimes gets stuck (hyperfocus), so good luck stopping, even if you had those Ferrari brakes. You have to learn the tricks that get it unstuck and pray that it works on time.
— Speaking of time, what time is it? — Said Inner Voice A
— Oops, we just blew through the red light on “I-should-go-to-sleep Street”! — Screamed Inner Voice B
— You truly are the worst driver! — Said yet another, Inner Voice C
— You are inept since we were kids and I feel unsafe, this is not going to end well — the voice continued.
— Anyway, that gas pedal is still stuck… — Voice A ignoring, as usual, Voice C
— What if we give a little skewed-to-the-right kick on the pedal to get it unstuck! — that was the always witty Inner Voice D, suddenly jumping in with a solution.
— Maybe — answered Voice A — but now that we are accelerating, “Very-important-deadline Avenue” is not that far so we might as well use the momentum to get there early… Can you guys imagine, everyone will love us.
— There!!! It worked, pedal unstuck!!! I save the day, again!!
— But what about “Very-Important-Deadline Avenue”? Well, I guess we can just keep going, and it would be heal… th… zzzzzzzzz —little did Voice A know that he was only human, the deadline wasn’t met. Alas, yes Hyperfocus is a superpower; but is an unreliable superpower really super?
Did I mention this muscle car is haunted? It is, a thousand voices inhabit the car. So it gets noisy.
The voices aren’t the only contributors to the noise, the radio turns itself on and sometimes it gets locked on, sometimes the tuner changes randomly.
Frankly it’s exhausting, so much that minivans look enviable in comparison: no surprises, comfortable, everything fits in there, not too fast or too slow, 360 camera view. The only problem is that, you know, it’s a minivan (I have nothing against minivans, in my old age I actually kind of like them).
I try to remind myself to keep driving and have fun doing it, embrace the challenge, embrace the muscle car, because I’m stuck with it but also because it can also be so, so FUN and interesting, charming, and cool.
If we just keep driving, exploring the tricks on how to tame it, taking care of it, servicing it properly; maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to glide through the highway with the full moon shining on that roof.
It will probably still scare the heck out of us, but we’ll laugh, put it back on gear and keep driving.
Turn it into a project car. Car lovers do not always like their cars but they are called car lovers for a reason. As much as they dislike walking up for a nice drive only to find a poodle of oil under their vehicle, they love to put in the time and effort to work on them, and then working some more on their dysfunctional, quirky, annoying project cars.
Get yourself a nice toolbox (like the CADDAC blog), read and get wrenching. You will never turn it into a fully self-driving minivan, but if you could, would you really want to?
May this help you when minivan people (god bless them, we know they mean well) complain about your “bad driving habits” and say things like: “If you really cared, you’d drive better!” or “Why didn’t you turn when you had to?!” May you remember this analogy then and may they understand that it is not a driving style, it’s a precision-driving act.
Keep wrenching, you are doing it fine!
Historically, the awareness of what life is like as a female with ADHD has been limited compared to males. Thankfully, however, there has been an increase in discussion around the topic. While there are similarities between the sexes, there are also some vast differences leading to women often not feeling heard or underrepresented when it comes to both their mental health and overall health. A call for research and awareness must be done to help prevent young women from falling through the cracks because they do not present as the stereotypical ADHD mold. Of course, some females meet the typical criteria of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-V-TR), but many do not. I, myself, am one of them. Although my parents and teachers suspected that I might have ADHD, I was doing good enough in school so there was no further intervention. It was not until I became a preteen that I started to struggle with mental health issues like depression and anxiety as well as academic issues. Thankfully, both my parents are pediatric mental health workers, so they wanted to revisit the ADHD concerns. Many young females do not have the same experience that I did and end up going through their teenage years and adulthood without a diagnosis of ADHD. The issue with this is that those females are then at greater risk for developing other mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, substance use issues, gambling, and eating disorders; and they are at greater risk of childhood and adulthood abuse, sexual abuse, suicidal ideation, and poverty. It is important to note that having a diagnosis of ADHD might not prevent these comorbidities or situations from occurring but when someone has more control over their thoughts and understands why they are the way they are then there is an increase in confidence and self-acceptance.
Currently, I work as a school counsellor. I work with many females who I suspect have undiagnosed ADHD and they struggle tremendously with their self-esteem, confidence, and self-acceptance. These students are often comparing themselves to their neurotypical peers and wondering why they are not like them. I am a witness to the consequences to misdiagnosis whether it is with the incorrect diagnosis (such as depression or anxiety) or no one has ever addressed the concerns with a professional with the reminder that ADHD looks different in females. The teachers of these girls often comment that so and so is a ‘space-cadet’ and they never get any work done. While they would never say this to the students the stigma and harm due to these biases are very much there. I feel for these students because it can feel very isolating and lonely when you are made to feel different. The damage from being teased for behaviours that are out of their control may be irreversible. While diagnosis does not result in a cure for ADHD it can provide clarity, treatment, and resources that can help females live happy and successful lives.
So, what can be done to change the way teachers, doctors, and families view ADHD in females. Well, first, we need to continue the discussion of the importance of being aware and understanding that not only does ADHD, but many physical and mental health disorders present differently in females compared to males. Thankfully, this topic has reached social media and while there is a lot of misinformation being spread there is at least discussions being had and females coming forward with their stories. If I could have had the same access to social media that is around today when I was in middle and high school, it might have helped me understand
that I am not the problem, I am not annoying, and it is okay to think and act differently. The next important step that needs to be taken is more research around this topic. As a current graduate student, I am focusing my thesis on improving the assessment process for females with ADHD and including the stories of young adult women who spent their youth suffering from the lack of knowing who they truly were. There is endless research that could be done. From improving the assessment and diagnostic process to revising the current interventions and treatment for ADHD and finding methods that suit females better. Finally, though these are not the only areas that need improvement, educators, families, and even physicians would benefit from knowing the gender differences of ADHD so that young girls do not fall through the cracks or end up with the incorrect diagnosis. Those who end up being treated for depression instead of ADHD may find temporary relief in depression symptoms, but the underlying cause of the depression symptoms may be from years of internalizing behaviours and masking to fit in with the norm.
To wrap things up, if I could go back in time to when I was 13, I would give myself a hug and tell her that things would be okay. I would want her to know that being different is okay. I would warn her that the following years of high school and university might be difficult since we live in a world best suited for neurotypical people, but she will find people who love her for who she is. The importance of bringing more awareness to the mental health and the lives of females with ADHD will allow for more individuals who felt shameful for the person they were as teenagers to forgive themselves for years of wishing they were someone else. As parents, teachers, practitioners, siblings, and friends of girls and women with ADHD who may be reading this, I encourage you to take the time to read and learn more about the gender differences of ADHD and what you can do to help improve the quality of life for these young girls, teenagers, and adult women.
Friendship and community are important to everyone, but may be of crucial importance to those who have felt isolated or excluded, a common experience for people with ADHD. In research, ADHD in children and adolescents has been related to a host of social challenges, with higher bullying victimization rates, more peer rejection, and higher conflict relationships. In adulthood, many individuals with ADHD have difficulty maintaining friendships and experience challenges with romantic relationships. Taken together, this paints a grim picture, suggesting that if you have ADHD, you cannot have fulfilling relationships. As someone with ADHD and a researcher in this field, I rarely see literature on how ADHD can contribute to meaningful, uplifting friendships. However, I believe that although ADHD can present challenges to your social life sometimes, it can also make you a caring and empathetic friend and partner, especially when you find the right people.
My experiences
As a child, I definitely experienced these social challenges, always feeling out of sync with my peers. At that time, I had no idea why I felt different from a lot of my peers and struggled to connect with them. As I got older, I learned to mask who I was to try and fit in a bit more. Without really thinking, I studied how other people acted and mimicked that. Sometimes I would slip up by getting too excited about something, interrupting others, or being too loud. For me, each stage of education got a little better socially, however, everything really changed for the better when I got to university.
When I got to university, I had an opportunity to reinvent myself now that I was being exposed to new people. I no longer had to hide my love for learning like I did as a teen. I quickly became friends with people in my classes, with whom I shared many interests outside of school. In my first year, my uncle who I was very close with passed after a long battle with cancer and it was a defining moment in many of my friendships. My new friends were at my side, comforting me, giving me notes I missed, and helping me catch up on assignments. My high school friends were less than helpful, and I decided to start to put some distance between us. I had believed that I wouldn’t find better friends, but this experience helped me to believe that I deserved more.
My new friends were largely neurodivergent with some being diagnosed and undiagnosed, maybe not surprising for an undergrad neuroscience program. For the first time, I really feel like I fit in and had found my community. My “weird quirks” were just a part of me and not judged. My best friend in my program was my study buddy as we shared the same requirements before exams and often stuck together. Our routine for exams was to stop
studying at least 2 hours before, eat a good amount of food, and chat in a relaxed environment. Years later, I found out that he was diagnosed with autism when he was younger. Later in grad school, I bonded with friends over info-dumping and body doubling (work on a task next to someone to help with focus and accountability).
I reconnected with a friend from high school, and she remarked how much more confident and happier I seemed to be after undergrad. I was much more self-assured and worried a lot less about what people thought of me. I finally was able to be myself around people who cared about me.
Now in my late 20s, I see many of my closest friends are neurodivergent. We support each other through humor and shared understanding—joking about ADHD-related lateness or lost keys while also offering real support when needed. These friendships have been invaluable, not despite our differences, but often because of them.
Importance of a neurodivergent community
I have often been described as friendly and outgoing, so I have found making friends to be pretty easy, but maintaining friendships was another story. I had a hard time remembering to make plans, keeping up with constant communication, and disliked exchanging pleasantries when I just wanted to launch into a conversation. With my neurodivergent friends, I have found that our communication styles align, and even if we don’t see each other for a while, it is like no time has passed when we do reconnect. I don’t feel the same need to overexplain myself, because they just understand.
In an interview study I conducted, many people remarked how they believe that having ADHD has made them more empathetic and understanding of other people. When someone was having a bad day and took it out on them, they viewed it more as that person needing support than taking it personally. Others mentioned that they were curious and had a wide range of interests, which helped them have conversations with many different people. Unfortunately, everyone reported experiencing stigma.
Overall, having a neurodivergent community can be beneficial for people with ADHD, whether it is a group of in-person friends or an online community. Often the expectation is put on people with ADHD to change themselves to be better liked. Improving self- and emotional-regulation abilities can be beneficial, but the burden of adapting shouldn’t fall solely on neurodivergent people. Additionally, neurotypical people should be educated to be less judgmental and more accepting of neurodiverse individuals. There are countless things that neurotypical people do that can be irritating or rude to neurodivergent people, yet our society expects neurodivergent people to put up with it. One of the biggest beauties
of life is how everyone is a little bit different, and I think that understanding that and having an accepting community can do wonders for everyone.
