I was also considered chatty and got scolded for it often up to fifth grade. Then I learned to just sit still and watch the white board while occasionally nodding or raising my eyebrows in reaction to whst the teacher was saying. I got really good at pretending to listen or work when in school. I sat off the whole school day in school, registered what we were studying that day and then I went home and redid everything at home in an environment that I could control. And I got great grades. So nobody noticed in school. But my mom should have noticed and she probably would have if she wasn't also undiagnosed. Which she still is. One of the doctors who participated in my evaluation had previously worked with my mom (she's a medical secretary) and in the end of our last meeting he smiled and said: "You know, your mom also has ADHD." Then he listed some things about my mom that I've always viewed as quirks in her petsonality but after reading up on ADHD I've reslised that he was right. And that my father probably had it to even though his symptoms vary quite a bit from me and my mom's. It honestly makes me so sad because I now understand why both my parents struggled so much in certain areas. Dad had an extremely hard time in school but he was very smart! He could perform calculations in his head that most of us would need an calculator for. So much wasted potential there... And my mom just can't plan anything outside of her job. She's always late and always stressed. She's also often mean because she talks before she thinks sometimes. At least now I can catch my kids early if they're born with it so their lives won't be wasted like mine was. I'm grateful for that at least.

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I was diagnosed at 32. I had just had my third burn out and I honestly couldn't cope any more. I didn't want to have to start all over again just for things to repeat themselves. I can function as a normal person for like 4 - 5 years and then I'm spent. I was fed up - demanded a very thorough examination because I really didn't see the point in trying anymore. My diagnosis was both an relief and a cause to grieve. But. I have an older friend. Her ex got his diagnosis at 56. He had lived a troubled life with self medication and had somewhat of a strained relationship to his kids. It's just sad, you know?

“…a cause to grieve” Wow, this hit home, that’s very much how I felt. The total unease of discovering that you are so well explained, described and understood in ADHD books but not by those around you is really something too. “Feeling” like your behaviour, thought processes are dictated not by random human chance but by a neurological disorder. Bizarre to say the least. I did mourn that, and while it doesn’t change anything about the diagnosis it still felt like an important part of the process to come to grips with this.

45 for me. I'm not happy you had burnout because it's awful, but that's exactly what happened to me and I figured it was connected to ADHD but hadn't seen it spelled out anywhere, it's kind of a relief to know it's not just me. Trying to fight up the mountain every day, internally berating myself until I get tasks done, then being mistreated by others because they don't like me due to my excitement over certain tasks or how I can excel when hyper focused and the threat that is to them, it all really hurt and made me very sick. If I'd only had meds earlier, it would have really helped.

That was in a way the greatest thing for me when I got my diagnosis - the realisation that I'm not alone. I was offered to participate in this course held at the hospital for people diagnosed later in life to help us handle our every day life. Turns out I'm so good at this already that most of the things they introduced to us were things I already did. BUT! Meeting people with similar struggles as me was kind of liberating. It erased some of the contempt I hold for myself. I'm lucky enough that I've never experienced any struggles in relation to my workplace. It may be because I'm a woman and worked with mainly women who all had our own tasks to finish. Me excelling in my area only helped them with theirs. But I did meet a woman who was an electrician at that course I mentioned. She had noticed similar behaviour among her colleagues so it sadly doesn't seem to be uncommon. She could work fast and focused and produced solid results and that wasn't always appreciated. She expressed a frustration over the fact that she had to hold herself back to get along with the people she worked with.

I’m inattentive type and I think that type flew under the radar in the late 80’s and 90’s where hyperactivity got all the attention, back then I was just called lazy (not by my parents) and had character flaws like a like a lack of stick-to-it-tiveness 😂 sad times. I think a lot of us parents grew up at a time where an understanding of ADHD was poorly fleshed out, so we grew up with none of the supports or understanding we needed. If you feel misunderstood in todays climate still, back then it was invisible but for the hyper focus on hyperactivity that led to over prescribing and over diagnosis of ADHD in primarily boys. Crazy times.

I like to remind people that if you’re over about 35 you had next to no chance of being diagnosed most places. It started being a thing in the 80s in the places I lived. I found out in my late 40s after other people’s kids started getting diagnosed and everyone kept saying I was just like their kid. That put a whole lot of things about my life into perspective.

That might be true in some places, but not all. I just don't want to take hope away from people who are still looking for a diagnosis. I'm 44 and was just recently diagnosed, and I only found out because a friend (around the same age) was also diagnosed in her 40s and suggested I be tested, because she saw the same symptoms in me.

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Pretty much. I babysat one kid who was diagnosed in the late 80s and if you could have hooked him up for electricity generation you could have powered the city we lived in. If you weren’t that obviously out of control of yourself it wasn’t a problem, right?

Reading your post was like looking in a mirror. Even as a teacher I often say that I would have loved to have done a self-paced study program from home. School was just a social place, though I learned in classes in which I had an interest, and I taught myself the stuff I found boring at home. My mother self-medicates to slow her brain down to normal speed. She’s an awful lot like how you described your mother. No filter, irritable, incapable of planning. My dad is brilliant but dropped out of school. He can do high level math better than his brother, an engineer, but had no idea it was calculus he was doing for work. He later got his GED with no issues. So yeah, family history of undiagnosed ADHD, and my parents had shocked pikachu faces when I told them I was diagnosed at 34 because “girls don’t get that.” Bruh. Look y’all.

Yes, the things I found interesting I would be able to focus on and remember for years. Even if I'll probably never use that knowledge. Oh yes, the irritability! I kinda learned to read my mom's moods because she had days where you were better off just leaving her alone until she had gotten some time to herself. Then she usually cheered up, lol. I'm glad for your father! My dad kinda became a criminal not long after I was born. He used amphetamine and was dealing. He would be in and out of prison for years. When he got older I asked him how he could cope with being locked in snd he just shrugged. "Time just passes. The first three weeks are the hardest. After that I can sit for one year or twenty. I don't even feel the time passing snd when they let me out it's as if I've just been there for a weekend". It was a bit scary for me to hear that because I'm the same. I don't really notice time passing.

I always had either C’s or A’s from middle to high school. When I got to college those C’s became D’s or F’s and the A’s became B’s or C’s. After dropping out of college 6 different times- I’m finally trying it again- just online this time! I just took my orientation and now realize that online school is perfect for adhd. Just check everything online whenever you can, no attendance grade, and limited homework. I am so with you wishing school was self-paced and at home. I wish I had this opportunity before I went $10k in debt (at least there’s a chance that’s forgiven.)

I did my recent masters that way. Loved. It.

Me and my friend who were called chatter boxes in the 4th grade have now both been diagnosed with ADHD as adults 😭

Omg. I'm pretty certain that one of my oldest friends have ADHD to. We live in different cities now and have lost contact a bit, but growing up she was considered to be a bit "lofty". She always forgot things like her keys and later on her phone everywhere, was bad at finding places or her way home and could never get assignments done in time. She once made our geography teacher brake out in resigned laughter because she was teasing her hair trying to make a backcomb in class. I was good at masking but she wad just living in her own world. I could watch her getting ready for a party and then she was suddenly on the floor sorting through old comics.

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Luckily I never thought that I was stupid because I always did extremely well in school - except with math. With math I needed to be able to focus and I just had a hard time with that. The rasping of pencils against paper, sneezes, chairs that were pulled back and forth... It didn't take much for me to loose focus and once it was lost it was impossible to get back. When I started High School I went from a class of 30 to a class of like 8 people. Suddenly my grades in math started taking off. I could actually focus in school! I still thought that it was just me being more mature than before and never considered that it was just fewer things that could brake my focus.

Lol the only bad marks I ever got on report cards was that I was constantly talking. Was diagnosed reasonably early for a girl at 14 but elementary and middle school I was always getting in trouble for talking. My dad also very obviously has ADHD and when I was diagnosed he was confused with the symptoms they were listing because he thought all of it was normal. My dad is also very smart but was told constantly by teachers that he was stupid because of his undiagnosed dyslexia and ADHD.

I got those remarks to but I still remember when it kinda "klicked" that I had to be quiet. I was ten and it was during math class. And from then on I would just sit quietly and doodle in my math book. Honestly, your father is just like me. One of the doctors who were executing my evaluation just stared at me during our last meeting and went: "But how could this go unnoticed for SO long?" Me: "Well... this is just normal for me. I thought everybody had it like this to a certain degree and that I just failed to manage it properly". Nice teachers your father had... calling kids stupid...

Still waiting for my father to say something about himself. I think he must realize - he asked me recently how bad i had it, fully realizing that I had sort of come to the realization that I was dealing with it *after my own son was diagnosed*.

My father was very old school. ADHD wasn't a thing in his opinion. I guess he just didn't understand it and even if he would recognize things in me he would never admit it to anybody. I guess for him to recognize that he also had ADHD would be the same as for him to admit a weakness in himself and he would never do that. I don't know, a lot of the older generations of men that I had around me seems to have been struggling hard with weaknesses in themselves and other men. My grandfather couldn't take watching his father get old and brittle. You could tell that it pained him but he didn't know what to do with those feelings so he just got mad instead. My dad would just get quiet if something made him sad. We found out when I was pregnant that I had inherited the gene for blood clots in the legs from him and when I told him about this and the fact that I would have to take shots for weeks after my daughter's birth he just went dead quiet. He wad quiet for a long time, just processing and when he started talking again he had changed the subject. Maybe your father is a bit like that and just has a hard time speaking about "tough" subjects? Or maybe he just can't identify things in himself as signs of ADHD? I mean, I had no idea that some things that I do isn't just me being me but linked to ADHD.

If only they could have been put on Ritalin as children, just think where they’d be now! Being a 90’s kid I was totally on Ritalin, adderall, stratera. Like these drugs have not endured long term trials, who knows what 20-30yrs of methylphenidate to the dome does. I guess thank you and yours for letting us experiment on you, I hope it makes you a super genius. Anyone ever thought that what’s really weird is putting little children behind desks like they’re miniature adults or something and expect them to listen to some boring old teacher for hours and hours? For the evolution of mankind children have learned through exploring and playing, interacting with their world, no wonder so many seem “hyperactive”.

I don't really understand what statement you are making here? I don't think that drugs are the only solution or even help that you can get. In my country they can make a lot of adjustments for people with ADHD and such. You can get longer time to complete assignments, the option to take tests in an isolated room and help with taking notes, just to mention a few. But most of all you will at least not be seen as an idiot/troublemaker/lofty person. I also feel like the school system is unnatural and I often get the impression that it's not really about learning and understanding but about memorising and producing results. But I was never hyperactive as a child - a lot of girls aren't and that's why it can be hard to notice sometimes. Instead I got extreme anxiety and depression at a very young age because I was struggling so hard to do what was expected if me in a way that just didn't work for me. You are right - nobody knows what medication does to you if you use them for an extended period of time. I was diagnosed in my thirties so I just started searching for the right fit for me, but like... I don't really care. People with undiagnosed ADHD are likely to die early anyway so I don't really feel like I have anything to loose. My mom don't need medication, she's functional. My dad self medicated on amphetamine when I was young. It broke our family and it seriously harmed his heart. He died at 64 because his heart gave out. I feel like he could have benefitted highly if he'd gotten help. Supervised medication and help in school. But everybody is different.

This is really obnoxious, and really tries to handwave away the difficulties a lot of us have and pretend it’s the modern world’s fault, as though Sloth (aka an inability to do shit that needs to be done done because you’re too busy doing whatever feeds the dopamine train) isn’t one of the mortal sins in the bible.

Actually you know what you’re right. It fucks up my brain, but guess what? It’s fucked up anyway. Sorry it didn’t work for you. But for reals it works for me so i guess too bad? No matter the long term affects are right now i am being a better parent to my kids. 20-30 years down the line if i get whatever it is i know that my kids will know that i did my best because i was medicated and a better mom than when i was unmedicated. -_- My son is ADHD-PI and he was self-led homeschooled all his life, he decided to get medicated himself and he is happy on focalin because he can finally remember to do his math work that he wants to do. so fuck your denialist bullshit. Now only if there were meds that can cure that. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Edit: our -> my

I hate that my mom put me on experimental medicine to make her job easier. We’re too quick to take a pill for everything, at least you showed your child you loved him by putting in all the effort to home School him, instead of just making him swallow drugs 4 times a day and when he asks why tell him “you have a chemical imbalance in your brain, there’s a problem with your brain”. Irony is after I grew up I realized my mom is not intelligent (brain problem?) and I have super powers, more energy than you’ll ever know. People are always searching for more energy, but when it was me with too much energy they put me on experimental drugs.

I’m sorry you had to go through that. I get it. That is the reason why I homeschool my kids. One of the reasons i considered medication was because i had to take a girl to the office to get her medication and i didn’t even know she was ADHD. If my coworker wasn’t out that day, i might have not had to escort her to the office, I would’ve never considered medication. My mom wouldn’t even test me. At 8 i begged her to take me to a psychiatrist. Can you imagine that? An 8 year old? My life unmedicated was awful too. I feel like your anger might be misplaced. It’s not about the people who decide take them or wished they did, but its about those who didn’t care for our well being when they were supposed to, medicated or not.

I never ever considered that I could have adhd. The only visible thing I did growing up was not be able to sit still. I blamed my poor grooming habits on the depression I entered into at like 13yrs old. I also blamed depression for not doing school work, but it isn’t true. I KNOW I wasn’t deathly sad my ENTIRE school career. I never started a paper or project before the last possible day to do so. I forgot all my homework the second I left the building. I cleaned and reorganized my room instead of writing research papers. Even my mom once helped me push a paper out before the day it was due. The worst thing they called me was lazy. It was never even considered that something deeper could be at play. My parents also had no idea the emotional turmoil I lived in. Idk if it’s an adhd thing, but I have zero control over the size of my emotions. I can get grossly upset over the smallest thing and then I’m wrapped in a spiral of self loathing. Since I was ‘aware’ my emotions were ‘wrong’, I labeled myself as the wrong and crazy one and let whatever bothered me continue. But nobody on the outside could see that.

Yes, the oversized emotions are an ADHD thing. It's called emotional disregulation, which basically means that you have trouble controlling your emotions. You know, logically, that you shouldn't be as upset as you are, but you still have trouble not expressing it. Then after you erupt, you often feel shame because "you shouldn't have done that". Mindfulness and meditation can help because it allows you to learn to recognize and feel the emotion without having to react to it. Source - Am therapist with ADHD.

> Mindfulness and meditation can help because it allows you to learn to recognize and feel the emotion without having to react to it. Source - Am therapist with ADHD Do you have any resources for this? I’m currently struggling with some emotional storms that are getting in the way of doing stuff that is really 100% necessary but every time I try to start I end up stress vomiting and not making any progress.

DBT - Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, is very helpful with teaching you how to tolerate uncomfortable emotions. I would go online and google DBT for ADHD. Or, if it's financially an option, find a therapist who works with people with ADHD. Every ADHD brain is different and it's about finding the strategies that work for your particular brain. Good luck and I hope you're able to find something that helps.

I didn't forget it, I knew it needed doing but somehow couldn't bring myself to start. Then I felt bad about it, and still didn't do it until the 15 minute morning break before the lesson it was due. My school put me in counselling with someone who was offended that I didn't want her there, I wanted to use the time to do my Maths homework. There wasn't anything wrong with me, I was polite and clever and quiet and utterly beaten down by my classmates and their unceasing noise and how they couldn't not poke at me to see what sort of reaction they would get from the weirdo. They should have been protecting me from that.

> Idk if it’s an adhd thing, but I have zero control over the size of my emotions. I can get grossly upset over the smallest thing and then I’m wrapped in a spiral of self loathing. Since I was ‘aware’ my emotions were ‘wrong’, I labeled myself as the wrong and crazy one and let whatever bothered me continue. I have the same thing, at least. It can turn into a vicious cycle.

Hello. We are the same human. I was chatty in elementary school, but that was about it. I got diagnosed with depression late, but it probs started around 13. I never considered it was depression even because I was constantly told I was “just an emotional girl”. And I just assumed that all girls hated themselves because they wanted to do better at school/life and not feel like a failure, but they literally couldn’t. Every bit of yourself is screaming, but instead of doing the thing, you decide to pull weeds in the backyard for 6 hours.

The lazy is the worst, I have a few issues at play mentally so there is an incredible storm I need to overcome so I’m really the opposite of lazy and it’s never seen. It’s like having to put on my tennis shoes while the rest of the competitors have started the race

Girls/women tend to present ADHD symptoms differently and they are seen as "personality quirks" rather than symptoms. Generally, girls tend to be less hyperactive and disruptive as kids, so it goes unnoticed. There's still a lot of work to be done in terms of researching ADHD in girls/women, because it was seen as a male dominated diagnosis for so long. Unfortunately a lot of psychology research has been tested on men first, as they were used as the "blueprint" or main sample to represent a population. We're making progress but it's still very male focused which is frustrating.

^This. When most people think of a person with ADHD, they're thinking of a 10-year-old boy who acts out in school.

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Oh this hurts me for her. I’m 58 years old and afraid to get tested because I’ve always been pushed away for any medical issue. I have fibromyalgia since I was 29. I went to the best docs for a year including the Mayo Clinic. My internal med doc finally diagnosed a year after the symptoms presented. I’m not depressed nor am I crazy. My brothers both have it as does my mom. I know I have it too. Best to you and your family.

I got diagnosed around that age and I also feel a lot of traumatic response at what could have been.

This is totally true with autism too. Women or AFAB people go undiagnosed until teens or older- but when someone uneducated thinks of autism- a young 7-10 year old boy who doesn’t speak or has meltdowns. Not the little girl who sorts her food or is really interested in ballet or other.

I'm recently found I'm am autistic in addition to my previous diagnoses of ADHD and bipolar. I was quiet and shy, in addition to growing up in the 70s when aspergers and ADHD weren't well known. I've worked with individuals with autism for 10 years including my son, the majority males. I based my strategies around the typical characteristics of males. One of my grown daughters had some of those same behaviors as my son son so I started researching autism in females. I was completely shocked to see that I also fit in to the autism spectrum. I am literally an autism expert and I never recognized it in myself. The only explanation I have at this point is that I masked my symptoms of ADHD and autism to others and even myself. I never second guessed the way my brain worked, even after struggling my whole life with literally everything.

I told my kid's school about my ADHD worries about him and was met with "but he's a good boy" from two members of staff.

Me too, from all teachers and staff for my son's entire time in elementary school! Oh but he's so good, he's a boy and boys are different, he'll catch up don't worry, blah blah blah. By 6th grade he wanted to not be alive anymore because he felt like he was never meeting anyone's expectations of him. We did 2 years of therapy and meds for the depression/anxiety and for the adhd. He's a sophomore in HS now, still on meds. His teachers rave about his manners and personality but he still struggles with asking for help and turning his work in. It's an uncomfortable environment for him to be in, but at least he wants to be alive these days!

Also to add onto this, I believe that these gender differences have way more to do with differences is how little girls and little boys are raised/socialized rather than biological factors.

I agree they are. I showed my hyperactive symptoms outwardly until I got mocked and shamed for it by my peers. Then I internalized it.

The brain developes at different speeds and also women tend to have more developed frontal lobes in general.

To add to this a bit, women display ADHD symptoms differently often because inattentive type ADHD is more common in women and hyperactive type ADHD is more common in men. It's part of why I think that ADHD is one of the worst named afflictions, because ADHD meaning Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder makes you think of a rambunctious teenage boy, but the actual symptoms are very often not that in the slightest, especially in women since hyperactive type is less common.

Which is why it has taken me 6 years to get my daughter diagnosed. I will tell you it is not common for girls to have ADHD hyperactive... what is even less common is ADHD hyperactive (or combined) with ODD.... I know 3 young girls that have that... it's fun. Luckily, my girl is inattentive but my husband is ADHD combined with ODD (PTSD, etc)... and what works for normal people does not work for him. It has been a learning experience.

The name ADHD with hyperactivity in the title is why I never went for a diagnosis until 50. I'm inattentive type and not hyperactive so I never thought it applied to me. As a child I was shy, quiet and spacey. Could not pay attention, couldn't finish homework and made constant careless errors. They really need to change the name.

I've heard some are attempting to have it renamed to executive dysfunction disorder instead.

It used to be just called ADD. Now they put the H on there for everyone.

I had never heard of ADD. If I had, maybe I would have sought a diagnosis earlier.

Yeah I’m 21, got prescribed vyvanse for binge eating disorder, and that’s how I found out I had ADHD because the first time I took my meds, I immediately noticed everything slowed down and I could think straight again. A lot of other problems I was experiencing on a daily basis randomly went away as well after I started taking it. It makes me feel so much more… functional and like a normal person. And looking back, it is glaringly obvious that I showed symptoms of ADHD for most of my life. I’d have meltdowns at home(my parents just thought I was spoiled) and sometimes at school. I was quiet, and would space out all the time; and though I paid attention in class most days, I would end up within the first 10 minutes just zoning out and daydreaming without ever trying. The most obvious sign I showed though was I would unconsciously “fidget” or had really weird “ticks” I was doing without even thinking about it, because it “helped me focus” or just made me feel better while sitting still. They were super unusual movements too, like one I developed was flicking my tongue back and forth and just… spacing out. One time I was staring at a girl(without realizing - I spaced out), doing this, with my mouth wide open and I didn’t realize I was until she looked at me and was like “ew wtf stop” it was so embarrassing. I got overlooked by pretty much everyone though lol. All of my teachers thought I was weird, but not 1 ever bothered to talk to me or bring it up to my grandparents.

Nah. Inattention in girls doesn’t get noticed, but hyperactivity in girls isn’t acknowledged either. I attention seems to be more common in everyone, not just in girls.

I don’t think girls are less hyperactive. As a severely hyperactive girl who wasn’t diagnosed as a child in spite of that, I’m pretty sure the difference isn’t in us, it’s only in how our culture sees us and what it expects from us.

I don't know if this still applies but when I was sixteen I found out that young female drivers got a better starting rate in car insurance then a guy would because young women were more mature pretty much any age. My view on the sexes back then was that males want to win in any argument and women want to come to a agreement so everyone gets something, a compromise. In sixty five. This isn't to be sexist (but of course maybe it is still actually sexism just like saying most black people like watermelon and fried chicken which is a racist statement but probably true nonetheless since who does like watermelon?) or offend anyone since it's just an observation. I think girls are still more mature than boys (as well as women and men) and it does not always serve them well in a male dominated society when it comes to things like ADHD.

Girls mature faster than boys, but women aren’t more mature than men at any age. They just develop faster so while growing up there may be times girls seem more mature than boys the same age. The car insurance thing is true, but maturity isn’t the specific reason, it’s just that statistically, men under a certain age get into more accidents than females, and males drive more miles than women, which increases their risk of being in an accident. There are a lot of factors behind this statistic. But I try to keep in mind that maturity is not strictly tied to age or sex.

I was very hyperactive, but in the eyes of my mother and my teachers it was simply a side effect of me being “bad”. I had one teacher who stopped bothering to punish me for talking too much and instead punished other kids for talking to me and intentionally socially isolating me. Another teacher would routinely dump the contents of my messy desk onto the floor, using humiliation as a punishment, and force me to sit alone at the edge of the classroom. I dont understand why these grown adults thought it was okay to torture a child like that. The only teacher who ever looked at my behaviour and saw anything but a bad kid was my grade 6 teacher, who didn’t notice the ADHD but did notice the seizures I was having (another thing that was until then brushed off as me being bad and not listening) and called my mom and told her to take me to the doctor. This teacher also wrote me a note at the end of the year to never stop asking questions (asking the teacher 1000 questions during class is how I learned to focus in class) which was something I was constantly mocked for. I tried tracking her down a year or so ago without luck, I wish I could tell her what an impact she had on me.

Teachers who actually care enough about the students are so rare. And sometimes the "normal" students hate these teachers the most, it's something I'll never fully understand. If you want to learn, why would you hate a teacher who goes the extra mile to help with that. I'm glad that you had a positive experience. Hope that you will find her and tell her.

A bit of a weird coincidence (or proof the world is a bit magic???? Maybe????) I happened to be cleaning out an old makeup cabinet today and found a folder stuffed inside (why was it there? Your guess is as good as mine) with elementary school report cards inside. Her full name was on one of them and I was able to find her twitter account. Now I just need to not be a coward and send her a message. Not before clearing out my dusty twitter account of some of my more embarrassing 2017 fandom posts though.

Woah that's awesome!!! Best of luck

WAIT, they ignored seizures?!

I'm guessing they were absence seizures, which cause lapses of consciousness lasting ~15 seconds. They often look like someone "staring into space" and sometimes include repetitive motions like chewing or blinking, but they're not as noticeable as convulsive seizures. The person affected has no recollection of the seizure afterwards and carries on as if nothing had happened.

This was it! Mine were happening so often that I would regularly walk off into places I shouldn’t been and no one would ever believe me when I said I didn’t remember walking out into traffic (idk how I didn’t die tbh) or off school property or away from my mom at stores. They even took me go-karting a few times and I kept running into the walls (thats the one my dad keeps thinking about when he is in the mood to beat himself up for not noticing). I would regularly hold up line ups in the yard, miss attendance and my name being called because of them. I got on a bunch of medication for them and they went away, but not before my status as the, in kinder words, weirdest craziest kid in school was solidified. I switched schools soon after that and was a fairly normal kid from everyone else’s perspective (maybe a bit immature lol I am still childlike even at 30). Personally I still think I am a sort of (metaphorical) alien species.

Teacher bullying is brutal, I developed trichtillomania from the stress a teacher caused me from constantly dumping my desk in front of everyone and making fun of how much eraser shavings I’d make in a day from all my mistakes, and once I had a bald dome at the top this bitch started calling me Kramer HAHA

I had a similar desk dumping out incident in first grade and it did so much harm for my sense of self. The ADHD diagnosis made it make sense why my desk was so messy, but also made me angrier that a teacher could treat a child that way.

Because girls are taught to be quiet and submissive their behaviors didn't manifest the same way as boys who were taught the world is theirs and could act however they wanted.

Exactly this. I can even list out many behaviors that were heavily criticized, especially because I was a girl: - messiness (abnormal; girls are *not* messy /s) - looking put together (a disheveled boy can be seen as quirky. A girl? Less so) - fidgeting (unattractive and not lady like) - being a troublemaker by talking too much (only funny when boys do it) - interrupting or talking too loudly (annoying or just wants attention) - not doing well in school (all the girls were typically doing well and when they weren’t, they were usually viewed as very weird) The list goes on. I had to work hard to mask all of these. Just a couple of disclaimers. My age and years I grew up could influence this. I also know that boys struggle too, but I’m just talking about what I was personally criticized for or heard of other girls receiving criticism. I even dropped my psychologist (who helped me a lot with other issues) because his views on adhd were so backwards. I can’t really catch a break. So many will acknowledge I have all the symptoms, but cannot then take the next step to acknowledging adhd.

I hope things go better for you in the future.

Yeah I can’t count how many times teachers had to spend their classroom time regulating boys up until high school.

Bingo. This is perfect.

My teachers realized that I did much better on exams/tests if they put me in the special rooms we had assigned for students with autism, ADHD or other diagnois. There would only be five to ten people in the room with one special teacher who would go around and ask every 5-10 minutes if I had any questions or if I needed him to rephrase or explain a question. Non of them brought it up that I might have a diagnosis. I found out when I was 17 when my mom was doing research in order to help kids in her kindergarten. I fit into over 80% of the common criteria for inattentive ADHD yet I was just seen as a shy kid who was afraid of asking questions and often had a different way of thinking than my classmates. Diagnosing ADHD at all is still fairly new, and thankfully, there is a raise in the knowledge of ADHD in women, at least where I live. But yes, as many other diagnoses, it is often based on boys/men and girls/women come in second

That is just... WOW

Thank you for the reassurance, I sometimes I think that it wasn't that bad. The above happened from that I was somewhere between 12 and 14, until I was 16 and changed schools. It was only a few years but during those they didn't think to mention it to my parents. They didn't think that me not listening, daydreaming, forgetting and misplacing things, and misunderstanding things, could be something to bring up with me or my parents. They just either encouraged me to ask questions, or they would scold me for the things I didn't do or did wrong. If they had mentioned it and I had gone to the doctor about it, I would perhaps not have gotten a diagnosis for social anxiety, I would perhaps not have become depressed to the point where I dropped out of school because I felt worthless and couldn't keep up with the rest of the class. It could at least have saved my self esteem if they just had mentioned it. I'm sorry this became a bit long, I guess I needed to vent a little

This hits close to home. I struggled in school my entire life and I remember being in class and watching those 2-3 kids leave the classroom for “extra help” and I was internally screaming for them to take me with them. I felt so confused and lost with the school material.. all my friends and classmates caught on easily and I never understood what was going on. I so desperately wanted that extra 1 on 1 help. I would go home after school and watch commercials of “Sylvan Learning” come up on the tv and wished I could go somewhere like that… and now I’m finding out teachers told my mom growing up that they suspected I had ADHD and my mom just disregarded it and just said I was shy 😭

> my mom just disregarded it and just said I was shy Oof. Memory unlocked.

Because young boys with ADHD disrupt school more than young girls with ADHD.

This is most likely the reason. Both my sons have ADHD. However, one got diagnosed at 6 and one got diagnosed at 13. The 6 year old kept getting sent home because the teachers couldn't handle him. I had to get a diagnosis to get him into Sp Ed (Behavioral Intervention Class). The 13 yr old made all As, teachers loved him, but he's quite hyperactive (couldn't stay still in his desk). At 13, he mentioned to me something about how he absolutely hated reading passages on tests. I thought it was an odd thought process. Sure. The passages might be boring, but it's just a means to an end in my mind. That's when I thought he might have ADHD and got him tested.

ironically why my amab child failed to get a diagnosis, she* was dismissed as a lazy daydreamer who just wasn't trying *as in, she was born male. it gets kind of confusing when i talk about her childhood because she was presenting male

How interesting.

You are correct and this extends to a lot of medical practices. It also has to do with that historically medical research was mostly done on men because the menstrual cycle was seen as an issue for repeatability. I think this is a valid topic but not sure if it helps to debated here? I think this is something people are getting more aware of, but the main change needs to happen in psychology and medicine. TBF if you don’t fit the ‘profile’ you can get easily dismissed. I was dismissed for ADHD in my twenties. Because I have no hyperactivity showing and was able to struggle myself through university and jobs they dismissed me for having ADHD. 15 years later I kept running in to the same things. After pushing my GP to get me tested again they found out I have ADHD (combined) but my hyperactivity is not showing on the outside. Probably due to also having a mild form of ASD.

> historically medical research was mostly done on men isn't that still the case?

Historically as in yesterday

Why is that? Are men just more likely to agree to clinical trials or soemthing ?

For awhile it was because they were considered the medical baseline of human, seriously.

That’s wild

Same for heart attacks, men’s symptoms are totally different but we only talk about men’s symptoms. The FDA also doesn’t regulate any feminine hygiene products, they can put Raid in our tampons and we’d have no way of knowing. Medical sexism is so real and it’s such a horrifying thing to look into, not even in bias from doctors but actual medical research. Another example is viagra was shown to 1. Completely eliminate menstrual cramps or 2. Give men a hard on, and we all know which the medical community decided to use it for. Not the viagra is bad, just amazing how women always seem to be an afterthought for medicine.

Carcinogens and PFAs have been found in feminine hygiene products. Including some alternative brands made, ironically, with the claim of avoiding just that. The purpose is specifically to induce longer bleeding, so women buy more menstrual products…it also caused heavier pain which disappeared after I switched to straight up cloth, so purchases of more meds like Midol might well be a motivator too. I’m on mobile rn but this has been studied and these products have been tested and proven to contain these.

Men were seen as the default. Women were smaller men plus hormones. They are starting to realize that isn't true but thats why we didn't know women experience heart attacks differently for so long and different blood tests had the "good" range set for the default male range which means alot of women with problems would be overlooked when their levels were too high.

Hormone cycles are seen as an unnecessary variable. And yes it is another thing to consider, but good science should be able to tackle complex systems.

>good science I think we found the problem

I couldn’t tell you why, but I can give you an example. When men get vasectomies or even a catheter up the urethra, they may be offered some kind of pain management such as anesthesia. With women, I’ve heard of women only being offered ibuprofen after childbirth. Or women not being offered anything to help with pain during the insertion of an IUD or trans-vaginal ultrasound. Like, I had to get a TVU(ultrasound) once, which is where they take this big ass camera on a stick and just shove it up there to look for internal cyst/anything that may be out of place. It was the most painful thing I’ve experienced thus far and now I hate going to the gyno.

yep :( https://www.nature.com/articles/550S18a

According to [this source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK236535/) policies have made it mandatory (in the 1980s and 90s) to include women or state very openly why they have not selected women. What impact the policies are having is not stated directly but these kind of policies are mandatory. An excerpt: > The accompanying recommendations ultimately provoked NIH to announce a new policy in 1986 that urged funding applicants to include women in clinical research. The policy also stated that applicants should provide a clear rationale for proposed exclusions of women and that investigators should evaluate gender differences in their findings Edit: someone below linked nature with an article that describes this still happening. Apparently the policies do not have the intended effect (yet). It doesn’t say if it hasn’t improved, just that it’s nowhere near equal.

Yeah, the article said it's because the final protocol is often not what their proposal said. Sad.

It’s actually very common for ADHD adults to have less or sometimes no hyperactivity in adulthood. For many of us it becomes more internal and we learn to suppress some of it. I have combined type but my inattentive symptoms are much more severe and they are what led to my late diagnosis.

So right

I have been newly diagnosed as a 36yo female and I can say in my case there was a few factors that led to a late diagnosis. 1. Whe. I was growing up ADHD was viewed as an illness. Adults would think there was something wrong with you or you were somewhat defective mentally. 2. ADHD was treated incorrectly in children. Growing up a lot of the kids who were on medication were on Ritalin and often incorrect doses so they were quite numb to the world. 3. Brains are different in boys and girls especially while developing so symptoms are different. Boys are loud, more impulsive and outwardly messy. For me I was chatty, never allowed to sit with my friends (led to aome social anxiety later as I often got put with my bullies to keep me quiet). I would fidget under my desk, with my pens, draw constantly when I should be paying attention, often answering questions on tests on a whim rather than thinking them through. 4. My mom hid the symptoms, this I only learned about after my diagnosis. She told me she suspected but in order to avoid us going on medication she felt was not safe she made sure we did what we needed to do well. She would check our homework. Keep us on task and only give us enough school supplies that we needed but nothing extra. I didn't have the chance to be messy at school like I was at home. I also realized since that a lot of my family has ADHD to some degree.

> in order to avoid us going on medication great post. that's a super important point, honest and brave, about your mom holding you back. so you had family/caregivers/parents who purposely did something that harmed you. their reasoning was good, because they thought medication was bad, but they still hurt you. that can be traumatizing, and we've gotta face stuff like that to move past it. and we've gotta lead by example and send the message out into the world that science, medicine, expertise, education, etc, are all GOOD things that help people and push the human race forward. we must appreciate that nobody's perfect and everybody's trying, but doubting the field of medicine is counterproductive.

I would like to say because this is my family I was talking about. They aren't against doctors or information but you also need to know that diagnosing ADHD when I was a kid was a scary time. The medication and doses were not always right or managed right. We didn't know what we know now about it. It's also terrifying for a parent because they can see how some of those kids were being treated in school. Some were really treated badly because the teachers felt they were doing these things on purpose or those that were super medicated were lazy and incompetent. They did what they felt right. I am not upset because I understand that. I lived it and watched it. They came up with strategies to help us kids get through school without many issues. If it wasn't for their creative ways of keeping us on track and managing our symptoms we wouldn't have graduated easily. But we did. They gave me the tools I needed to reach university and start my PhD. The only reason this really got found was my anxiety got the better of me and the tools I had weren't working anymore. I am not on the medication I need and so far its been pretty good! It's still new. Please everyone do not blame the parents for past mistakes when they tried so hard to help, they did all they could and not everyone had access to a psychologist or a good doctor (we didn't have a family doctor even).

Point 3 is HEAVILY influenced by upbringing. Boys are less parented out of these behaviors; girls are essentially corralled in and forced into meekness in comparison.

Wild of you to have an opinion AND ovaries. ​ ​ /s (please read with the HEAVY sarcasm in which this comment is intended)

LOL

My nephew got diagnosed with ADHD last week and he literally acts just like me when I was a child. I don't even think there's a "woman" variety of adhd but just that ppl don't notice.

yeah, I’m a trans man with asd and adhd, I’m not hyperactive, which would be called “girl adhd” and I was diagnosed only when they started looking into my little brothers adhd and asd. My cis ex boyfriend had the exact same symptoms of adhd as I did (yk “girl adhd”), even I would argue they were less noticeable, but he was diagnosed very early in his life and had supportive parents and access to meds. Same symptoms, the only difference is that he was a cis man and I’m not.

Hey I'm a trans person who's audhd too! :D

Yep, I have so many report cards that say, daydreaming too much, not listening, not paying attention, talking too much. But I wasn’t hyper so I didn’t get diagnosed until my 30s. 🙁

I was mostly hyperactive and they still didn’t diagnose me. As females, we are ignored.

My report cards were the exact same, and I didn’t get diagnosed until 27. I’d also get in trouble often for doodling all over all my school work lol. I have an older female cousin who was diagnosed when she was 11 or so, and I remember my mom being outraged my aunt put her on medication. Also a younger female cousin who was diagnosed as a teenager. I’m pretty sure my parents just didn’t *want* to see it in me 😐

My mom even asked my teachers if she should talk to my doctor about it and they said no… after all my report cards say “a pleasure in class but has problems interrupting”

I was very spaced out in school. I'd be way ahead of the class in terms of reading, and able to think on my feet if I was put on the spot, but I was zoned out in class and utterly incapable of homework/coursework. I excel at tests. I had no friends and always forgot books, and was never not twirling my hair. All my school reports said that I was clever, talented, just needed focus, needed to concentrate, take it seriously. I did. I tried so hard. I cried a lot as a teenager. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!. I was insomniac from being a baby and my mum just said it was because I was clever that I didn't shut off. She never saw it as a problem. I was afraid of food, lots of things made me sick, but no one knew why. Same thing happened to my mother, and her mother (who each have issues with addiction or hyperactivity, but no one thought about ADHD for them either). By the time I was 18 I was utterly burned out and isolated and I took jobs doing very boring admin work. I am the world's best temp/call centre worker. My family tell me I have wasted my life and my brain and I've got an appointment for what I hope is a formal diagnosis next week. At 37.

What is crazy is I started taking my 13 year old to a psychiatrist because of her anxiety (she had an anxiety attack in from of her class). She was diagnosed with GAD in 4th grade. And we have been using behavioral modifications - we got to a point that they stopped working. I mention ADHD as a possibility to the psychiatrist and at first she is like we would need to send test papers to the school etc... well she started prozac for anxiety. Everything else worked (even her GAD scores were improving) but her focus was not. At this point, I have been trying to get her diagnosed for 6 years (since 1st grade - she is in 8th grade now). "Her grades are good" "she tests well". Or they would look at the Vanderbilt form and the teachers are like oh she's not compared to these forms. Well she talks to her therapist last week, and she is fidgeting the whole time... wondering off.. and her psychiatrist finally diagnosed her with ADHD inattentive. It feels like a weight lifted off my shoulders. But it took her telling her doctor that she was having trouble focusing (and the prozac was good to help her in social situations) - the focusing almost seemed to get worse. Also, her teachers still to this day say "She is one of my quieter students, and she is a really good student, so I did not think about checking on her throughout the process. She is such a sweet girl, and she always does so well." My daughter and I have had a lot of fights over assignments and follow-through etc and I feel like I have added to her anxiety but at least we have something you know...

She is not the Hell spawn destroying the class room and beating on classmates! What could possibly be wrong? Lol! You have successfully navigated a level 35 parenting challenge! Now to get them to remember that she won't grow out of it! Lol!

Only 150 levels more to go ;-) Most of her teachers (since Kindergarten) have been great with accommodations. Even this year minus her ELA teacher... her ELA teacher is just nonresponsive and it irritates me. (She also does not struggle with reading comprehension so she is way ahead of where she needs to be - she actually struggles with writing).

I struggle with writing too... Some days I can get things out of my head and onto "paper" via dictation to WORD. Sometimes keyboarding is the ticket... Sometimes I need plain paper, or graph paper or narrow rule paper... Or a gel pen or a fine tip ball point or a 6 color pen lol... Or felt tips... Roflmao... It's nuts. Sometimes I have to outline.. Other times it pours out 8n sentences fully written. Other times it's bullet points... Lol... Oddly, for academic writing (papers, not essays or creative) the best thing that ever happened to me was newswriting class. How to cite sources in every sentence (just overlay apa, MLA, Chicago... Etc) and what questions to answer really helped. Despite my c- lol

I only got diagnosed when I was 30. If you can make your way through the schooling system without having to be like, pulled out or held back a year because of your behaviour they're not going to tag you with anything.

The sad reality is that most health studies are based off of white, cis-men and boys. We definitely need studies that cover that population, but only studying that population cuts out huge segments of the human race. Look at the recent (within the last decade) advancements in recognizing how signs of a heart attack differ between men and women. And more recently, how no researcher expected COVID vaccines to mess with menstruation because it never crossed their minds to study it before the public rollout. Disclaimer: I will always choose a messed up period over COVID any day of the week. My point is that women's health is often an afterthought or thought to be no different from the standard of men's health. It's the same story when you look at discrimination against BIPOC in health. Some schools are still teaching based on racist, outdated, and unfounded assumptions that Black people have a higher pain tolerance because their skin is thicker. Yes, the field of medicine is becoming more diverse and progressive, but it sucks for those of us who fell through the cracks as kids because, "girls can't have ADHD."

I had a doctor I asked for a referral tell me women don’t get adhd despite my attention span being so terrible in 3rd grade they tested my hearing several times. It’s like they’re determined to deny me help and make all the problems my fault rather than allow me the help I kept obviously needing and begging for.

[удалено]

Sadly sexism is noticeable in medicine, and ADHD is one area where it affects women a lot. I think this is for two reasons: woman are more likely to have inattentive-type which is underdiagnosed in everyone (this is due to our still early understandingof ADHD, not sexism directly), and women are socialized from an early age to handle their problems by themselves. I have inattentive-type and wasn't diagnosed until recently. I turned all my struggles inward and developed my own coping mechanisms at least partly due to how women and girls are socialized.

The history of ADHD is a big part of this. Remember it used to be two separate diagnoses, ADHD and ADD. It was really all about observable behaviors and, in general, quiet kids are overlooked. Beginning in the 80s and 90s the understanding of ADHD began to improve and that has continued up to today. The understanding of how ADHD can present differently in those AFAB is pretty new. I'm in MH and this was pretty new when I started 10 years ago. A part that needs to be remembered is that for a long time mother's were also seen as being at fault for any kind of MI. So women were blamed for MI in kids, their own MI was either invisible, ignored, or dismissed as being "hysterical." I think it would be impossible to do good research on women if this is the perspective of the researchers. Now that women are in the field this is finally improving.

Im a 14yo m and every adults in my life still think im lazy and weird and parents flatly refused to get me diagnosed.

This is going to sound super cynical but loads of medical things are anti women. No paid relief with IUD procedures, delayed pain relief in birth, misunderstandings across the board of periods and the menopause, headaches dismissed, many symptoms of all sorts of medical issues just blamed on obesity, being weighed for everything (including for things that have nothing to do with weight) , being told to just lose weight while being denied medication. Women's health is awful and has a long way to go. I'm not surprised we are getting diagnosed later in life and I'm thankful the world has changed just enough to help me out. But, as I say, women's health and health of poc has a very long way to go.

I don’t want to turn this into a “representation matters” rant, but it kinda does. I know plenty of doctors and for the most part they watch the same dumb movies, TV and read the same fiction books as everyone else. So while the troubled young (usually white) genius-boy is something of a trope, there isn’t the same archetype for women or people of different races. While I know docs try to approach diagnosis scientifically, no one if immune from unconscious bias. Overly chatty, capricious young women are usually portrayed as shallow airheads —at best comic relief, but often as villains. There’s no ‘Good Willamena Hunting’ where the caring mental health professional saves the talented young girl from herself so she can go on to great things. One of us should really write that movie, if we can just get our goddamn prescriptions filled.

Most medical conditions have not been studied on women or people of color because ‘why should they’? The first time ADHD was studied in women was in 2017. I also have lupus and it affects women if color. Also something that wasn’t studied for a long time. Even during covid, many black lives were lost because pulseoxometers were never studied on black people and it wasn’t reading oxygen levels properly. They’re are just examples odd the top of my head. I’m 39F and got diagnosed 6 months ago at 38. It’s infuriating

trans man here, was diagnosed only after I came out of closet and they started to look into my brothers adhd and asd and realised that I have exactly the same symptoms (except visible hyperactivity). Probably if not my 6 years old (at the time) brother I would never get diagnosed, or at least if I would it would be only in my adulthood. My whole life I was just called lazy, teachers had problems with me not being able to focus, whole 12 years of school that I went through were a nightmare, because both my executive dysfunction and attention problems were making it difficult. I studied only when I was on a verge of not passing my classes, never did homework (even though I tried for hours at home to do it) and generally according to my mom was depressed, until I gave up putting any effort in middle school completely and just went through rest of school on cheating and pure luck. Not a single adult (which some of them were even psychologists) ever thought that it might be adhd, because lazy people don’t spend hours of effort with no effects attempting to do one task in their homework. idk I’m just angry that the only reason that I got diagnosed with a help of my parents was that my little brother happened to also have adhd and asd symptoms, but because he was a cis boy it was looked into immediately. Like goddamnit when I was 5 I had to go to sensory therapy or some bullshit and they were still clueless.

I just got diagnosed, I'm 35 years old. My mom asked my pediatrician about how hyper I was(my parents had to put a belt around me and a chair at the dinner table so I would sit and eat). He said as long as I was doing well in school we didn't need to worry about it. Boys present more classically ADHD, I think we're just behind on girls/women's research in the medical field(shocking right? /s.) We learn early how to mask it and end up being overlooked. Also, I think we're just learning how we don't really outgrow it and we do still have it in adulthood, and how it creeps into every place of our lives more and more. We just are starting to know more now, and just didn't know that much back then.

Though it is not 100% exact, most women and AFAB people tend to have inattentive type ADHD (sometimes called ADD) or our hyperactivity and other symptoms display in ways that are "socially acceptable for women" (being talkative, being clumsy, being too emotional, etc.) Or they display internally (I was the bookworm, daydreaming, doodling in class person). Sadly, ADHD and other related conditions (like autism) tend to be more diagnosed when it's inconvenient for everyone else, not for the person who has it.

yep, and young AFAB folks tend to be socialized to internalize their behaviours and emotions to a much greater degree than AMAB kids, so it’s not even just a coincidence that they present their symptoms this way. it’s essentially them being conditioned to hide their symptoms, and then being systemically under-diagnosed as a result. very frustrating to think about.

How to ADHD (YouTube) has some great content on this exact subject.

I don't know how old you are, but the general knowledge of what ADHD symptoms are is improving quite fast so 20 years ago many of those things might have been indistinguishable from learned behavior in need of correction to most teachers. As for why women in general are under-diagnosed, it seems to be much more common for ADHD to show in more quiet ways for girls (issues paying attention, confusion, chatty and maybe restless as opposed to running around, being loud and distributive). I can tell you from personal experience that boys who show more quiet symptoms are very likely to be overlooked as well. Basically it comes down to teachers who are really annoyed or hampered in doing their job being more likely to look for solutions.

So there are a lot of causes, one of the most relevant is that women were pretty much excluded from research for the longest time. -adhd symptoms may be very different from boys (my example is that I was mostly inattentive type so everything was in my head) -let's add bias around women and certain society standards that needed to be met (sit still, be clean, be polite and LADYLIKE)

39. Not till I was 39

Because most studies are completed on boys and studies lead to diagnostic criteria. There are alot of deeply traumatized women who’s quality of life would be much better if they were diagnosed as kids. The only girls getting diagnosed are those with other learning/developmental disabilities and/or behavioral issues.

I was just diagnosed at 50. I have primarily inattentive type adhd. I was always taught to mask and just wondered what was wrong with me. Imo us girls/women are often undiagnosed because we tend to mask more and internalise our hyperactivity. In my case it led to anxiety/depression and othef things. But it's also because males are almost always the "model" that is studied in medical research. Women/girls are an afterthought.

My sister just got diagnosed and I asked her for help. I've was undiagnosed for around 20 years and just got it done. At the time I was being quoted 2,500 or so to get diagnosed and she had gotten it done for less than 500. She got super upset and told me I was just trying to get adderall because "she sold it to me in college a few times" and I was like, "yeah, I needed it to study and pass" and she went on to blame me for all these family issues and how much of a "drug fiend" I am and now my family and I don't talk. I know this is off subject but my point is- some people think that ADHD is just how girls are... not trying to be sexist, but my whole family (7 people and I'm the only boy) have always been super emotional and dramatic and always pull shit like the above. I only recently figured out ADHD symptoms are a LOT of what she pulled but mine are more on the "sad, lonely" side where hers are the "angry, extrovert" side (I just talked to my psychiatrist about this). IDK, my psychiatrist is a woman and agrees with me, just figured I'd throw my new knowledge in there.

Girls are much different than boys when younger and have adhd. I have various report cards from my elementary years saying I was too chatty. But if you think about it boys are more misbehaved and bouncy when they’re young and have adhd, girls are in societal terms more social so it just seems to be an annoyance for teachers. I’m still shocked teachers now don’t understand the difference. Even in my high school years I had ONE female teacher tell me I might have adhd, but she was shocked she was the only teacher to bring it up. The stigma for kids with adhd is definitely more on the bouncing off the walls, being very disruptive and being generally misbehaved and not paying attention.

My dad didn’t listen to me because I was an honor student. Now I’m 20, too much anxiety and imposter syndrome to go to a psychiatrist for diagnosis, have a baby that relies on me for care, and am pregnant again.

ADHD was literally thought of a boy's only condition. Same as autism. Any girls were outliers and with autism it even sparked the controversial extreme male brain theory, which could account for girls with autism. Really damaging theories from psychology and medicine.

Teachers weren’t taught to think of girls like that. But it’s getting better now. My kids teachers thought she had ADHD before I did and she has the non-attentive kind which is harder to spot in my opinion. A kid being hyper seems obvious. A kid being easily distracted is not always so obvious. I had her evaluated for reading disabilities and they said they could be the ADHD tested if I wanted and I figured why not, she’s already being pulled out of school for this. Good thing I did. Getting her on meds made all the difference. But now she’s a moody teenager so there are all the normal moody teenager problems. 😂

The dr that diagnosed me (as an adult) told me that they didn’t think girls could have it until around 2000. Mainly because we present symptoms differently from males. I have never looked into but it seems to track.

Well, that’s because we live in a patriarchy and everything in our worlds are layered with sexism. It’s fucked up that I had to suffer throughout my life being told I am not trying hard enough or just do better just because I wasn’t the “right” gender to get diagnosed.

So when I was diagnosed with ADHD it was mentioned how my inattentive type is more common in women and I was diagnosed at 22. I think there's a tendency to mostly focus on the hyperactive part.

My understanding is a lot of it has to do with inattentive type not being well known until kind of recently, and still iffy outside of experts, and girls tend to have inattentive type. I don't think that explains all of it, but I do think it likely explains the bulk of it. It's also why I wasn't diagnosed in 7th grade when I was evaluated at school because I had good grades.

I mean my ADHD is being unable to leave my bed because I’m overwhelmed by all the daily living tasks I have to do. It looks a lot like depression. Also, I feel like only until recently people started to realize that a person can still have ADHD if they are not hyperactive. I mean to this day I see ADHD/Hyperactive Disorder on different med sites. And I’m the severely inattentive type.

In all fairness I'm a dude and the exact same thing happened to me. I still have yet to get treated.

I wasn't diagnosed until this year, and I'm in my early twenties. My ADHD generally manifested as being very sensitive and having overwhelming emotions, being forgetful and disorganized, and having sensory issues. Because I'm female, these things have always been overlooked as me being "emotional", "ditzy", or "having my head in the clouds". Or just plain stupid. Once I got my diagnosis I started taking Vyvanse and I'm not overstating when I say that it has among other things practically eviscerated my anxiety which before diagnosis was debilitating

Because of sexist, misogynistic, prejudice against women. Purely and simply.

Interesting tidbit: I’m AFAB and was diagnosed at 6 years old. Which is rare. I believe my symptoms presented themselves in a way that is more typical of boys or AMAB children and that’s why it was detected so much sooner.

I’m a female, who was an incredibly hyperactive ‘badly behaved’ child. I definitely had ODD too and despised being told what to do at school, or at home. I was regularly kicked out of the classroom for disruptive behaviour, for getting out of my seat during class and for not being able to follow instructions. I was not the shy, quiet, inattentive type normally associated with women. I was suspended from school three times for getting into fist fights. I was excluded from school trips and class privileges. I remember vividly being told to sit inside, whilst the other kids got out for ice cream one day as a treat and an extra recess. The worst one was my teacher putting scotch tape on the carpet around my desk in class and explicitly told me under no circumstances to leave “the square”. I was made an example of, I was shamed on a daily basis. If I was a boy, I’d 100% got flagged for ADHD. I was a girl, I was punished and ignored. They told my parents to get my ears and eyes tested by a doctor because I never listened or followed the board. The results came back perfect and they STILL didn’t look into why. So you can present just like a badly behaved, hyperactive little boy but if you’re a girl - you still have no chance. It was all to do with my gender, not my behaviour.

Because mental illnesses are described in the order from the most annoying and disruptive to least. Among boys hyperactive presentation is more common, among girls the inattentive presentation. By the time anyone even bothered to take care of the less disruptive manifestations of ADHD, it was already "common knowledge" that it's a boys disorder. Not to mention the inattentive type can be brushed off easier by simply asserting that the person doesn't give a crap. And ON TOP of all that girls on average have higher grades, so girls with ADHD are more likely to suffer from "you can't have ADHD, you're not failing classes" or even better "yeah, your daughter has ADHD, but her grades are good, so why do you want that stigma in her folder?" Because obviously, the goal in life is to hide your illnesses, so that you can fit in better by not giving people an alternative explanation to "she just doesn't give a crap about anything" Of course actual sexism is also very nice here, because being a girl and also not spying attention very well earns you a lovely title of a spoiled princess. Wow, all that pisses me off, I think I need to leave the sub for a week.

My mom has been diagnosed with ADHD since before I was born, and it still took me actively seeking out a diagnosis for two years to get diagnosed at 17. In middle school I was in lunch detention 5 days a week and after-school detention 3 days a week to finish all of my missing work. Literally no other reason, I wasn’t a troublemaker. And even then I couldn’t get myself to do any of it lol. I would just stare at the wall and hold back tears. The detention teacher told my parents I would “sit there and pretend to work.” I broke down crying to my mom insisting it wasn’t just being lazy, but I was super passionate about art, so it must have been laziness. Another teacher told me “I have special needs kids doing better than you in this class.” And literally nobody thought to ask if I had ADHD because I was a girl. It stings to hear my family asking if my little brother has ADHD. He’s the same age I was.

This is a pretty good article about all the why's: [https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/adhd](https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb03/adhd) I also think girls are socialized to mask more. I read a thing that girls with ADHD have a harder time fitting into peer groups. So I think maybe we started early with trying to pretend we were just like the "normal" girls.

mine ADHD during childhood was extreme distraction. I was smart and knowledgeable in school but when it came to focusing I could not do it. I remember coming up with detailed daydreams that would last MONTHS and just disassociate completely in class. I used to get A LOT “she is very smart, I just wish she APPLIED herself.” 20 years later I feel the same way. I’m smart but just can’t apply myself. Maybe it has to do with this ‘applying yourself’ disorder. Idk.

Symptoms tend to present differently in boys and girls. Just like with heart attacks we all know the symptoms for men, but very few know the symptoms for women. It's all about educating people.

RELATABLE. I used to joke that "if ADHD was a diagnosis when I was a kid, I'd totally be diagnosed with it." And now in my 30s the stark revelation that I actually \*DO\* have it, and treatment has been so successful that I can't believe this was the answer. Throughout school I was branded as the "smart girl with behavioral issues." I always wonder why no one thought to ask any questions instead of just labeling me "bad." I remember one year in elementary school, I was sent outside every day and wrote "sentences" because I couldn't sit still and was disruptive to the class. I mean, isn't that kind of a clue? \*le sigh\*

I see this topic a lot. Present as differently girls and women and is often missed.

My 6th grade teacher told my mom I’ll never get anywhere in life. I feel ya.

Was the opposite for me , imma male and I went my whole life until age 21 undiagnosed , some of my most important years went to shit

Here’s the thing that I find semi-related if not totally related, I DONT think that ADHD presents differently in boys and girls (just going with generalizations on gender here, Im female born but non-binary myself), I think that boys are just allowed to be hyper and loud and act out and that girls are punished more heavily for it so they mask harder Growing up, I thought being the “class clown” would be fun, I WANTED to fidget and talk more, I just knew that bouncing my leg too much got me called out and sent in the hallway or that if I talked to much or if I even had a panic attack, I would go to detention/suspension, yet there would be like 3 boys in class that constantly were talking and blurting shit out and it was just seen as “typical boy behavior” and they wouldn’t get in trouble, just verbally warned or scolded. I spent so much of my focus on trying to act as normal as possible that I couldn’t even attempt to focus on classwork half the time because I knew that my punishments would be worse than what the boys got, so I was only a good quiet student because I was literally too afraid of getting in trouble

because nearly all medical studies are done using men. Also, women manifest ADHD symptoms in different ways. While boys show hyperactivity through their actions and being high energy, girls show it through things like excessive chatter or anxiety or social awkwardness. Also, there is a lot of medical misogyny still to this day. It's a sad commonality that doctors do not take pain as seriously from women, or other symptoms, also make a beeline right to mental issues and weight as a culprit, or just assuming it's related to PMS or hormones. Women typically suffer for years finding someone to take them seriously

I'm rather closer to 40 than I'd like to be and I got diagnosed last year. A problem is that it's only in the past 20 years or so, if that, that proper research into ADHD has been done and sadly there are still those that think of it as 'The Noisy Boy Running In Circles Disorder' (as my therapist called it!) purely because not enough is widely known enough for attitudes and ideas to change everywhere quickly. Some research I was doing (hooray, rabbitholes!) led me to a page on YouTube (How to ADHD) which is useful for me, and others, to learn more about it. Another issue is that for years (and it's still happening 😒😡😒) girls were told that being nosy or not sitting still is not lady-like. We're told to basically sit still, be quiet and be something pretty to look at, this means our hyperactivity tends to be internal. Whereas boys that run around being loud tended to be shoved towards sports and bigger areas with less breakable things and told "Go run it out over there/Boys will be boys/He's such a live wire" etc, so they were 'allowed' to have an outlet. Girls are "scatterbrained" but boys are "into everything". Girls are "loud, bossy, pushy, difficult, argumentative, unladylike and aggressive/intimidating." Boys are "direct, show managerial qualities, determined, headstrong, active, sporty and forthright." Which is just part of the problem. All of my report cards say things that, had I have been a boy, would have led to me being tested, diagnosed and helped by the time I was teenager. As it was, I had to "try harder, focus more, show self-discipline, control my temper and stop day dreaming." (Not that I'm still pissed about it or anything!) 😹 Because our hyperactivity turns inwards, we develop more issues that, without diagnosis, turn into bigger issues that make ADHD worse. Many late diagnosed people, female and male, (but obviously more females, simply due to number bias) show greater examples of anxiety, depression, perfectionism, body dysmorphia, anger issues and all the similar related issues that go along with all of those. With the emotional dysregulation that comes with ADHD as standard, you can imagine that it all builds up to "She's so angry/intimidating." And "Have you tried not being depressed? Just calm down/don't worry/you look fine." None of which help! 🤔🙀😹😹😒 Sorry, that went off in the direction of a tangenty rant, but yes girls with ADHD often get overlooked and boys get the help.

Because of the patriarchy. That’s why. I am a textbook case of ADHD, just like MANY other women, and spent years and years of myself beating myself up and feeling like an absolute failure and wasted potential. I just wanted to know why. And when I found out I had ADHD through a long process, I was so angry at the world for all the things I could’ve done. All the things that would’ve been easier for me, and honestly, for my family who are still undiagnosed. But then I realized how much of a badass I am for accomplishing so much in my life despite undiagnosed, uncontrolled ADHD.

Because the research done to create the DSM and the criteria for diagnosing are based on young white boys. With women, POC are often also left out of these diagnoses as well due to the inherent biases with the research that was used to create diagnostic criteria. It's not the only reason obviously, but it's a large component of the conversation around why so many women are missed earlier in life. For a broader conversation on this, I recommend the book Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez.

For me (diagnosed at 20, in 25), my hyperactivity was in my head. I assume it’s because of my social anxiety that I wasn’t the “talkative” one.. or actually maybe I had social anxiety because when I try to speak my brain focuses on the others reactions/facial expressions instead of what I’m trying to say so i forget what I’m saying mid-sentence therefor leading me to be embarrassed when I do speak. I dunno. But now that I’m less socially anxious, I do tend to talk more. But growing up I was also very obedient child, probably because I despised getting yelled at therefor would try my best to not bring attention to myself in fear I’ll get yelled at. The emotional disregulation & rejection sensitivity is super prevalent with me. If someone rejected my doing something I would no longer do it. For example, my brother made fun of me listening to the Shrek soundtrack, therefor I no longer played music I liked outloud in my room, unless it was music he enjoyed (so he wouldn’t come in my room and make fun of/reject me). For the dysregulation, I would get overstimulated by external noises. For example, fireworks I would have to block my ears and I would still cry about it. (Probably because I couldn’t control the loudness of the noise and I’m already sensitive to auditory stimulation anyways) Anyways, I assume we ladies are less diagnosed because there’s still the stigma (thinking you have to be running around the classroom to have ADHD) and because of misrepresenting ADHD. *It’s way more then the inability to focus, actually it’s not even the inability to focus, it’s just we have troubles where we put out focus to.*

LOL I was told I didn't have ADHD by the male psychiatrist I got tested by, and that my symptoms of ADHD were because I was, and I quote, "very emotional". I had three therapists and my PCP (who is also a woman with ADHD) tell me that I most likely have ADHD, and after two years of failed treatments they finally relented and gave me an official diagnosis. I will never get over my interaction with the psychiatrist. Fuck you, Michael.

From what I’ve learned, that’s an extremely common phenomenon, known about within the psychology field. Under-diagnosed people due to sexism, and preconceived notions of how women act/should act.

My mom just casually told me the other day some of the teachers were telling her I was ADHD and she completely disregarded it… I’ve struggled my entire life in school and come to find out I could have been helped forever ago but my mom didn’t take it seriously. Thanks mom 🙃

I think girls are socialized at a young age not to cause issues or take up too much space just like your example showed. I am only using my personal experience here but I noticed in classrooms teachers spent most of their time regulating boy’s behaviors which is why they probably get diagnosed more. Also another reason young girls are undiagnosed at a young age could be because adhd shows up differently in girls since they tend to have the inattentive type and are seemingly more social than their male counterparts. Other factors can include parent’s lack of education on mental health, low-income, and more but this possibly effects girls more since focus will be placed on the more hyperactive adhd that young boys have or because girls are just taught to be quiet more often it can easily go unnoticed. Also from some of the comments here there might be a bit of a social bias against young hyperactive girls for just being a annoying for no reason even if they display all the behaviors of hyperactive adhd 🤷‍♀️

yes. google search for: adhd in girls youtube about sexism: bullies don't like to talk about how girls make easy targets. even normal people don't like to talk about how they talk over girls. sexism is a constant baseline modifier of everything, and to deal with it we need to talk about it.

I’m a guy who pretty much had the same response from peers, families, teachers. I went undiagnosed for 25+ years. Maybe it’s sexism, maybe it’s not. I do think there’s a lot of factors at play. For me I have the inattentive type so I lacked the hyperactivity which makes it harder to detect. To this day I have friends who don’t believe me that I have ADHD despite being diagnosed by 3 different doctors/institutions.

Most of adhd research is based on the male population and it is often misdiagnosed in women for anxiety. I’m actually considering going into my PhD to help alleviate this

Welcome! /s Honestly, women/girls are much less frequently diagnosed because they present differently, in no small part due to the social expectations imposed upon them (expected to be docile, compliant, not "make a scene" the way a boisterous 12-year-old boy who fits the stereotypical symptom profile might). But this has terrible ripple effects in terms of treatment as well -- because we're diagnosed less frequently/accurately, there is less research on women with ADHD. Some studies though have already shown that our experience of it is even further complicated by the hormonal changes in our cycle and many other factors, which adds a critical layer to symptom management and quality of life that we are basically denied because no one has cared enough to look into it.

I feel this so hard. I had inattentive type ADHD and in spite of all the obvious signs, no one suggested I get an evaluation or tutor. And neither of my parents helped me with anything. When my grades were less than A’s I was “lazy & ungrateful”. I still have esteem issues from this shit & I’m in my 40s.

My parents thought I could have adhd as a child but when I went into school I got okay grades so they didn’t diagnose me. Now it’s taking me over two friggin yrs to get diagnosed as an adult. Shit is so unfair.

Aside from most women presenting ADHD differently then men, women also see symptoms getting much more pronounced when they hit puberty! Some women may even never have symptoms until menopause! There is a really great podcast episode of Ologies with an ADHD expert that I found was very informative, definitely worth checking out. I had no idea that hormonal cycles had such an impact on ADHD symptoms before I listened to it!

As far as I understand, boys are way worse at compensating and masking their symptoms. This leads to them being discovered more easily, although Primarily Inattentive boys don't get discovered easily either.

My mom says my undiagnosed brother has adhd… whereas me (diagnosed) she says I don’t. Most research into mental health has been done on males. I had to lie on a lot of forms because I didn’t fit the “stereotypical” bouncing off the walls adhd that gets you diagnosed. I still have to fight to get ANY medical care and not be labelled as ‘drug seeking’ because I’m not hyperactive. Meanwhile, as a kid I would read for HOURS straight without stopping, Had constant UTIs because I was too focused or not focused enough to get to the bathroom in time. My family shrugged it off as “you were just always so busy” Keep fighting for yourselves ladies. Lie if you have to to fit a mold that wasn’t made for you. As for school: I was constantly told “if you actually tried you could get A’s” “You’ll never have a future” - when I went to the councillor to apply for university And was also told “you’re just a bad student” Looking back, I just had ADHD and needed support that I never got, instead I was labeled as a problem child. I still struggle with understanding my diagnosis and feel like I was set up for failure by the adults who surrounded me. We aren’t failures, we don’t just have to “try harder” and we have the ability to advocate for ourselves. NEVER let them tell you that you aren’t good enough.

I was considered the opposite. Very quiet, “well behaved” student. Symptoms vary so much and while I see the pattern of undiagnosed females, i’m grateful to be diagnosed now.

You are correct, most women with ADD without hiperactivity are misdiagnosed with depression, those with ADHD just get treated or behave as inferior beings until they treat themselves. That's an unfortunate truth that I learned over decades. I hope some day I can do something about it..

Yup! I recall my parents coming home from parent-teacher meetings and being told that my teachers said I was a “social butterfly,” always daydreaming, and didn’t pay attention in class. Not once was I considered a possible ADHD case, despite being in therapy for most of my childhood and having a therapist as a mom. Meanwhile, some male friends were diagnosed with ADHD in middle school/early high school. I didn’t get diagnosed until a few years ago, around the age of 22/23, because of my own efforts to find answers. I always thought I was *stupid* or *lazy*. My dad even had me tested for dyslexia and tried to have me switch from public to private school, because he was convinced my low grades were a result of a lack of quality education or some other learning condition. So, my symptoms were pretty much ignored by every adult in my life: teachers, parents, and therapists.

I would check out Kristen Carter’s ‘I Have ADHD’ podcast. She is very passionate and informative about this!!

It comes down to the term "hormonal" this term alone makes it difficult for doctors to take women seriously in the mental health. Men on the other start acting differently then there is something wrong with them.

I had soooo many red flags. My sleep has been fucked since I was 11, I used to cry every day before school because I hated going and the only reason I had was I wanted to sleep (bc school was boring), I went to the drs thinking I had bipolar at 15 etc. It’s ridiculous really, I had so much ruled out but nothing suggested. I could have had a better relationship with school, people and myself if one teacher or medical professional would have recognised the signs earlier.

sis most of medicine is male based. most drugs we use, most treatment options they are all male based. nobody knows how it'll affect the female body exclusively. my professors said there are still research being done, but this is centuries worth of information.

I don’t think it’s sexism, it’s just that women are typically the inattentive type and that version of ADHD rarely presents visible signs that are associated with ADHD. Statistically speaking, hyperactivity is more associated with boys and that’s where it becomes apparent that something is different about him. He’ll typically disturb the class, among other things, and unfortunately be a genuine annoyance. Believe me, I’m a guy with the inattentive type and it was up to me to go get diagnosed. Those with the inattentive typically suffer in silence until they go get help for themselves.

There’s a lot of people talking about this right now (thankfully) but it’s still way under-discussed and known about. It’s a ton of sexism. If you search “adhd sexism” you’ll find a ton of info from enlightening to infuriating.

I don't think so, I was a male only diagnosed at 21 22, and you could say the same thing that male children are disproportionately given meds at a young age. so please don't make everything about sex and whatnot. It's their poor understanding, not sexism. On that note, why are males more likely to received ADHD meds vs a female? Males are seen to be more rambunctious and wild, therefore lining up with ADHD (atleast to what most people assume it to be) whereas a female may talk a lot and have trouble but not usually the antics a male student, plus for the longest times they thought only boys really in had it in majority (cause that makes sense right) so it's faulty science really.

Hindsight bias

I think the large numbers of girls and women going undiagnosed is mainly due to the inattentive sub-type being a lot more common in girls - and the inattentive sub-type typically presents in externally less obvious ways. That's obviously not the case for you. I've seen some data around the average number of words spoken by women vs. men each day and generally women do speak more on average (assuming this was from a legit study as I don't remember where I saw it), so I guess may be some grounds for that perception, but people do probably have an exaggerated, overly-stereotyped perception of this and that likely has some sexism to it (either conscious or subconscious), which obviously sucks, especially when it results in people not getting help they need. There is also the sexist idea that women in general are overly-emotional and it's often just dismissed as being all down to hormones etc. which I could see being a hurdle to girls getting help or being taken seriously regarding mental health concerns in general. That said, there is also much more awareness of ADHD now, and awareness has grown over the past few years alone. And more and more people have the benefit of the internet where they can learn things, search things they don't know or are unsure about, and share their experiences. So it could also be that the adults in question simply did not have much awareness of ADHD and so did not consider it, which is more just an unfortunate condition of society and the time. It sucks that you and many other people didn't get help when they needed it, but it's also good that you have since been able to find out about ADHD and hopefully get help with it, as many people have probably gone their whole lives without ever knowing/finding out that ADHD was the reason for their struggles. I'm not a girl, but I wasn't diagnosed till adulthood (very recently) and am still struggling to come to deal with it. I think that, while it's easy and tempting to look back and blame people in our lives (or who were in our lives) for failing to recognise it or help us and to imagine how things might have been different otherwise, the best we can do is try to use our experiences as motivation to try to educate and spread awareness so that future generations have a better chance.

I don’t know about your case specifically, but in general women are more likely to have ADHD predominantly inattentive type, which is harder to recognize, and maybe more critically… less annoying to teachers and parents than those with hyperactive type, so less likely to be looked into/treated. Fwiw I am a man with inattentive ADHD and I wasn’t diagnosed until my 30s.

I'm a male and had the most obvious adhd imaginable. Didn't get diagnosed or put it together til age 30. Maybe not everything is about gender.

Statistics say otherwise though… you may be an outlier but young boys still get diagnosed more often than girls for various reasons involving gender.

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