The High Cost of White-Knuckling ADHD with Katy Weber

Summary

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Hacking Your ADHD: “The High Cost of White-Knuckling ADHD”

Host: William Curb
Guest: Katy Weber (certified ADHD coach & host, Women & ADHD Podcast)
Date: April 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this deeply insightful episode, William Curb sits down with Katy Weber, a certified ADHD coach and host of the Women & ADHD podcast, to explore the hidden toll of “white-knuckling” life with undiagnosed or late-diagnosed ADHD—especially for women. The discussion navigates through late-life diagnosis, the high costs of masking, systemic stressors, differences in ADHD presentations across genders, and the connection between neurodivergence and physical health issues. Both hosts share personal experiences and research-backed insights, aiming to demystify ADHD and empower listeners to move towards radical self-acceptance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Late Diagnosis—A Transformational Realization

• Katy’s Pandemic-Era Diagnosis
  • Katy shares her journey to diagnosis at 45, during the chaos of the pandemic, while serving as PTA president and raising two kids at home ([03:02]).
  • Prior misconceptions about ADHD (“I thought of myself as lazy, not hyperactive.”) ([04:23])
  • The life-changing impact of discovering Sari Solden’s ADHD test for women as compared to the DSM-based tests ([06:00]).
• The Emotional Impact
  • Initial insult at the suggestion she might have ADHD due to societal misconceptions ([03:44], [04:05]).

2. Masking, External Perception, and Burnout

• External Behaviors vs. Internal Struggle
  • Katy explains how women are celebrated for “having it all together,” when beneath the surface, it’s white-knuckling and burnout ([09:21]).
  • Quote: “We’re not told, ‘You can’t sit still.’ We’re told, ‘I don’t know how you do it all’—and meanwhile, I’m not doing it all. I need help, get me off this ride.” – Katy ([09:27])
• Masking as Survival
  • Anxiety, shame, and people-pleasing often used as prime motivators, leading to exhaustion ([10:11]).

3. The Transformative Power of Self-Acceptance

• Parenting & Self-Compassion Shifts
  • Diagnosis led to radical shifts in self-perception and parenting style, helping replace shame and blame with understanding & support ([12:35]).
  • Quote: “We do not use the L-word—lazy—in my house. If you’re not succeeding, let’s figure out what the barrier is, but there’s nothing wrong with you.” – Katy ([13:52])
  • Self-talk and relationships benefited from refusal to believe she was “just a terrible person” ([14:44]).

4. ADHD in Women—Presentation & Societal Factors

• Beyond Inattentive vs. Hyperactive
  • Gendered social expectations lead women to develop internalized approval-seeking, making them adept at hiding symptoms until the cost becomes unsustainable ([18:14]).
  • Systemic bias: Boys are more likely to be identified for help, girls and women are disciplined or simply told to try harder ([18:50]).
  • Intersectionality: Amplified for women of color & marginalized groups ([19:35]).
• Perimenopause & the Breaking Point
  • Hormonal changes, life stresses converge, often leading mid-life women to finally seek assessment ([22:58]).
  • Quote: “The dam breaks…the house of cards falls over and you’re just like, ‘I can’t keep doing this.’” – Katy ([23:00])

5. The High Cost of “Just Trying Harder”

• Invisible Labor & Exhaustion
  • Society rarely sees the massive effort behind daily tasks—systems, checklists, and mental load ([25:21]).
  • Quote: “I like burst into tears because it had never occurred to me how hard I had been working just to do basic things.” – Katy ([25:48])
• Anxiety as a Driver (“White-Knuckling”)
  • Perpetual anxiety is used to maintain functioning, but the long-term impact is mental and physical exhaustion ([26:14]).

6. The Neurodivergent Nervous System—Physical & Mental Health Overlap

• Link to Autoimmune/Invisible Illnesses
  • Katy discusses patterns among women she’s interviewed: high rates of autoimmune disorders, fibromyalgia, and chronic pain—suggesting stress and neurodivergence deeply interact ([28:13]).
  • “We know young women’s autoimmune disorders are skyrocketing…and so is ADHD. The nervous system is reaching this breaking point.” – Katy ([28:15])
• Stress, Society, and Rising Diagnoses
  • The pandemic, economic pressures, and “not taking it anymore” led to a Me Too–style groundswell for adult women seeking ADHD assessments ([29:50]).
  • The possibility that much of what society labels as “disorder” is a reaction to impossible external stressors ([31:56]).

7. ADHD: Lifelong Identity, Not Just a Diagnosis

• Beyond Clinical Significance
  • ADHD should not be defined just by symptom severity in particular life seasons; the brain wiring remains.
  • “I don’t want to have to be proof of the clinical significance of my ADHD for the rest of my life.” – Katy ([32:58])
• Value in Feeling Seen
  • Katy urges listeners to trust their lived experience, regardless of academic definitions or dismissive providers ([37:28]).
  • Quote: “If what you’re reading about ADHD deeply resonates, you are on the right path.” – Katy ([38:11])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Katy Weber:
  • “I felt like my whole life had been turned upside down. Every random struggle…from elementary school to being an entrepreneur…just everything seemed to come back to this tidy little acronym.” ([06:40])
  • “We do not use the L-word—lazy—in my house.” ([13:52])
  • “I feel like the nervous system has kind of reached its breaking point in women.” ([28:15])
• William Curb:
  • “If I’m like, ‘How do I solve this problem?’ versus, ‘How do I solve this problem knowing I have ADHD,’ it’s like, oh, those are different answers.” ([16:47])
  • “There’s such a long period in my life where I was just purely running off anxiety to counteract executive dysfunction.” ([26:14])

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Key Timestamps

• 03:02 – Katy’s path to diagnosis and misunderstanding of ADHD
• 06:00 – Discovering how gendered tests can be more accurate for women
• 09:21 – The cost and process of masking and white-knuckling
• 13:52 – The transformation in parenting and self-talk
• 18:14–21:05 – How ADHD presents in women vs. men; societal pressures
• 22:58 – Perimenopause and the “breaking point” for late diagnosis
• 25:21 – The high energy cost of managing daily life undiagnosed
• 28:13 – Overlap between neurodivergence and physical health conditions
• 32:58 – Addressing “clinical significance” and ADHD as lifelong identity
• 37:28 – Final message about trusting one’s lived experience

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Final Takeaways

• Acceptance is transformative: Self-compassion after diagnosis opens up new ways to parent, work, and relate to others.
• White-knuckling is costly: Masking and using anxiety as a driver are unsustainable, leading to burnout and physical health impacts.
• Gender matters: Societal expectations hide ADHD symptoms in women, leading to internalization and late diagnosis.
• Stress and systemic factors: Many adult women are breaking down under unsustainable pressures—ADHD isn’t purely “brain disorder,” but a complex dance of biology and current social environment.
• Trust yourself: The most important validation comes from your lived experience, not just external checklists or naysayers.

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For more, connect with William Curb at hackingyouradhd.com/288 and follow Katy Weber’s work at Women & ADHD Podcast.

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Transcript

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[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

welcome

[William Curb (Host, Hacking Your ADHD Podcast)]

to hacking youg adhd i'm your host william curb and i have adhd on this podcast i dig into the tools tactics and best practices to help you work with your adhd brain hey team today i'm talking with katie weber a certified adhd coach and creator of the top rated women in adhd podcast after a career in journalism and wellness katie was diagnosed with adhd at forty five following that diagnosis she has built a platform helping neurodivergent women move past the shame of late diagnosis into a place of radical self acceptance in our conversation we talk about the systemic stressors that often trigger a late in life adhd breaking point particularly for women navigating career parenting and hormonal shifts we get into the mechanics of masking why we often use anxiety and shame as our primary motivators and the overlap between neurodivergence and physical health looking at how chronic stress manifests in our bodies if you'd like to follow along on the show notes page you can find that at hackingyouradhd dot com two hundred eighty eight alright keep on listening to find out how to stop proving how hard your work working and just start working with your brain

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

well i'm so glad to have you with us today it's a lot of fun to have these kinds of conversations especially about late diagnosis and stuff because i know so many of my listeners are late diagnosed because well that's kind of the theme of the podcast from the start but it is such a more common thing nowadays and so i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your own experience getting diagnosed at forty five yeah i

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

am what i like to call a pandemic diagnosis which was you know twenty twenty we all know where we were and i was actually the pta president for my kids elementary school which is just funny to think back at it because my narrative of myself was always this like underachiever and so you know it's how like on paper we find ourselves in these roles that don't really feel like they mix well with us so here i was somehow i had become the pta president and i was completely overwhelmed and completely just like treading water trying to do all this stuff and then the pandemic happened and everything came to a screeching halt and so i thought it would be a really really good idea to like try to start a new business so here i am at home trying to start a new business and i've got my kids at home they're running out of their room every five minutes i can't get onto zoom my internet's out i'm hungry i'm like i just fed you you know and this just the chaos of that time was just so overwhelming and i remember complaining to my therapist about how i couldn't concentrate and i felt like i was just in waiting mode i couldn't get anything done because i didn't know when i was be interrupted and she not for the first time said i think you should look into adhd she had recently been diagnosed through her middle schooler son and so she i think had looking back she had been on her own like hyper focused journey about what adhd looks like in in adult women but my first reaction because i didn't know anything about adhd was like i was actually kind of insulted i think i was sort of like you like i'm a pillar of the community like like do you really think that terribly of me i had such a poor idea of what adh adhd was right and the other thing was i didn't think i was hyperactive i was like you know i don't know what you're talking about i can i can barely get off the couch i'm complaining to you about paralysis which to my mind was like laziness and paralysis were the same thing right they were synonymous and they were also the opposite of hyperactivity that was how little i knew about adhd and so i was like i don't know what you're talking about like i can spend hours on the couch scrolling like i thought of myself as somebody who is lazy not hyperactive and so i went onto attitude magazine i went onto their website i took the adult adhd test and kind of i got like middling results i think i scored maybe like a seventy a lot of the questions that as you know are like from the dsm really just didn't apply to me i felt like they were very odd like my the one i always use is are do you feel like you're run by a motor and i remember being like what does that even mean aren't we all run by a motor like what what yeah of course i do like i didn't see how any of this was relevant to my life and i was sort eh maybe i have it maybe i don't i don't i didn't it didn't really pique my interest and then i came across sari soldin's adhd test specifically for women and that felt like when i took that test i mean i always joke it was the first test i ever aced but like it was also like i felt like my whole life flashed before my eyes i felt like oh my god this is what we're talking about when we're talking about adhd and it just felt like every random struggle i had had over the course of my life from element school to having kids and trying to be an entrepreneur and like just everything seemed to come back to this tidy little acronym and it was mind blowing and so that was in october of twenty twenty that i actually got the diagnosis but before i got my diagnosis i already had like self diagnosed as adhd because it was like explained everything about me and i really really i have a journalism background and i really wanted to talk to other women because it was so transformative and so like just it felt like my whole life had been turned upside down and i wanted to see if there were other women who had had this experience who were diagnosed in adulthood so i was like i know i'm stuck at home like everybody else i'm gonna start a podcast and i had gone onto facebook and i was in like an adhd entrepreneurs group cause i had joined you know eight thousand facebook groups to learn more about adhd and i said i'm starting this podcast i'd really like to talk to other women who were diagnosed in adult mostly just to you know to find out was your experience similar to mine what was your experience like you know what were the things that tipped you off and i put a post up that said like does anybody want to talk to me about their diagnosis for a podcast and that within twenty four hours i had had seventy five people reach out to me oh wow and that was that i had this moment of just like butterflies in my stomach where i was like okay i feel like maybe this is i've caught on like this is going to be really exciting and so i started the podcast but i actually started the podcast before i was officially diagnosed because i remember thinking like what do i do if i'm not diagnosed and i you know often say like that feels like a very adhd

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

thing to do oh absolutely well and especially being like i have everything that says i'm adhd but what if they

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

say i'm not right what if i fooled them into thinking i still think that sometimes did i fool them yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

i absolutely have those same thoughts where i'm like well what if it's not adhd what if i'm just an awful person at living i often go back to then okay let's say that's true what changes in what you do not a whole lot it's like okay i need to then i'm like okay this is just not a useful thought pattern then yeah nice but yeah it's amazing how having that the space to like look at like oh maybe i the things are a bit different and i love that you're talking about how the like traditional views of what adhd are yeah a lot of times that's so especially when we look at what pop culture says adhd is we're like oh that's not me i'm not you know little boy that's you know spinning around the room like okay yeah that makes sense but then we look at what the dsm says and it's still like oh well this is couched in a lot of medical language that doesn't make sense to me and makes it hard for me to be like i identify with what this condition is so a lot of people get very cagey about whether or not they have that diagnosis because it's like they're like i don't see myself in what people are saying in the medical community but when like in social media and some of these outside groups i'm like i absolutely do see myself and so i don't know where to i want to land there

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

right well a lot of the diagnosis is based on external behaviors right and observation of external behaviors and as you know internalized adhd is all about how well you hide those behaviors and then at what cost so i think that's why when when people really started connecting the dots especially women about like what this looks like and how you know we're not told you can't sit still we're not told you can't you know get your act together what we're often told is i don't know how you do it all and i you know it's amazing that you're able to hold it all together and then you know that's what i was being told as the pta president was like i don't know how you do it all and meanwhile i'm like i'm not doing it all i need help like get me off this ride and you know so it's that feeling of like how well we are hiding and masking because masking

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

lets us do a lot of things right through into burnout where we're just like yeah i'm just picking up more and more responsibilities because it feels good at the time to be like oh well if i do more i can get more done because i have more focus i need the right amount of stuff to do otherwise i can't do anything and then it's easy to go well i'm just gonna keep doing stuff

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

until it's too much yeah totally right is this the same reason why during the pandemic i'm like huh okay i'm bored let's start a new business yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

it was definitely a stage of being i'm completely overwhelmed but not doing enough

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

right yeah but i also have said i felt like for the first time in my life the pandemic allowed me to feel regulated and i found that really eye opening was just that feeling of like oh and i think a lot of us right like realized that being at home and giving us a very small circle like i realized for the first time in my life i was an introvert during the pandemic because i am not shy so i always sort of like thought introverts must be shy introverts must be anti social and i'm neither of those things but i was like oh okay now i actually feel calm and regulated for the first

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

time yeah i had kind of the opposite experience where i have always viewed myself fairly introverted but i was like oh i'm not getting enough socialization i'm less introverted than i thought and it's just the i need the right social experience not you know the something where i'm going out and masking right which

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

is why podcasting is so great because it's like you have these one on one conversations usually and it's like the perfect scintillating conversation without the small talk

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

yeah absolutely because you can just dive right into things it's funny because i'm just like i had a previous podcast where i had a friend on and where i was talking about these topics i'm just like i had no idea about these things about you even though i've known you for twenty years and it's just somehow the medium of a podcast made it so much easier to just just dive into those topics so with this new diagnosis you were mentioning that like it made everything fall into

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

place i feel like everything made sense

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

let's say that yeah yeah that's that's a better way to put it it's like oh yes that's that's why that was with that diagnosis then like what were did you have like things that you changed for how you wanted to do things like so you just started the podcast but what else like were there any like immediate changes in how you like to work or not even immediate just eventual changes of how you were running your life oh my goodness

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

yeah i mean i feel like what hasn't changed right i feel like one of the biggest realizations for me you know my kids during at the pandemic my kids were in the third grade and the seventh grade and now six years later one of them's in high school and the other one's in college and i feel like the way i parent has completely changed and you know i was kind of the opposite of a lot of mothers where i was diagnosed first and then i saw the adhd in both of my kids i have a boy and a girl and the boy was very much like me i felt like he had a lot of the same we were like cut from the same cloth in terms of childhood my daughter on the other hand was very organized very on top of things her room was a disaster but but she was like a high nineties kind of kid always doing everything but she also had really really high anxiety and it was you know she once called me from school because she found out she was getting seventy five on her french quarter grade it wasn't even like a final grade it was like a quarter grade because of an assignment she missed and she couldn't come back from that she had a panic attack and called me crying from school and i had to pick her up because she couldn't get herself together and i remember thinking like well that's not normal i was like that's not okay but it wasn't started interviewing women on the podcast that i realized like the female presentation of adhd is much more like that which is like really white knuckling it doing really really well having it all together and then ending up with crippling anxiety as an adult and you know so many of us are diagnosed with depression and anxiety and so i was grateful to the seeing this presentation in women and recognizing oh that's also adhd so i had my daughter also diagnosed and i think you know a lot of the way i parent has changed just in terms of of acceptance is the absolute priority right there's nothing wrong with you and i just feel like that shifted so much of how i talk to myself that's shifted so much of how i talk to my children which is like if you you know everybody wants to succeed and so if you're not succeeding let's figure out what that barrier is but like there's no we do not use the l word in my house lazy like we absolutely do not so i think i just started being kinder to myself like you had said earlier like i was just like it's just really it's a slow transformation of self acceptance and also recognizing that things can improve and i can do things i can like your podcast said hack my adhd in a lot of amazing ways it's what is the best of me and also why i struggle the most and so it was like holding all of that with a sense of self acceptance really changed my marriage too i mean i think like i used to really just be so down on myself and think i was such a terrible person and i remember one day thinking like god it must really suck to have the person who you love the most in this world who you have chosen as your partner always think so poorly of themselves like it must be sad and i remember like in that moment thinking like what if i just stopped what if i just refused to think poorly of myself and decided to start thinking like like yeah i'm a catch you know and like if even if i don't believe it or see it like for this person's sake i want them because they've chosen me to have somebody who actually has chosen themselves too and so it's like all of these little moments that start with i think that acceptance piece of like oh yeah there's nothing wrong with you your brain thinks differently you do this differently and that's i think where the emotional side of adhd comes in which is like how much that self denial and that invalidation that we it doesn't come out of nowhere i mean oftentimes it comes from our parents and our teachers and everybody in our life telling us if you know things would be so much better if you were different and that's super invalidating but i think you know it starts with that self acceptance and then everything just shifts from there i could go on and on and on but i feel like that's the main piece i

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

mean yeah the self acceptance part is so important in so many like if i'm like how do i solve this problem versus how do i solve this problem under knowing that i have adhd it's like oh these are different answers and that makes a big difference in

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

if it actually gets solved and i'm not the problem i'm trying to solve the problem right so i think that it's just like taking the problem outside of yourself and who you fundamentally are is also super helpful because there's been

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

too many times where i'm like oh this is just how you should do things and it's like this isn't working and it's like maybe that's because it's not accounting for adhd and it's just saying just do the thing and it's like well that's not how my brain works right yeah i love the like what are you saying about like choosing to choose yourself there kind of ideas where a lot of what i've been working on with trying to help myself is being like what do i want to pass on to my kids because i know that they're modeling themselves after me unconsciously all the time and so if i'm being awful to myself they're going to be awful to themselves because that's that's what they will they'll learn and that's not what i want them i hate when my kids are down on themselves so it's like okay i gotta make sure i'm also choosing myself too and being like okay i'm not a mess up i just messed up on this one thing exactly so i guess a good way to go here so we have talked about a couple things of like how adhd presents differently in women but can you talk a little bit more about that because i'm sure a lot of people kind of like just have the sense that there's like oh there's the difference between like the hyperactive presentation and the inattentive presentation and it's like oh yeah women are just more inattentive but it's more than that too isn't it i think it

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

is i think you know one of the i mean i feel like i have spent the last six years questioning like you said earlier like is this adhd or am i an angry feminist living in trump america capitalism you know i think so much of what exacerbates adhd symptoms is what women carry predominantly in terms of like the you know the executive functioning elements of a family and often fall to the mother and the woman and the wife and so the expectations i think are much higher for organization decision making and just having your act together in a way that oftentimes i think just doesn't with men who are and fathers traditionally and so i think you have the genetic aspect which is like i think biologically children who are assigned female at birth are like going to be more in tune relationally at a much younger age and so you've got this sense of i don't remember what part of your brain it is but like you know there is like the is it the hippocampus or the hypothalamus or one of those one of those h words in the brain but basically like they do genetically biologically become more centered on like relational approval and relational machinations than a male would be at a younger age so like you have that and then i think also girls are just raised to behave in a way that i don't think boys are especially white boys you know and so i think that like you know women and people of color often like our our sense of worth becomes wrapped up in how well we stay in line and how well we kind of fit in boxes and that really doesn't go well with an adhd brain and so you know usually it's like we are in school for instance i think if a little white boy is not sitting still the teacher will and obviously this is an overgeneralization but i think like the teacher will say he probably has adhd let's get him some help whereas you know a child who is a person of color or who is not behaving will get sent to the principal's office right we see that a lot it becomes a matter of discipline and so i think with girls it's more like you know we fall somewhere in that same category of like it's up to you you have to figure out how to behave and so i think that just then ends up showing up in how we ask for help and i think a lot of the time women need to exhaust all avenues inside of themselves before they feel like they have permission to ask for help and so how much of that is genetic how much of that is biological how much of that is social i mean i feel like i'll be spending the rest of my life trying to figure that one out

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[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

yeah because i think that social aspect is super important in how we because we talked about how we even perceive what adhd is but then also how we live with undiagnosed adhd is completely predicated on what is socially acceptable for us to do and for a lot of women it's like you're still expected to run the family and do all of the things that are not easy for people with adhd to do i know i've heard

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

you say this before too like i had never heard of executive functioning until after i was diagnosed with adhd no idea what it was had no idea how central it was to living with adhd and you know so much of that is basically like what makes you a mature organized person is executive functioning

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

yeah and it is wild too that it's not part of the actual diagnosis and you're just like what this is one hundred percent part of the diagnosis and it's like nope that's not how the dsm works i'm like okay yeah i do think there's so much to say about how what is acceptable to do with adhd predicts a lot of how we are able to manage it and especially in people who are late diagnosed it's like yeah i was late diagnosed because i just thought this was how people act i thought i was a bad version of another person for years and years of my life and it was just oh this is something going on and i just had no

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

idea right and i feel like a lot of women who end up being diagnosed in adulthood usually they're well into their thirties they're starting to enter perimenopause and so the big question mark becomes is this hormonal or is this like have i just gotten to a point in my life where i'm like i'm not going to take it anymore you know i think it's who knows i don't know it's probably all of the above but like i feel like women at a very at a specific time in life are usually that's when they're getting diagnosed because the dam breaks right the house of cards breaks falls over and you're just like this isn't sustainable i can't keep doing this i don't i don't i need to get off the ride right and is that estrogen is that is that age is that you know post capitalism america again i don't know all of the above yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

i do know that hormones play a big factor into it and i can definitely see that being but yeah i think you're right it's not just one thing it's a lot of things and just also just people knowing that it's an option that it's not not because if you don't have this idea that oh this could be adhd it again just becomes this internalized i can't talk about this because people i don't want people to know how much i'm struggling with everyday things because when it's like oh yeah i can't do the dishes it's just like that doesn't sound like a problem just do the dishes but it's like no it becomes a huge issue with adhd where they build up and it's gross and then you feel bad about asking for help because i should just be able to do this

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

and you know when it comes to things that are important like the people in our life who we love you know we oftentimes will get derailed by the things that are urgent or demanding and then we we interpret that behavior as well i must not care about the important people or the important things and that's not true right and so i think it's like this double edged sword of trying really hard all the time and also then being perceived as not trying which just just feels so

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

colossally unfair there's anything that ever makes me really want to cry is when i'm trying so hard and someone's like why don't you care about this and it's like i'm trying so hard like it's like because like that definitely happens with you know like doctor's appointments or something where they're like yeah you should be staying on top of this and

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

i'm like i'm trying right i know

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

or like the dentist you know they're like why aren't you flossing i'm like i really want to floss more but it is is a sensory nightmare yeah

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

yeah right well and i remember when i was getting diagnosed at my doctor's office and she asked me like do you lose your wallet do you lose your keys do you lose your glasses and i was like well no i don't and i told her my elaborate system for why i don't lose things and i was like i don't lose my glasses because i have a pair of glasses in every room and i have one in every car and you know and she was like you work really really hard to not lose things and i like like burst into tears because it had never occurred to me how hard i had been working just to do basic things right and so i think that's one of those questions that a lot of people who are who think they might have adhd it hits like right in the in the gut with that feeling of like why am i so exhausted all the time when it doesn't feel like i'm earning that exhaustion and it's like because we haven't allowed ourselves to even acknowledge how hard we're working all the time just

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

to exist yeah there's such a long period in my life where it's just purely running off anxiety to counteract executive dysfunction like oh i'm not ever late because i'm fifteen minutes early because if i'm not fifteen minutes early losing my

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

mind with anxiety right exactly or even just the flossing part right you know how it's like i know i should do this i know i should do this i know i should do this and then at some point the impending appointment clicks in and you're like the hygienist is going to yell at me if my gums bleed so now i have to she floss madly and try to make up for it because otherwise she's going to yell at me and so it's like that it's suddenly we suddenly something happens where it's like oh okay now i'm going to use impending shame and judgment as a motivator for me to do this i feel like we do that all the time where it's like we use anxiety or judgment or people pleasing as a motivator yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

and sometimes it can work for a little bit but often we go way

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

too deep into it well i think it's also like if you ask the question why am i so depressed all the time that's usually someplace to start

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

too yeah it's like oh it's because of all the things so one of the things i'm interested about here too is now with your podcast so how many women have you now interviewed on

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

your podcast over two hundred i'm at about two hundred twenty i think at this point i have this i do i feel like i don't know if you feel this way but i feel like i'm sitting on this like pile of phenomenological data from all of these women that i've interviewed in terms of like the patterns that i see and yeah a lot of these like links in terms of you know the autonomic nervous system and the neurodivergence spectrum and all like i always feel like charlie that meme of charlie day with the red strings everywhere that's how i feel because i've interviewed so many women i'm like it's all connected so what are

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

some of the commonalities that you are

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

seeing here so i think the big one for me and the big question that i'm kind of been obsessing over recently is the connection between you know the physical hormonal autonomic connection between stress and neurodivergence and adhd diagnoses right so we know here's what we know we know that young women autoimmune disorders are skyrocketing in young women so we've got like you know fibromyalgia a lot of these like chronic pain endometriosis they're all hormone related they're all chronic pain related and often they're invisible right so it's often it's like you have to prove that you're feeling pain you know somebody doesn't believe me there's all of this like gaslighting that's happening at the doctor's office so we know that this is skyrocketing in young women and we know that adhd is also and the diagnoses are also increasing in women and so i feel like the nervous system is kind of has reached this breaking point in women in a way that reminds me you know when you talk about like the dam breaking for women i look back at the tiktok and twenty twenty and the pandemic and this this rise in diagnoses of women talking about lived experience and seeing it everywhere and being like that's adhd oh my god that's adhd i didn't know but also thinking about like for me i think about adhd and the increase in diagnoses often as like it's like more of a social backlash to the stress of life right now and i feel like sometimes my question is like is this even adhd or is this a lot of women who are deeply struggling with executive functioning because of all of these systemic stressors that are happening right now and we're seeing ourselves ourselves in adhd diagnoses but there's something else happening here and again i'm not a researcher or doctor but like my own questions now because sort of like you like i don't think of myself as an expert i think of myself as an interviewer and a question asker even though kind of after so many years i'm like okay i do know a lot about this topic but like i feel like what we are seeing is like a neurodivergent archetype whether that's autistic whether that's adhd whatever we're talking about there's like this you know kind of the hunter farmer you know scenario i feel like that i relate very much to that like there's a population of people who have biologically a certain type of nervous system and what is happening to those people under intense stress is the adhd ptsd complex ptsd autonomic nervous system disorders like all of this stuff happens to a certain population population of people right and we know this from like ptsd two soldiers will go to war one of them will come back with ptsd the other one won't what's the fundamental biological difference between those two i feel like it's neurodivergence that's where i'm feeling in terms of my conspiracy theory these days but i look at the increase in adhd diagnoses in women akin to like the metoo movement right where it was like we're not going to take this anymore and it needs a swell of of many women to come together and be like we're going to change how this looks we're going to change how this is treated but i also feel like when we're diagnosing individuals with a disorder it's very easy to do that it's very easy to say we figured out what's wrong with you here's your disorder diagnosis and we're not looking at the systemic stressors and we're not looking at the big picture saying like it's like a get out of jail free pass sometimes and when we are not looking at the society that has created this many people with adhd yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

i mean i think there is a lot to say but like i know

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

i could see you like bumbling over being like oh my god i have

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

so many thoughts yeah well because especially if you like okay like my adhd affects me at you know if we like we're imagining it at a bar graph you know like zero to one hundred it's like okay i start releasing effects from my adhd above fifty percent of whatever value is there you know and that value is increased by stress and lack of sleep and all of these things and it's like yeah we have so much of that going on right now so many people are then actually being hit by their adhd where before it would be you know not great but now it's like it's an actual it's where it becomes clinically diagnosable because like oh now it is affecting everyday life and it is a detriment to like all areas of life and it's not just this thing where it's like oh yeah occasionally i am having problems but with when you're adding in all of these other factors it does become that detriment then again i don't

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

want to have to spend the rest of my life questioning like is my adhd clinically significant right now and if it isn't does that mean i don't have it anymore right and so i feel like the idea when we talk about what is clinically significant what we're doing is then thinking like it's temporary and so that i think misses the point in terms of who we are and how our brains work i'm the last person to talk about adhd as being my superpower but i also feel like i definitely struggle a lot less in terms of mindset and all the stuff we were talking about so does that mean i don't have it anymore i mean i still get to struggle like you know it's there's pros and cons to talking about adhd in terms of what is clinically significant i don't want to have to be proof the clinical significance of my adhd for the rest of my life and i don't want to have to question you know i think that's the other thing is

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

like well i think it goes back to what you were saying earlier where you're like oh i have all these systems where i really try hard and it masks the adhd symptoms and so like the adhd is still there regardless of what's going on it's just whether or not we have something in place that makes it so that we can

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

function yeah absolutely and so that's why i'm more comfortable thinking about the neurodivergent brain the neurodivergent nervous system and then it's like adhd is what happens when your nervous system and your brain are in an unhospitable environment but i think at the core of it there are people who think and act and respond to their environment in certain ways and i think it's way more than ten percent of the population but again yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

it seems i mean sometimes i'm like

[William Curb (Host, Hacking Your ADHD Podcast)]

i feel like everyone i talk to

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

has adhd and then i'm like that's true true that it's true because of

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

what you do right exactly i do the exact same thing i surround myself with people with adhd and then i'm like huh i forget what people without adhd are like and then i hang out with my sister in law i'm like oh right okay thank you i

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

remember doing some work with a friend and i'm like oh what are you doing he's like oh i'm just going to be answering emails for an hour and he just sat down and did that and i was just like but yeah so it is funny doing that kind of like oh yeah they're is a distinct difference and it's just hard to if you're not used to it

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

it gets lost oh right absolutely yeah

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

there is a lot that we can glean from these things too because i think also thinking of adhd as this like developmental disorder which it is and then we go okay that's going to have add on effects that are unseen and so i'm really interested in all these comorbid conditions that are unusual because i'm like that tells a really interesting story of adhd where you have like oh yeah there's a lot more autoimmune diseases there's a lot more hypermobility and all these things and you're like that's not expected with the model that we're currently being presented with yeah i know

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

i'm very fascinated by that too of like what is the connection between an adhd brain and connective tissue too i feel like there's a lot of people who are also fascinated by that right now but yeah see just seeing how stress manifests in our body and just seeing like how our whole selves react to our environment i find is very

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

fascinating yeah and i think it's something that we you know one of those things that when we are looking as late diagnosed individuals being like oh there might be even more there than i saw because i still don't have a clear picture of everything that's there yeah

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

when you talk about like everybody sometimes i feel like everybody has adhd i will often like look you know i'll look for those markers like if i'm talking to somebody and they start talking about how they have hashimoto's i'll be like tell me more i'm like okay it's like all these boxes that we all check off and it's like we just see those overlaps so often it's a really i mean that's the other thing i love is like i've been thinking about reading about discussing living and breathing adhd since my diagnosis it's the one thing i have never been tired of i have i have not gotten bored of it yet i've i don't think i've ever stayed with any job as long as i have with this

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

one so yeah same it's just it's amazing and i'm just like every day i'm like oh there's something new and it's or even if it's not new just a new way of looking at it or being like oh because at this point i've like you know i've read dozens of books about adhd and i'm like oh this person has a really interesting perspective yeah absolutely all right well we're coming up on time here so i was wondering if there were any final thoughts you wanted to leave

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

the audience audience with i guess sort of similar to what we were talking about earlier if you are wondering if you have adhd and you think nobody's going to believe you i feel like that's a good place to start which is we know our lived experience better than anyone else and so if the stuff you were reading the stuff you were talking about the stuff that you're seeing about adhd is deeply resonating with you then yes you are on the right path and if your doctor says you can't possibly have adhd you had good grades in school or you know you own a business you can't possibly have adhd like find a new doctor but yeah trust yourself right and if

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

things are harder than they seem to be maybe there's a reason yeah right all right well thank you so much for coming on the show i really appreciate your time yeah thanks for having

[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

me it's been great

[William Curb (Host, Hacking Your ADHD Podcast)]

thanks again to katie for coming on the show and thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end before you go though let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips one recognize that having it all together on the outside often comes at a high cost when people ask how do you do it all the answer is usually through extreme masking and white knuckling which leads directly to burnout and chronic anxiety rather than true stability two many adhders wait until the last possible second to use anxiety as a fuel source while this can work as an effective short term strategy keeping yourself in a perpetual state of anxiety to drive productivity is detrimental to long term mental health three broaden your view of adhd to include the autonomic nervous system and physical health katie notes a high correlation between adhd and invisible physical issues like autoimmune disorders fibromyalgia and chronic pain suggesting that a neurodivergent nervous system reacts to stress in ways that affect the entire body not just cognitive functions alright that's it thanks for listening i'd love to hear what you thought of this episode feel free to connect with me over at hackingyouradhd dot com contact if you'd like links or to read this episode episode's transcript you can go to the show notes page at hackingyouradhd dot com two hundred and eighty eight and if you'd like even more hacking your adhd be sure to sign up for my newsletter any and all distractions which comes out every other week in it i give out my best distractions of the week be they what i'm reading what i'm playing what i'm watching and everything in between i also

[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

try to give out a few bits

[William Curb (Host, Hacking Your ADHD Podcast)]

of actionable advice in each newsletter although your mileage is going to vary there if that sounds like something you're interested in head on over to hackingyouradhd dot com to sign up also be sure to check out our patreon at hackingyouradhd dot com patreon it's a pay what you want model meaning all levels of patreon receive all the same stuff and right now that means getting early access to episodes and some behind the scenes content you can also check out the hacking radhd discord at hackingyradhd dot com discord and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel which you can find at youtube dot com ackingyouradhd and finally if you'd like another way to support the show the best way to do so is to tell someone about the show especially if you think a particular episode would resonate with them just click the share button on your podcast player and now for your moment of dad walking home late last night i passed a hot fudge sundae a lemon cheesecake and a slice of apple pie i stopped and thought wow the streets are strangely deserted tonight

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[Katie Weber (Host, Women in ADHD Podcast)]

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[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

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[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

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[Guest (Woman diagnosed with ADHD at 45, Podcast Guest)]

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