Katie Weber (5:34)
Why do I try so hard and still fall short? Basically, what's wrong with me? And I feel like that question, the confusion and the frustration, is often the first breadcrumbs for a diagnosis. And it's one of those things that now, when I'm working with clients, I'm always looking for that question of what's wrong with me, you know, and sadly for so many of us, that constant frustration and confusion about why we think differently or why things don't make sense to us, I mean, it turns. Turns into a depression diagnosis for many of us because we feel like failures in life. We don't feel like we're adulting very well, or we feel like we're disappointing everybody in our life. We want so hard to get it right and we just can't. Or it turns into an anxiety diagnosis because it's like we're constantly bracing for the next mistake or the next forgotten appointment or again, disappointing other people. So we try to so hard to get a system in place, and we end up in overwhelm and we end up constantly exhausted and we can't explain why. And so we're always on edge. I mean, we're trying to control this chaos with sheer willpower. And when that doesn't work, we just assume we're the problem. So if you find yourself asking those questions all the time, what's wrong with me? It's a good clue that you might want to look into adhd. Or if you are listening to this episode and wondering if you have it, or thinking you want to seek a diagnosis, it's a pretty good sign that you're on the right path. And it's often the sign that your brain has been working overtime to survive in a world that was never built for it. Number two, let's call this the diagnostic detour. You know, one of the most consistent patterns I've seen throughout these episodes is just how long it takes to get the ADHD diagnosis for so many of us. I mean, obviously things are changing thanks to social media and clinicians learning to better understand the signs. But Dan, so many of us were diagnosed with something else first, either depression or anxiety, or both. Many of my guests have been diagnosed with bipolar or borderline personality disorder. And we're so often treated for depressed mood or lack of motivation or some form of complex trauma. But we are never treated for executive functioning. It certainly was a term I had never heard of before I was diagnosed with adhd, something I've talked about many times on the podcast. As far as I'm concerned, it's central to living with adhd and I had never heard of it and it's nor is it ever talked about, very rarely talked about in a diagnosis. That said, the symptoms were there all along. They were just misinterpreted or simply misunderstood. And sadly they were disregarded or just not believed. And that needs to change. Which brings me to number three, which is the co occurring autoimmune and chronic health conditions that are disproportionately common in neurodivergent women. I have seen a striking overlap between ADHD and conditions like Hashimoto's endometriosis, fibromyalgia, pcos, pots. I mean, I could probably count on one hand, maybe two, the number of guests I've had who haven't had some kind of co occurring autoimmune disorder. And this is not just me discovering this. Obviously it's all over the Internet and you can google this and read more about it, but it suggests a shared thread of nervous system dysregulation and chronic stress overload. It's not just a coincidence. And when we mask, when we don't get the help we need, when we encounter systemic stressors like, I don't know, being chronically dismissed by the medical establishment, our bodies start to react. They start to scream out in pain and they're saying like, yo, we are not okay. So more research definitely needs to happen on the topic of neurodivergence and dysregulated nervous systems and autoimmune dysfunction. Because you know, to quote Katie Osborne, that Venn diagram is like a stack of pancakes. So number four, as I mentioned earlier, it almost always comes down to executive function challenges which are frequently mistaken for character flaws. I mean, before my diagnosis, I never used to say, honey, I'm struggling with 10 task initiation. I would say it's not that hard. Why am I so lazy. What's wrong with me? I would never say things like, my working memory is compromised and I need effective support and structures. I mean, I don't say that now, obviously, but, like, back then, I used to just say things like, oh, my God, I'm such an idiot. We said those things because they were likely said to us over and over again in childhood. So that internalized shame starts young and it runs deep. Okay, number five, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, otherwise known as the dsm, does not represent our experience, and that needs to change. Most of us, if we were handed the actual DSM criteria for ADHD before, our diagnosis, would have probably said, oh, that's not me. I'm not hyperactive. I don't have a focus issue. I'm not disruptive in meetings. I'm just, I don't know, really bad at adulting, and I'm perpetually exhausted. But what many of us are struggling with doesn't always show up on the official checklists. It shows up in the margins as time blindness or emotional dysregulation or rejection sensitivity or executive function collapse. That deep, chronic shame spiral we've been living with for years, like, those aren't side effects. They're central to the ADHD experience in women, especially. Especially women diagnosed in adulthood. But the DSM diagnostic criteria for ADHD is currently based largely on research with young white boys exhibiting hyperactivity in school settings. So those behaviors were disruptive, observable, and problematic to adults, especially teachers. So this means that the criteria were built around externalized behaviors and academic behavioral impairment, not the internal experiences that many women or AFAB folks describe, like constant overthinking, chronic overwhelm, intense emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitivity, or years of functional masking. So when the lived experience doesn't match the checklist, the problem isn't necessarily that the experience is invalid. It's that the checklist is incomplete. So if you've been thinking you might have adhd, but you've been dismissed by a clinician or a parent or a spouse because you don't fit the criteria, you keep going. You are the expert of your lived experience. Okay, number six, we don't necessarily pathologize this diagnosis, but it can bring with it a lot of grief. When I was diagnosed with ADHD and I would tell other people who didn't really know anything about neurodivergence, they would say, I'm so sorry to hear that, or, oh, I didn't realize you were struggling. Yeah, no shit. But, like, when I would Tell other people with ADHD that I was diagnosed. They would cheer for me, and I do the same for new diagnosed people. I'm like, congrats on your diagnosis. Oh, my goodness. It's like they get it. They get that an adult diagnosis is like a window opening. It's a lifeline and a chance to understand yourself. It brings a lot of relief, but it also brings a lot of grief. There's a sense of mourning. Why didn't anyone see the signs? Why didn't I get the help I needed? How might my life have been different if I had known earlier? Which brings me to number seven. Community is medicine. I've been saying this for years. I think one of the most central and vital ways to treat your ADHD is through community. Find your people. Hearing each other's stories is what heals us. That moment of, oh, my God, I thought I was just me, like, that's where the real work begins. That's why this podcast exists. That's why everybody talks about it so much on social media, because finding each other, sharing our stories, and validating our experiences is so, so important. It's more than just sharing photos about our doom boxes. It's truly curative and healing. So the fact that you're listening to this episode really gives me hope that you've already been looking and hopefully have found ways to feel understood and less alone. So keep it up. A sense of belonging is so nourishing and important and vital to living with neurodivergence. And it doesn't have to be a huge group of people. In fact, I'm not a fan of large groups myself. It could just be one or two friends who really see you and never judge you or make you feel ashamed. Okay, number nine. Most of the women I've met with ADHD are not hot messes who are chronically late. The majority of us do not fit that stereotype. Women with ADHD are brilliant and funny and creative, and often we're straight A students and we're business owners and caregivers, and we're juggling a million tasks until we crash. We often look successful on the outside, but underneath is this chronic burnout and this perfectionism and a lifetime of masking and exhaustion. And I always like to joke that nobody got their diagnosis because they were like, I'm doing amazing. I think I need a name for this superpower. Usually some catalyst has come along to break that dam. For me, it was lockdown in 2020. Sometimes it's triggered by college or motherhood or perimenopause or simply just getting to that age where you're, like, done with masking and people pleasing, you don't give a fuck anymore, and you're like. Or all of the above. I don't know. I mean, how many times have I said, maybe it's ADHD or maybe I'm just a feminist tired of living in this dumpster fire of a country? Whatever it is, we are smart and empathetic and curious and deeply good people. We're just the last ones in our lives to believe it often. And hopefully that changes for you with this diagnosis. I know it did for me. And that mindset shift, that was what dramatically changed my life. It's what told me I could go back to grad school to become a therapist. It's what told me I'm a good wife and I'm a good mother. All right, I lied. That last one was number eight. So this is number nine. Yeah. Traditional therapy didn't always get us, and that's a problem. Many of us have had a good experience with therapy. I certainly did. It was, in fact, it was my therapist who helped me get my diagnosis. But, I mean, often one of the most infuriating things I've seen from many of you is how often you've sat across from therapists who just didn't get it, or we were told, well, you're just depressed. Nobody was there to help us to say, like, this is how we get things done. And I feel like so many of us have spent years in therapy being treated for anxiety, depression, or disordered eating or trauma or all of the above, while the core issue of executive dysfunction was never addressed. And I believe in therapy. I think therapy is a very powerful tool for people with adhd. I mean, I'm literally in grad school right now to become a therapist, because I believe in it that much. But ADHD therapy has to look different. It has to be more informed, more integrative, more practical. We need the depth of therapy and we need the structure of coaching. Which brings me to number 10, which is mindset coaching. Mindset coaching for ADHD is transformative. It's life changing, and we need more of it. If you've listened to this podcast for a while now, you know I'm obviously a big proponent of coaching for adhd. I. I genuinely do not believe I would still be doing this work or this podcast five years later if it wasn't A, for my diagnosis, but B, for finding the right coach and my coach. So shout out to Laurie Ostrovsky at simply leap. She never handed me a planner. You know, she never developed a morning routine that was going to fix my life and finally get me to answer my emails or become some sort of Stepford wife and get more done in the day. None of that happened. She didn't impart to me any secret wisdom that's out there that everybody but me knew. But what she did was simple. She encouraged me to believe in myself. She helped me articulate what, what I even wanted to achieve. And she kept me accountable. She helped me to stop questioning my own way of doing things or declare that I'm a hot mess. She really helped me lean into the fact that, yeah, I mean, sometimes I am a hot mess. And I'm also really smart and driven and sometimes I need help to get from point A to B. And that's okay. Two things can be true at once. So, yeah, coaching helped me reframe my mindset from I'm lazy into I need support. Which brings me to the next half of this episode where we look ahead at the future of women and adhd. And I am so excited because behind the scenes, women in ADHD has slowly been growing. We've been growing into a team of ADHD coaches. And every single one of the members of my team also believes in the same strengths based, neurodivergent, affirming, radically validating approach. I mean, these are women who get it not just clinically but personally. And you might remember a few of them from previous episodes of this podcast because they all have ADHD and they're fellow travelers on this journey. So now I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce them to you. I recently sat down with each of them to talk about what they love about coaching and what got them into coaching in the first place. There's Tasha Post, who you may remember from episode 18, and Emily Weinberg, who I interviewed in episode 122, and Lindsay Buchanan, who her interview will be coming out later this year, so keep an eye out for it.
