Therapy Designed for You
Personalized Support for Women with ADHD
The symptoms of ADHD touch all aspects of life
Living with ADHD can be confusing. You can go from having extreme successes in your career—receiving praise or closing huge deals—to falling a month behind on laundry or getting fired from a job due to chronic lateness.
At times, you may feel like an imposter and as if no one understands you. Your mood is off. You're constantly trying to find your keys or other misplaced items. And you seem to be perpetually running late or underestimating the time it takes to complete your work. You feel tired, overwhelmed, and guilty pretty much all the time. You think, “Maybe I'm depressed or have anxiety,” but the conclusion you often come to is "I must just be lazy."
As a child, you may have been labelled the “bad kid” who was always spacing out, choosing to leave their seat, or unable to sit still or contain their energy. Or maybe you were a quiet kid, an early reader, or part of a gifted and talented program, so you didn’t struggle until high school or later (grad school, starting a family, etc.)
As a result, you may have felt like you couldn’t keep up with your peers—as if something was different about you. It’s likely that you have even received a diagnosis and/or treatment for anxiety or depression only to find it still didn’t alleviate your distractibility, panic attacks, or other day-to-day struggles.
After years of feeling misunderstood and receiving support, diagnoses, meds, and even therapy without getting to the heart of the issue, you may be frustrated and losing your sense of hope. As soon as you gain some traction, it probably seems like you fall back into the same patterns over and over again.
You can get into a habit of exercising or cooking more or using a planner for even a few months at a time—only to have it fall apart. You feel like you have to start over and reinvent the wheel every time you fall off the wagon.
No matter what you are going through, I assure you, you deserve to find happiness in your life with ADHD.
Adult ADHD is often missed in Women
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 4.4 percent of 18 to 44-year-olds—or over 9 million US adults—currently struggle with ADHD. The number is higher in children (9.4%). A 2021 study found that only 10% of children “outgrow” symptoms of ADHD. This means that there are many adults in this age group (18-44) that may be undiagnosed. And these undiagnosed adults are more likely to be women given the gender gap in diagnosis.
Unfortunately, adult ADHD is often overlooked in women because children—particularly young boys—are typically the face of ADHD.
After all, boys with ADHD are more likely to show signs of increased impulsivity, hyperactivity, and externalization of problems. However, girls are more likely to present with symptoms of inattentive-type ADHD and experience more internalizing problems, such as anxiety, depression, and/or somatic symptoms.
So the hyperactivity, impulsivity, or busy mind is still there. It’s just loosely buried under society's expectation for us to remain still and lady-like. That social conditioning makes girls better at blending in, hiding, and masking symptoms.
The normalization of the “Overwhelmed Mom” stereotype doesn’t help much
As women, we’ve long been stereotyped with labels, like “Supermoms” or “overwhelmed mothers,” that have normalized stress in our daily lives. As a result, many mothers with ADHD tend to discount their own struggles, thinking, “Life is simply hard for everyone.” And then they blame themselves for their inability to keep up.
But the truth is, living with ADHD really does disrupt nearly every aspect of life. Many women describe a feeling of being “swept up in a whirlwind” and unable to re-ground themselves. As a result of this instability and chronic inability to meet goals, women with ADHD suffer from low self-esteem, relationship problems, and challenges achieving their true potential.
If you have spent most of your life not realizing you have ADHD, you’ve probably asked yourself, “Why am I like this? Why can’t I just function like everyone else!”
Many people—just like you and I—have asked those same questions. And you need to know that this isn’t your fault. We can learn to tame the whirlwind and glide our way towards a more peaceful, fulfilling, and authentic ADHD life.
Everyone experiences ADHD differently, however if you’re living with ADHD you may be experiencing the following:
Feeling unfocused, “all over the place,” or guilty for “not just doing it already”
Overwhelmed or unable to relax—as if you’re always stuck in high gear
Self-critical or worried others will see you as an imposter
Having trouble completing day-to-day tasks or making a dent in your never-ending to-do lists
Feeling hopeless, like you keep getting in your own way and sabotaging your potential
