Explanations for our younger selves – it was ADHD.

Forgive yourself, and give yourself some grace.

Ha. Easier said than done. It’s the goal, though.

I was diagnosed with anxiety when I was in high school. It started with full blown panic attacks, and debilitating inertia. As I progressed to University, the longer I stayed in my house, the harder it was to leave. Whenever I had to go anywhere, it gave me crippling anxiety. I have also always had a paralyzing analysis of social situations, and huge, disproportionate emotional reactions. Even when I was a kid. This is a symptom of ADHD in girls and women, called emotional disreguation, that was not always included in the screenings, and is only recently coming to light in research and literature6,7,10.

For a time, being on SSRIs helped. But it never felt quite right. As a society, we are using more anxiety and depression meds than ever before9. We have a generation of women who were diagnosed with anxiety, depression, without ADHD. We are learning how anxiety and depression has been chronically misdiagnosed as a causal factor in women, when, in fact, it is a comorbidity factor of ADHD5,6,7.

We are learning how anxiety and depression has been chronically misdiagnosed as a causal factor in women, when, in fact, it is a comorbidity factor of ADHD.

Millennials coined them the "burnout generation." The World Health Organization classified burnout as a "syndrome," medically legitimizing the condition for the first time4. We are also known as the "wellness generation,"; some even spending more on fitness than tuition2,3. (But also, let’s acknowledge that we live in a capitalist system that prioritizes money over humans and everything else, and exploits workers wherever possible - so there's that too).

After a significant burnout that led to a year sabbatical, I found myself unable to make it through the day without a nap, totally paralyzed to start new things that I wasn’t excited about (see: work), and struggling to manage significant changes, let alone small ones. It started to impact my ability to stay employed. And for once, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I secretly blamed my boomer parents for leaving me to learn how to regulate emotions properly… not not true, but not even the half of it.

Novel concept: How about we just start with the right diagnoses?

Enter doctor, semi mind-blowing diagnoses (though not shocking), medication, and a vortex of realizations and resulting emotional reactions. It just explained. SO. MUCH.

My diagnoses just explained. SO. MUCH.

I won’t get into what the lack of neurotransmitters results in. There are a ton of articles and blogs on that. I will get into what it explained for me.

Top 4 fuckeries are as follows:

1. The extreme emotional reactions, especially when I was a teenager8. And especially to my mom. I have significant lingering grief and incredible respect for how gracefully and lovingly my mom handled my shit. I would have murdered past me. Straight up. It continued into my adult years. I had so much shame when it happened, and people shamed me for it, saw me differently after they witnessed it, all the while knowing that’s not who I was or how I wanted to react.
   

2. The feeling of always being outside, looking in. It’s not the same feeling as not belonging. “Not belonging” infers a normal emotional range, which many people with ADHD don’t experience day-to-day. It was the feeling of analysing social situations, and not understanding why I was always found lacking. But also being able to shut down any reaction and move on (see: suppressing).
   

3. The grief for what could have been. What could I have accomplished, what other paths could I have taken if I’d known? I grieve for younger me, not thinking she was smart, when it was the ADHD that made it impossible to start, focus or complete things on time.
   

4. The grief about having to tell my parents, knowing it would incite extreme guilt that they hadn’t known. It was the 80s. No internet. Not a thing people talked about or acknowledged. ADD was also a thing boys got, and it was obvious, because they were bouncing off the walls6,7. Literally. How could they have known.

   
   

There are others, and I’m on the tail end of working through it. If you want to read about how we experience emotions, and grief, there is a blog for that.

The thing I love about millennials is our “fuck that” attitude towards previous stigmas. We're gonna talk about it.

The thing I love about millennials is our “fuck that” attitude towards previous stigmas, mainly not naming, working through and celebrating neurological differences2,3. We're gonna talk about it. I hope that maybe somewhere, someone feels like they aren’t alone reading these. That they build up the courage or are inspired to ask for help. If that person is you, you’re fucking cool. It’s hard, but we’re unique, and awesome. And there are a lot of neurospicy ladies out there, with numbers growing by the day. We’re awesome, and we have people around us that are not neurospicy (but no less spicy) that also know we’re awesome. Find each other, and celebrate.

Also, find your friends that have neurospicy kids, and share your stories and resources. This is our tribe.

There are a lot of neurospicy ladies out there, with numbers growing by the day. Find each other, and celebrate.

This post, and really all my posts, are meant to shed light on some of the experiences of being diagnosed as an adult. In all my posts, I will include references wherever possible, to give you research, and terms you may not have heard about before. Shame lives where the light can not reach. Words, and language to describe experiences let light into those place, and allow us to unpack what we haven’t been able to before11.

References:

1. When It’s Not Just ADHD: Symptoms of Comorbid Conditions

2. Millennials Demographic change and the impact of a generation

3. 15 ways millennials changed the world in the 2010s

4. Burnout is now officially recognized as a medical condition. Here are the symptoms you should know about.

5. Attoe DE, Climie EA. Miss. Diagnosis: A Systematic Review of ADHD in Adult Women. J Atten Disord. 2023 May;27(7):645-657. doi: 10.1177/10870547231161533. Epub 2023 Mar 30. PMID: 36995125; PMCID: PMC10173330.

6. Chronis-Tuscano A. ADHD in girls and women: a call to action - reflections on Hinshaw et al. (2021). J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2022 Apr;63(4):497-499. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13574. Epub 2022 Jan 17. PMID: 35040136.

7. Hinshaw SP, Nguyen PT, O'Grady SM, Rosenthal EA. Annual Research Review: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in girls and women: underrepresentation, longitudinal processes, and key directions. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2022 Apr;63(4):484-496. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.13480. Epub 2021 Jul 6. PMID: 34231220.

8. Ahlberg, R., Du Rietz, E., Ahnemark, E. et al. Real-life instability in ADHD from young to middle adulthood: a nationwide register-based study of social and occupational problems. BMC Psychiatry 23, 336 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-023-04713-z

9. Nidya Diaz-Camal, Jesús Daniel Cardoso-Vera, Hariz Islas-Flores, Leobardo Manuel Gómez-Oliván, Alejandro Mejía-García, Consumption and ocurrence of antidepressants (SSRIs) in pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic, their environmental impact and innovative removal methods: A review, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 829, 2022, 154656, ISSN 0048-9697, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722017491.

10. DESR: Why Deficient Emotional Self-Regulation is Central to ADHD (and Largely Overlooked)

11. Brené Brown on Shame and Accountability