ADHD in women

Women with ADHD can sometimes have very different presentations and experiences compared to men. Gone are the days when ADHD was often only diagnosed in boys or young men who were hyperactive and loud at school. Having years of experience seeing many women with ADHD, I have been able to develop expertise in exploring and understanding how ADHD can present differently. For example, many women will describe developing strategies to try and minimise or mask their symptoms which is often mentally and physically exhausting. To outside observers these women do not present with obvious signs or symptoms of ADHD and on the face of it have successful careers and home life. However, I have seen many women where the toll taken by the above compensatory strategies start to breakdown or fail. These women often describe having long standing thoughts or feelings that there has been “always been something wrong with me”, which eventually results in seeking a referral to a psychiatrist. I have also found some of these women have been unsuccessfully treated for anxiety and depression for years, because other clinicians have not considered ADHD. In my experience their anxiety and depressive symptoms are in fact manifestations of distress and impairment caused by untreated ADHD. Fortunately we have excellent treatments for ADHD and the vast majority of people I treat have very good results.