You’re not being dramatic. You’re not too much. You’re not lazy.

ADHD isn’t a social media trend. ADHD isn’t being overdiagnosed. ADHD is real, it’s disabling, and can wreak absolute havoc on our relationships, our finances, our careers, and our self-esteem.

And for many, many years, women and girls have been straight-up missed, or otherwise misdiagnosed. If you were born before the mid-90s, chances are high that you didn’t receive a diagnosis until much later in life.

Maybe you were diagnosed in college once all of the structure and support that you had from your parents suddenly vanished, and you were left floundering, trying to figure out how to manage your time and actually study.

Maybe you were diagnosed after having kids, and the burden of such an increase in responsibilities, along with serious hormonal shifts, made life start to feel truly unmanageable.

Maybe as you currently scroll social media, you’re met with content about ADHD that for some reason really resonates with you and keeps popping up in your algorithm, and now you’re strongly suspecting that ADHD might be part of the bigger picture.

Maybe you’re starting to go through perimenopause, and you’re feeling like life has become completely unmanageable, and that your challenges with focus, forgetfulness, and moodiness feel completely out of control. Maybe it wasn’t “just” anxiety. Maybe it was you trying to cope with your ADHD brain all along.

Maybe you were actually diagnosed sometime between elementary or middle school after receiving many teacher comments related to your frequent chattiness or difficulties with calling out in class, but then you were given literally ZERO tools to actually understand the depth of how ADHD impacts every area of life.

No matter how you’ve come to your ADHD diagnosis (or your highly suspected one), there’s work to be done. And no, it’s not just an eval with a psychiatrist who quickly confirms your diagnosis and then slaps some Adderall on it.

So, if treatment doesn’t mean just medication, what does it actually look like?

It may include processing your past and present experiences, and noting how many of these current and past issues might actually be related to ADHD, and not just you being lazy, stupid, or f*cked up.

It may involve grieving what your life could have been like had you known sooner, or what would had happened if you had the supports in place earlier.

It may involve unlearning the things that you were taught to be ashamed of and dropping the mask that for decades has shown everyone that you’re ✨FINE ✨ when you’re actually screaming for help inside.

It may involve learning about your beautiful, little ADHD brain and how it functions in a world that wasn’t quite designed for you.

Tips for Managing a Late-Diagnosis of ADHD

As a therapist who specializes in working with women and moms with ADHD, and is a late-diagnosed ADHD woman myself, here are a few steps (in no particular order) I suggest to my clients and hope that you find supportive in your journey:

• Give yourself time to grieve.
  • Whether you’re newly diagnosed, or were diagnosed decades ago, but are now just realizing the impact of ADHD on your daily existence, there is often grief present that deserves to be validated and processed. Anger, sadness, disappointment, relief…all valid, no matter where you are in your ADHD journey. Feel it all, no matter what comes up for you in your post-diagnosis era. It’s all real, it all matters, and it’s all valid.
• Educate yourself about your ADHD brain.
  • Whether that means following creators on social media that are well-versed in the arena, reading books (some of my favorites are here), listening to podcasts, or finding other solid resources that are supportive, learning about how your ADHD brain functions is crucial to understanding how to better support yourself.
  • Find a few of my favorite current resources for women with ADHD here.
• Connect with others who share your diagnosis and experience.
  • This might mean connecting with others who are already in your circle and have gone through this process. This might mean listening to others’ stories via podcast, etc., who have been through it too. This might mean connecting with a more formalized support group, like the virtual Women & ADHD groups that I offer at my practice.
• Identify strategies and supports that you can implement without the support of medications, including:
  • Well-studied supplements.
  • Prioritizing your nutrition.
  • Getting some form of regular exercise (even as little as 10 minutes per day can make a world of difference).
  • Working on your sleep hygiene.
• Seek out medication management and therapy when appropriate, especially with providers who truly specialize in working with women with ADHD.
• Practicing engaging in self-compassionate talk by speaking more kindly to yourself.
  • This takes time, this takes practice, and it’s a hell of a lot easier to speak kindly to yourself when you understand the way your ADHD brain functions.
• Practice mindfulness/meditation/other ways of slowing down your brain/body. See my post here about some practical mindfulness practices for ADHD.

Final Thoughts

Most importantly, remember that this is a journey, and that if it took you decades to get to your diagnosis or really understand your ADHD brain, it’s unfair to expect that you will find all of the tools, solutions, and strategies in the course of days, weeks, months, or even a year.

Be gentle with yourself.

With love,

Avery

About the author: Avery Wasmanski, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor providing individual and group therapy to women with ADHD in Royersford, PA, or virtually across Pennsylvania. She also provides ADHD assessments for adult women who suspect they have ADHD, and provides clinical consultation and licensure supervision for other therapists. She is deeply committed to the work that she does, and will be forever learning and growing as a clinician. Learn more about Avery’s services at: https://www.averywasmanskilpctherapy.com/

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