AuDHD and the label BORDERLINE – this is why I have a BIG PROBLEM with it. 🆘
It was January 2023 in Oxford, and it was very cold. I was about to give my very first public talk – The Science of ADHD – to 500 people. On that same day, my 3-year-old son was admitted to the hospital with a cheek infection. 😢
I was newly separated, wracked with guilt and fear – knowing that the safety I had always clung to was gone. It was the beginning of my life imploding. 🫥
In the public eye, I was thriving – booked on big stages, travelling from city to city, pouring my heart into the ADHD community. Behind the scenes, I was alone, burnt out beyond recognition, walking back to hotel rooms at night with a thought that won’t leave me: if I disappeared, would anyone notice?
In the midst of all that, a trainee therapist suggested I was “showing borderline traits.” It triggered a private meltdown. I had already been branded with labels before – “borderline,” “Jekyll and Hyde,” even “narcissist” – words given to me by my ex-partner, who had always found it comforting to point the finger at me.
But never once: autism or ADHD. Or how much the trauma of being misunderstood and dismissed was etched into my nervous system.
That day, I realised how damaging labels can be when they are misused as a way to silence us. My only safe person at the time was Nancy, my counsellor, who said:
“The borderline label isn’t something you can just give someone without a thorough assessment. What matters is what you do with the information to support them.”
Her words anchored me.
Because the truth is, I wasn’t borderline. I was an AuDHD woman who had been repeatedly invalidated in my relationship.
I’d since dedicated my life and energy to studying what AuDHD looks like in women, from biochemistry, neurology, psychology, hormones, and intersectionally, before and after trauma, and what we need in relationships. Collectively, with strong data to back it all up via our AuDHD Women Survey.
I need to have the words, science, and stats handy in case someone decides to lead me into thinking I’m crazy again. Because many times in such situations, I was all I had, and I needed to have solid backing.
Like the 7 months it took me to convince two clinical psychologists that I was truly autistic when they thought I was just traumatised.
Why We’re More at Risk
Like so many autistic ADHD or autistic women who’ve ever been called “borderline” but were actually being manipulated and isolated from others when they most needed support, my realities were constantly dismissed, erased, rewritten by others to suit their convenience. Here are some stats:
Autism / Autistic women
- 9 out of 10 autistic women had experienced sexual assault.
- 49-89 % of autistic adults experience violence or abuse within a close relationship (i.e. intimate or caregiver relationships) in various studies.
- Many autistic women report their first experience of abuse in childhood or adolescence – making them vulnerable from a young age to cycles of manipulation and invalidation.
- In reviews of risk factors, autistic women are considered more vulnerable to abuse (sexual, coercive control, interpersonal victimisation) due to social communication differences, masking, dependency, and others.
ADHD / AuDHD women
- Some studies of women with ADHD report that in romantic relationships, ADHD is associated with higher rates of psychological, emotional, and physical abuse.
- Girls with combined-type ADHD are 5x more likely to suffer physical intimate partner violence than neurotypical girls (30 % vs ~6 %) in one study.
- Women with persistent ADHD (into adulthood) are at elevated risk of victimisation – in one example, 37.3 % of women with persistent ADHD reported Intimate Partner Violence victimisation versus 5.9 % without ADHD.
- Research indicates that autistic women and women with ADHD are much more likely than neurotypical women to be subject to sexual violence, intimate partner abuse, grooming, manipulation, and narrative erasure.
Each time I sense manipulation, I’ve felt an anger rising inside me. That’s my agency being trampled on, my autonomy being robbed, my voice silenced – in the name of crazy.
Today, I advocate fiercely for AuDHD women. For every woman who has ever been pathologised, mislabelled, or silenced via my AuDHD Women Intersectional Scientific Practitioner Programme.
This is a picture of me from last week – flaming red hair, a colour called “Fireland” chosen by my son.
I stand as proof that when we rise from being misunderstood, misdiagnosis, gaslighting, and broken systems – we don’t just survive, we become women who protect others going through what we did.
I created the Neurodivergent Phoenix Convention to learn and heal alongside the community, and help those who are isolated from others when they most need support. We updated the programme, and I’m working on a song that I would love us to sing together. If price is a barrier, please get in touch with me.
Like the phoenix, I carry the story of fire. I’m not an easy woman. I don’t mask very much these days, which makes me hard to manipulate. I’m also practising discernment, and know my peace is worth so much more than being a people-pleaser. I’m finding softness returning to me, which is so lovely.
But I will never again let anyone else name me. I hope you join us.
P/S: Did you catch the LinkedIn LIVE with me and Alex Partridge? Here’s the full video.
#Neurodiversity #AuDHD #ADHD #WomensEmpowerment
