Ahead of my interview with Alex Partridge about AuDHD in women on the ADHD Chatter podcast today, I want to share my thoughts with you.
ADHD and autism can co-occur in up to 80-90% of cases, yet they have only been officially recognised as coexisting conditions since 2013. AuDHD research is still in its infancy, and the ones that are being done at the moment don’t accurately represent AuDHD girls and women. The entire diagnostic and support system is built around male presentations, leading to misdiagnosis, late diagnosis, or no diagnosis at all.
So many women don’t realise they are AuDHD until adulthood (or ahem, after they were diagnosed with ADHD). A late diagnosis often comes with crippling self-doubt (“Why can’t I handle things like others?”), experience burnout from masking, sensory challenges, and taking on unrealistic expectations of being a woman in society.
Since founding ADHD Girls, so many women have approached me to say they feel gaslit by professionals who don’t recognise their struggles and dismiss them. Or women who find their medications work for a time until they don’t. As an AuDHD woman myself, I’ve felt like a detective following my ADHD diagnosis (and ASD diagnosis 4 years later!), using my own health as a test lab for what works and doesn’t because the traditional “treatment” plans for ADHD (stimulants, CBT, coaching, talk therapy) have not worked for me as expected.
What Not Knowing About Our AuDHD Experience Means
1. Less Effective Medication & Treatment Plans: The focus is shifted towards treating whichever diagnosis one may have (or others think they may have). Autistic burnout and sensory overload in women may be mistaken for anxiety or depression.
2. Lack of Gender-Specific Coping Strategies: Most coping strategies are focused on external behaviours, which boys may display, not the internalised struggles women tend to face.
3. Workplace & Educational Adjustments Are Currently Catered to the Label, Less so for the Human: Many adjustments don’t consider how AuDHD affects women differently (e.g., hormonal and neurotransmitter fluctuations’ impact on medication, sensory sensitivities, social masking) – without proper support – we are papering over the cracks.
What Needs to Change?
This is why I’m creating the first AuDHD in Women through a Scientific & Intersectional Lens training programme.
There hasn’t been a single training like this created for professionals who support autistic ADHD women, which covers nature vs nurture and our current life contexts. But it’s not just based on my words.
It will be built on the foundation of lived experience research that we will do at the AuDHD in Women’s Event. It is a not-for-profit event, so if you or anyone you know has the knowledge, skills, and capacity to support with PR, marketing, event management, or sponsorship, please get in touch with me.
#AuDHD #NeurodivergentWomen #WomenWithADHD #AutismInWomen #AuDHDCommunity
