ADHD as an adult woman
how I realised I might have
Like a lot of women who make it well into adulthood before finding out they have ADHD, I spent most of my life feeling slightly... out of place.
I just couldn't put my finger on why.
Like a lot of women who make it well into adulthood before finding out they have ADHD, I spent most of my life feeling slightly... out of place. I just couldn't put my finger on why.
I constantly compared myself to other girls. I couldn't focus at school. I was painfully shy about putting my hand up to ask questions because I was terrified I'd sound silly.
I had one friend I felt completely safe being my authentic, hyper little self around, but she wasn't in my grade at school, so during the actual school day I never really had that “safe person”. Mostly, I just learned to adjust myself depending on who I was around.
Although, obviously, I didn't know that's what I was doing at the time.
I started finding myself when I left school
Around 17–20, my personality really started to shine. I left school early and worked two part-time jobs because I genuinely felt like I wasn't getting anything out of being there anymore.
I had one goal: Work. Make money. Move out of home.
Home was... toxiiiiiccccc 😂 so independence felt like this giant glowing EXIT sign in front of me… and… I did it! I worked my two jobs, met new people who felt more like me, and slowly started blossoming.
Then I got my first full-time job, and this is where something really unlocked in me. My mentor was only a few years older than I was, but I was in absolute awe of her. She'd sing in her office. She wore whatever the hell she wanted without worrying whether people thought she was “too much”. She'd play with her hair while she worked and just float around with this confidence in herself that I'd never really seen before.
I had grown up somehow being made to feel like I was too much and not enough at exactly the same time… Too loud, too ambitious, too excitable, too anything really. But also not smart enough? Not focused enough? Not capable enough?
Then here was this woman, not much older than me, just... being herself. She travelled the world. She bought her first brand-new home while she was training me. And I remember realising: Wait a damn minute... I can actually create a life for myself???
Until then, I don't think I'd ever really envisioned one because I'd spent so long believing other people's stories about who I was.
and then I shrunk myself again…
At 20, I finished my training and moved to another location within the company. I arrived full of confidence.
I had a wardrobe that finally felt like me. I was ambitious, I made friends effortlessly for what felt like the first time in my life. It felt fucking freeing.
And then I found out some of those people were talking shit about me… Apparently I was “full of myself” because of the clothes I wore, because I talked about wanting to buy a house at 20. and because I was... confident? Finding that out shattered me.
I did keep going though (quietly). I bought my first home at 21. I travelled the world throughout my twenties. From the outside, I probably looked like I was doing pretty friggen well.
But underneath it was this constant: “Who even am I? Why do I think I can do this? Am I embarrassing myself? Am I too much for everyone?”
So I shrunk myself again… and I stayed there for another 11 years.
I shrunk myself so much that I struggled to make genuine friendships. I ended up in a long-term relationship I didn't really want to be in. I stayed in that workplace far longer than I should have, through bullying, harassment, horrible customers and this underlying feeling of “well... I guess this is just life”.
then I became a mum
At 29, I fell pregnant with my first child, my darling daughter Freya, and something came over me… I can’t quite explain it… but I quit my job. 😂
I started my Instagram page, @samanthaelle.x, found a cosy little part-time admin job in a lovely family-owned business and worked there throughout my pregnancy. People around me mocked the Instagram thing… saying things like “she's trying to be an influencer” and “she's not even anyone special who would follow her?” Which obviously didn't feel lovely… but by then, being underestimated wasn't exactly a new experience. So I kept posting (gosh I’m soooo glad I kept posting).
My page grew to 10,000 followers during my pregnancy and, for the first time, I had this tiny corner of the internet where I felt like I could just... be me. I connected with women in the same season of life and didn't feel like I needed to pretend quite so much.
Then my daughter was born and something else came over me. I left her dad. I moved into a beautiful little apartment with her and, while it was one of the hardest transitions I'd ever made, it was also the first time I felt like I'd truly chosen myself. 🥹
Between 30 and 32, I really started to blossom. I started learning who I actually was and, probably more importantly, I started noticing some of the traits and quirks I'd spent three decades hiding.
Instagram accidentally diagnosed me 😂
Okay, not literally haha. But this is where the story gets funny.
Because my personal Instagram page had grown quite quickly, brands I'd previously collaborated with started asking if they could hire me to manage their social media. Quickly and organically, my first business was born. It gave me another creative outlet where I could play, imagine, create and finally use parts of my brain I'd spent years trying to squash into boring little boxes.
One of my clients had ADHD and she followed A LOT of women who talked about ADHD on Instagram. So I'd log into her account to reply to comments from her community... and then accidentally get stuck doom-scrolling ADHD Reels (and have to restart my work for her an hour later haha).
Over and over again I kept thinking “wait… that's exactly like me!” I felt soooo seen.
But even then, I didn't trust myself… Maybe it was all in my head? What if I really was just dumb, like I'd been told growing up? Or maybe I really was lazy, like teachers had made me feel, and I really was just “too much”, like other people had decided???
So I ignored that little voice telling me to look deeper.
until someone else noticed it too
Around 31, I'd been managing this client's account for quite a while when she pulled me aside.
She said something along the lines of “Sam, I don't want this to come across any type of way, but I've been watching you work for a while now in your absolute creative chaos... have you ever considered that you might have ADHD?”
HAHAHAHAHA.
I told her I'd actually been relating a little too hard to all the ADHD women she followed. She encouraged me to look into it properly, so I did.
At the time I was already in therapy unpacking approximately my entire existence 😂 and at my next appointment, I brought it up with my therapist. She told me ADHD had actually crossed her mind too, but we were already working through some pretty heavy things. I was dealing with high-functioning anxiety and panic attacks after PTSD, I'd become a single mum, and there was just... a lot.
She wanted to keep working through those things before adding another process into the mix. Which was very sensible of her. Unfortunately, she was dealing with me, and I wanted to do everything immediately. 😂
I'd spent long enough not understanding myself. If there was support available to me, I wanted to know.
So I went to my GP.
“I feel like an alien who was put on the wrong planet”
I'd been seeing my GP for about a year by then. She asked why I thought I might have ADHD and... I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN IT! How the heck do you even explain it?!
In my head, the answer was: I feel like an alien that was accidentally dropped onto the wrong planet and everyone else got an instruction manual I didn't receive. Which isn't particularly useful diagnostically. 😂
So instead I tried to explain the things I struggled with… staying on task, reading more than one sentence without my brain wandering away, interrupting people while they're talking even though I desperately don't want to, and feeling like I was simultaneously too much and somehow incapable of just being myself around people.
She half laughed and essentially said “yeah... I feel you. I actually got diagnosed recently myself. I'll fast-track the process for you.”
WHAT A GEM.
I was incredibly lucky in that respect. I went to a female-focused medical practice that had a psychiatrist in-house who could take me through the assessment process. Even with that, between appointment availability, running my business and life as a single mum, the whole process still took about a year.
at 32, I finally had an answer
By the time I received my ADHD diagnosis, I was 32, and the biggest thing I remember feeling was relief.
I wasn't crazy, or an alien accidentally placed on the wrong planet bahaha. I wasn't lazy, stupid, or “too much”. Suddenly all these stories I'd carried about myself throughout my life didn't feel quite so factual anymore. There was actually an explanation for why certain things had always felt harder for me.
And even more excitingly, I could finally start learning how my brain actually worked.
There was only one slight problem. 😂 By this point, I'd also fallen madly in love with my now-partner Jarrod, who, conveniently, seemed to quite enjoy all that “too much” energy I'd spent my life trying to hide, and we fell pregnant very quickly.
So there I was, finally receiving my ADHD diagnosis and being told YAY! Welcome to the club! ...but we wouldn't be trialling ADHD medication while I was pregnant (FML).
But I thought... that's okay… I’ve raw dogged it this long, maybe I didn't even need medication. So instead, I started learning more about ADHD in women. I started recognising the ways I'd masked throughout my life. I slowly gave myself permission to drop some of that mask. And I just... plodded along.
Because at that point I thought getting diagnosed was the end of the story. It absolutely was not…
what happened next…
Why I eventually decided to try ADHD medication at 34, almost two years after my diagnosis.
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