Man's trick to spotting ADHD in women is creating an emotional response
ADHD can be debilitating at times. Sure, people make it out to be some cutesy condition where they forget things or hyper-focus on a hobby for days before moving on to something else. But there's more to the disorder than forgetfulness and a messy bedroom so when it's downplayed or placed in the category of just being quirky it's easy for those who have it to feel misunderstood and unseen.
This is especially true for women because ADHD presents differently in them and symptoms can fluctuate throughout the month due to hormone changes. Many girls are not diagnosed with the disorder until well into womanhood due to the uncharacteristic presentation though change is occurring to catch the diagnosis before girls reach adulthood.
Alex Partridge, the founder of LADBible and UNILAD is an adult with ADHD and hosts a podcast called ADHD Chatter. Recently he shared a video explaining how to spot ADHD in women in less than 30 seconds and the response was an emotional fire hydrant. The short clip, quickly goes through some key manifestations of ADHD in women and it's quite accurate.
"They will overthink everything. That's because the hyperactivity is in their heads. It's like five squirrels on speed barreling around up there and it never stops, ever. And this will cause a lot of anxiety which is why so many women were misdiagnosed with an anxiety disorder," Partridge starts the video.
ADDitude Magazine writes women have, "a subtle symptom presentation with a greater likelihood of inattentiveness marks the ADHD experience for many women and girls, who are not outwardly disruptive to others," before adding. "Research shows that women are highly motivated to hide their ADHD symptoms and compensate for them. The symptoms that are observable are often anxiety or mood-related, which can lead to misdiagnosis."
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The video hits on some key components of ADHD in women like the tendency to overshare, becoming overwhelmed over seemingly small things but managing well in crisis situations. Partridge even mentions difficulty maintaining friendships due to lacking object permanence, which is extremely common and adds to the forgetfulness experienced in ADHD.
Someone who has ADHD maintaining a friendship with someone who doesn't likely leads to a lot of hurt feelings because if that person moves out of their recent call or text log, they essentially no longer exist. This isn't because the person with ADHD doesn't want to maintain connection or doesn't think their friendship is important, it is due to the reminder of that person no longer being in their eyesight. Lack of effective object permanence is also the reason if things are put away, like fruit in a fridge drawer, they're often forgotten because they're not seen.
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Partridge says about women with ADHD, "they will spend their life feeling like they're constantly just barely staying above water. They'll wish they could go back in time, put their arms around a younger version of themselves and reassure them that everything is going to be okay and that they're not broken, just different."
Women responded to his video with tears and feelings of being seen, not judged, with one woman sharing, "as I listened I started laughing because you're literally describing me, then I started crying because you're literally describing me."
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Another writes, "I actually cried watching this because no one has ever perfectly described my inner world in less than 30 seconds."
One woman shares, "Wow. Just wow. So accurate. I beat myself up all the time because I have realized the telling a similar story is perceived as me wanting to "take over" or "make it all about me" when my whole life I have meant it to show empathy. It makes me feel ashamed. But I have good intentions when I do that. Thank you for acknowledging that."