ADHD&Me

Hi there!

My name is Kaitikat. And these are my chaos coordinators, Artemis and Weebles. We’re glad to have you with us on the newest side quest of our journey, blogging!

There are so many descriptors I could use for myself, but the simplest way to explain it is that I am a woman whose life seems to be ruled by chaos and the constant distraction of unlocking new side quests. It wasn’t until very recently that I finally began to understand why. Thanks to a recent (late) diagnosis of ADHD, I have finally been able to start putting the puzzle pieces together (a favorite pastime of mine, I love jigsaw puzzles!), which has honestly made a world of difference. But it certainly took us a while to get here.

Getting diagnosed with ADHD at 31 years old blows.

Late Diagnosis has caused so much unnecessary strife. What would things have been like if anyone had caught it when I was young? I have led a life full of indecisiveness and uncertainty without the proper tools I needed to succeed. Here’s a snapshot of me:

• Former gifted kid? ✔
• Quiet girl with her nose always stuck in a book? ✔
• Thoughts whirling a million miles an hour? ✔
• Overactive imagination? ✔
• Easily distracted? ✔
• Feeling frequently misunderstood, chronically overexplaining things, and often making it worse? ✔
• Easily upset by even the slightest notion of rejection?✔
• Frequently interrupts and finishes other’s sentences for them? ✔
• Many, many arts and crafts? ✔
• Could easily pick up a new craft at the drop of a hat? ✔
• Chronic procrastination? ✔
• Silent perfectionism? ✔
• Did well in grade school without trying at all, then crashing out in college due to a lack of study skills? ✔
• Can’t be on time to save her life? ✔
• Multiple attempted career paths? ✔
• Deep dives and drops a lot of money into a new hobby, then quits it as soon as she’s good at it, and it’s no longer new and exciting? ✔

All these things and more are not in fact personality traits, but are actually very common signs and symptoms of ADHD. You might find yourself wondering, “But Kaitikat, wait. If you had all these signs, how come you only just got diagnosed?” The answer to that is because ADHD is very often missed girls. It will often present very differently in girls than it will with boys.

Young boys get easily diagnosed because their symptoms are generally external and visible, not to mention often disruptive, especially to a classroom environment. The average age for diagnosis in males is 9-12 years old. Girls and women typically won’t get diagnosed until it actually begins to severely affect their life, coping until they just can’t anymore and causing them to struggle in the home, school, or workplace. The average age for a diagnosis in females is 36-38 years old. That’s a huge disparity! But unfortunately it’s because our hyperactivity is almost entirely internal, so the people who should have caught it, like our teachers and parents, completely missed it. And while there are some girls who get the “stereotypical” ADHD with the hyperactivity included, many of us were just called “spacey” or “daydreamers”. Nobody had the time to worry about us when we weren’t making it a problem for anyone else. Our comorbidities like Anxiety and Depression end up being caught much sooner because they’re more visible to others.