"Last summer, after more than three years of forgetting to make appointments, I was diagnosed with ADHD (inattentive and hyperactive - a twofer!).
This explained - and validated - so much about my lived experience; I couldn’t believe it had taken me nearly 40 years to figure this out. But it’s not all my fault; in this process of self-discovery, I also learned that it is not unusual for women to be diagnosed until later in life.
While ADHD diagnoses in young, fidgety boys were quite common when I was growing up, it never occurred to me that my own hyperactive mind was anything other than overachieving creativity (both traits celebrated in young girls).
Because the way girls are typically socialized to behave very closely overlaps with the types of behaviors used to mask ADHD symptoms, unfortunately, many young girls go undiagnosed. For most of my life, I thought that if I just tried a little harder, I would find that these things came easily to me.
But it turns out, it took a lot of mental energy for me to mask what I was really experiencing, to try to appear normal. And I was good at it for many years! But once my second child was born, I no longer had the capacity to pretend."
Kim Rohrer, Co-founder at PeakHR, shares her experience with neurodivergence and offers advice to leaders on how they can create more inclusive workplaces.
🧠 Read the full post: https://bit.ly/4eIwV6Z
#womenintech #neurodivergence #deib #adhd #latediagnosis
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