The Lost Girls
ADHD was first diagnosed in young, white boys, with a key indicator being hyperactivity. As a result, guidelines were written around how it manifests in boys, and research is almost exclusively focused on boys.
Not long ago, the ratio of diagnosed boys vs. girls with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder was 10 to 1. Today, it is somewhere between 4 to 1 and 2 to 1,
Women frequently mask it in an attempt to conform to society’s expectation that they be on the ball and organized.
Dr. Ellen Littman, Understanding Girls with AD/HD, 1999
We see that very frequently, that people with ADHD and girls in particular, are misdiagnosed with issues like depression, like anxiety, personality disorders. Many girls need to have a number of treatments with anti-depressants, anxiety medications, before the underlying ADHD is addressed.
They are labelled as being lazy, not academically inclined, not having persistence. If they're being told that over and over again, that creates a self-esteem issue and a self-image issue.
By the time they're older, they may have had a lifetime of failures, whether in employment or relationships, and therefore worsening depression and anxiety symptoms because of the ADHD.
Dr Doron Almagor, CBC Radio, 201
Dazed, you sink under a dark cloud of self-loathing, lamenting another lost day. It can make little girls feel like they’ll never be good enough.
Because of society’s gender norms, girls with ADHD are often dismissed as “daydreamers” and “overly sensitive”, as if we are a romantic, quirky caricature from a John Green novel or the Disney Princess canon.
Girls who do suffer from impulsivity are often palmed off as “tomboys”.
As a child who was prone to inattentiveness and impulsivity, I was repeatedly told to “stop daydreaming”, “slow down”, “hurry up” and “act like a lady.”
Noelle Faulkner, The Guardian, 2020
As a woman you’re supposed to be polite, organised, the peacemaker, the homemaker.
Burnout, as an ADHD woman, is not episodic, it’s a continuous state of being.
We live under a patriarchy. If you put ADHD under that construct, it can make you a ‘bad woman’.
Stephanie Ozuo, vogue 2021
