My diagnosis in my 50s was followed by a period of relative silence on the matter. I told my family, of course, but I didn’t share it widely, certainly didn’t immediately run off to tell my employer, and didn’t fully understand what it meant for me. I was still me, of course, exactly as before. I also felt embarrassed. I had of course heard all of the following: ‘Why does everybody suddenly have ADHD?’ ‘It’s become a fad’, ‘Why do people need labels?’, ‘It’s totally overdiagnosed’. These are the pitfalls: the judgments, questions, dubious looks and outright scepticism of others.

The reality is that ADHD has likely been significantly underdiagnosed for a long time, especially in those of us raised as girls, now in mid-life. It is still underdiagnosed in boys and men, too, by the way. To go through the rigmarole of getting a diagnosis is frankly beyond most people with ADHD. I happen to have the advantage of a very supportive partner, an encouraging family and a stubborn streak that tends to get things done, push things through. Pig-headed I believe it can be called. But many ADHDers really can’t be completing multiple forms, don’t have a person who knew them in their childhood or have developed so many coping strategies that they don’t meet the criteria of the outdated, often irrelevant form that gets them through initial screening.

People raised as girls with undiagnosed ADHD often learned to hide it. Their wondering minds had them labelled as ‘daydreamers’, their multiple sharing of thoughts ‘chatterboxes’, their impaired working memories ‘dippy’, their characteristic honesty ‘blunt’ or ‘rude’, their emotional dysregulation ‘loose cannons’ and their difficulties around organisation ‘chaotic’. Why do ADHDers need the label? Because everybody gets labelled one way or another and ADHD is actually the underlying explanation for the others, the ones that stung and created a myriad of damaging coping strategies such as self-medication with alcohol, obsessive tidying and cleaning, over-thinking, constant worry and checking behaviours, validation-seeking, people-pleasing, risk-taking and co-dependency in relationships due to the crushing low self-esteem that many people with these traits can develop.

I developed compensatory behaviours: primarily disordered eating and obsession with body size, along with some risky behaviours driven by both impulse and people-pleasing. Saying ‘no’ to people became an impossibility. I had to be ‘nice’ no matter what. I met people who I knew were no good for me and I attempted to fix them and rescue them due to the low self-worth that dogged me.

So how does this tie into late ADHD diagnosis? All of the above have been causes of shame and rumination. In therapy training, I realised that these kinds of behaviours are often associated with stressful childhoods or traumatic past experiences. But after I had trauma therapy (EMDR) for specific incidents, and the troublesome memories lost much of their emotional charge, I remained emotional, intense, drawn to comfort eating, and carried on overthinking, lying awake for hours at bedtime and worrying about small things whilst remembering multiple conversations, wondering why wasps exist and thinking of jokes, simultaneously and without reprieve, often with a song buzzing about in there also. I couldn’t figure out what other therapy I needed or how I would ever become the type of person who could switch off, unwind, not really think about anything or go into a shop and buy clothes without becoming entirely overwhelmed by – well – everything!

When my oldest child said they thought I might have ADHD, I started to find out more about it, listening to ‘The ADHD adults’ podcast and ‘ADHD Chatter’, often using these as springboards to wider reading. I recognised that the guests on these podcasts were my kind of people. I knew that I understood my child clients, and former students, who had ADHD or autism diagnoses. As a teacher I had known what they needed to be able to learn. As a therapist I easily empathised with their difficulties and experiences. I learned about rejection sensitivity dysphoria and suddenly my constant worry about annoying people made more sense. When I heard that we don’t have inattention, but have difficulty directing our attention, I understood why I can’t go into a shop and buy something when there are people talking, music playing, children darting about and signs to read. It’s not possible to focus on the one thing I need to do. As I understood that parts of the brain involved in executive functioning are thought to work differently in ADHD, including in relation to dopamine regulation, I could see why cooking a large meal for multiple people is highly stressful for me and if people talk to me at the same time I go dizzy with confusion and a glass of wine to calm my nerves just adds to the general chaos in my brain.

In short, my increasing understanding, up to and beyond diagnosis, enabled me to develop the one thing I had never really possessed: self-acceptance. It really did explain many things that were previously inexplicable. I can apologise for getting it wrong in life without the excruciating pain of trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I can, for example, be very irritable. Emotional regulation can be more difficult when the pre-frontal cortex is under strain. This doesn’t mean I get to shout at my partner and blame it on ADHD but it does mean I can apologise for being in a bad mood and move on with life. Even while still being in the bad mood! It just makes everything easier!

This diagnosis has helped my relationships. Those around me understand me better. If I am more anxious about change than the average person might be, that’s OK. It’s all part of executive functioning differences. Learning new routines, coping with uncertainty and adapting to different situations can feel especially tough for some of us. My partner no longer tries to ‘fix’ me but often reduces my mental load by doing chores so I can take time to process whatever is going on.

I feel an ease with myself that I never had before. I have compassion for the child I was, who was undoubtedly loved and cherished but was also labelled in unhelpful ways and often chastised for inattention and hyperactive traits that I had little control over. If my legs need to swing now, I swing them. If I need a fidget while I’m listening, I fidget. If I want a bag of crisps for the pure joy of the sensory crunching comfort that they bring me, I eat them. If my socks are inside out, I don’t care. If a houseful of people come for Christmas, I sit back and let others do the executive planning while I peel the potatoes or load the dishwasher.

If you are a person raised as a girl, to be a woman in this society, and you have, or think you have, ADHD, your experiences will not be the same as mine but some will overlap. Diagnosis can be liberating. I can’t yet comment on medication, waiting as I am for the shortage to improve and to get to the top of a long waiting list. But in and of itself, diagnosis can give us the priceless benefit of self-acceptance. If this is something you would benefit from bringing to therapy, you’re in the right place!