How Motherhood Led to My ADHD Diagnosis - and Self-Acceptance ...Middle East

It seems like all over social media, people are discovering they have ADHD. It's estimated that about 6 percent of the population has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, but more women in particular are being diagnosed with ADHD than in previous years. But what we're not talking about is how so many of us women aren't even suspecting that we have ADHD until after becoming moms. And that's exactly what happened to me.

At 38, two years after having my daughter, I got one of the best gifts: I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. Before that, a typical weekday for me consisted of struggling to manage my time, forgetting appointments, feeling paralyzed by decisions, having an overactive brain, starting and abandoning tasks, and experiencing intense rejection sensitivity.

Just picture this: it's a typical weekday. My daughter is with the nanny, and I'm running errands, thoughts racing as usual. They sound a little like this: What did my husband ask me to buy? I can't remember. Has my kid already gotten the flu shot? I really need to start marking these things in my calendar. Last night was so much fun, but I hope I didn't share too much with my new mom friends. I'm super excited about this new business idea I have, but honestly, I can't tell anyone about it. It'll just be another thing I start and don't finish. I hate how inconsistent I am. Oh my God, I'm late again!

My brain has always been incessant, messy, and sometimes cruel. But like many Latinas with mental disorders, despite being frustrated, I just thought this was how I was supposed to live.

Historically, women have been underdiagnosed, leading to the likelihood of them being diagnosed with ADHD later in life than men. Originally, ADHD was studied almost exclusively in boys who demonstrated hyperactivity and impulsivity traits. This led to an entire generation of women, like myself, who have been overlooked. Now, more research is being centered around women's experiences, and finally researchers are acknowledging that women and girls present differently from boys.

Maybe this is why I never considered ADHD to be a possibility for me. As a child and teen, I wasn't hyperactive or impulsive. I was super sensitive, a daydreamer, an extreme people pleaser, and self-conscious. I easily felt overwhelmed, anxious, and had poor organizational skills. None of these qualities, except the latter, are listed in the DSM-5, the handbook used by healthcare professionals as the official guide for diagnosing mental disorders. What we've learned now is that boys and girls, men and women, present differently. For many women, they've become accustomed to masking, or putting on a "socially acceptable" face to make it seem like they're totally fine.

I wish I could say I developed the best coping skills. Still, I think I mostly relied on suppressing the parts I considered unfavorable and overcompensated in other areas of my life. So many years of these mental gymnastics took a toll on me. I eventually sought help, and about five years ago, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and started taking medication. Looking back, this was a missed opportunity for identifying my ADHD; it can frequently go unidentified for people with anxiety or depression.

I stayed on Lexapro throughout my pregnancy and postpartum, and it has absolutely made a difference for me as a mom. I'm more patient and able to self-regulate in a way I never thought I could with a demanding child. But even with that relief, my brain and nervous system still felt like they were backfiring. My usual toolkit wasn't working anymore.

Like most new mothers, I thought this was just the infamous "mom brain." Becoming forgetful and disoriented is expected for new mothers. The mental, emotional, and physical load no one prepares us for is a shock at best and debilitating at worst. Moms' brains do change after birth: we experience a loss in gray matter, an area responsible for "processing and responding to social signals," and a loss of volume to our hippocampus, a region associated with memory.

One day, I was scrolling through TikTok and a video caught my attention. A mom was talking about her ADHD diagnosis and started listing qualities that I completely related to. Hyperfixation on a task that you eventually drop once the excitement wears off? Check. Emotional dysregulation? Absolutely! Rejection sensitivity? OMG, yes! Overactive brain? How'd you know?! Oversharing? Yup! Low self-esteem? That too! The list continued, and as she went on, I was dumbfounded by how many applied to me.

Turns out, for women, being diagnosed with ADHD as mothers is very common. For some, when they test their own children, they recognize the traits in themselves. New moms may find that the hormonal changes postpartum are enough to finally lead them toward a diagnosis. For me, my years of masking and compensating crashed my already fragile executive functioning skills.

With this newfound information in hand, I went down my research rabbit hole, checking out books and podcasts. Eventually, I brought my concerns to my therapist, who confirmed my ADHD suspicions. After a few sessions, it became apparent that I needed specialized care, so I started working with an ADHD coach.

My coach is part therapist, part strategist. Together, I work through my everyday problems, and we identify how ADHD can be affecting those areas in my life and what I can do about it. She provides me with articles, videos, and podcasts that help me understand my brain's need for dopamine, how to cope when I get emotionally dysregulated, and how I can implement organizational tools into my life. Hearing someone validate and normalize the aspects of myself that I've been ashamed of has been the most rewarding experience.

Had I been diagnosed earlier in life, I think I would have felt a profound amount of shame. But as an adult - and a mother especially - I can tell you that the level of freedom in knowing what's going on internally is the greatest gift. In a book I highly recommend called "A Radical Guide for Women with ADHD," the authors write, "What if the goal of treatment is to make it easier to access more of who you truly are, not get over who you are?"

For so long, I was trying to fix myself by denying who I was. Now, I've finally stopped fighting the current and I get to work with my gifts, not against them.

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