I have been waiting to release an episode about women and ADHD and this conversation has been so worth the wait! In this episode, I speak with Kate Moryoussef about what late diagnosis actually looks like, why it takes so long, and what women can do to move their care forward when the system keeps calling it something else.

Kate is an ADHD coach, author of the DK-published ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, and host of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast with 3.5 million downloads,

Kate was diagnosed mid-life with ADHD when she was advocating for her nine-year-old daughter for an ADHD diagnosis during lockdown. She really saw herself for the first time in the symptoms that her daughter was struggling with, but her GP told her it was anxiety. She pushed back: "I have had this for all of my life. This is not new COVID anxiety." She found a psychiatrist privately, and within weeks had the ADHD diagnosis she'd been living without for 40 years.

We get into why so many women arrive at an ADHD assessment carrying years of prior dismissals, heavy periods written off, migraines managed without investigation, mental health concerns attributed to stress. Kate talks about why the fear of being pushed back again makes speaking up harder every time, and what actually helps: voice-noting your history before an appointment, using AI to turn it into bullet points a doctor can act on, recording the session on your phone so you're not relying on executive function under pressure.

We also cover what a diagnosis changes and what it doesn't. It doesn't give you a new brain. It does give you language, permission to stop blaming yourself, and access to support you couldn't ask for before. Kate's framing: "turn the lights on." See the ADHD clearly enough to know where you need scaffolding and stop calling it a personality flaw.

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager, and ask Kate about the women who've masked so thoroughly they've built brilliant career and then hit midlife, perimenopause, and burnout simultaneously. Kate talks about why so many ADHD women quietly downsize their ambitions when what they actually needed was flexibility and someone in their corner.

About Kate Moryourseef

Kate Moryoussef on IG

Kate Moryoussef Website

The More Yourself Membership by Kate Moryoussef

The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit Book by Kate Moryoussef

More from The Hairy Chin

The Hairy Chin Website

The Hairy Chin on YouTube

The Hairy Chin on Instagram

Spencer Moore on LinkedIn

Disclaimer: The Hairy Chin does not provide medical advice. All content is for informational purposes only. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional for personal medical concerns.

Hi, Kate. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, thank you for having me, I'm delighted to be here.

Yes, I'm really excited to talk to you today. We are talking about ADHD and women. Now you are really an expert in this. You have the ADHD Women's Wellbeing podcast. You are also the author of the DK published book, ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit. You have a fantastic website with tons of resources. You are a coach, you offer workshops.

I mean, you just do a lot. It's exciting to be able to chat with you about this today.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. I'm trying to not do as much as I have done because as a lot of ADHD or neurodivergent women have experienced, go through sort of cycles of burnout. So I'm trying to practice what I preach a little bit more and pull back a little bit. But yeah, there's a lot of resources out there.

Yeah, there are, there are. And now I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a teenager. And it is something that there wasn't tons of information back then. I think there's a lot more information now. We'll talk later kind of about women understanding what is the diagnosis and what is their personality and also kind of things that you just touched on burnout and workplace and things like that. What I'd love to do and what I'm really doing this season is talking about advocacy and action and really how women can take

these practical tools with them day to day. We read a lot about the symptoms of ADHD, but then it's kind of like, well, what next? And what do I do with all of this information? So I would love to talk about kind of the journey of a woman. Now you help midlife women who are newly diagnosed with ADHD, which I think is a huge amount of women these days. I don't know, I'd love for you to touch on whether there's really this increase of ADHD or maybe there's just more transparency and more people are being diagnosed.

I know there's probably a lot to say about that, but what I would love to start with is your journey. You were diagnosed in midlife, and I would love to understand what that looked like for you, knowing that the symptoms are different for everyone, but what was that like? How did you advocate for yourself to get to that place to say, need help, and really search for that diagnosis?

Yeah, so I mean, yes, I was diagnosed at 40. So that was nearly six years ago now. And it very much wasn't this sort of...

situation. It was all quite kind of like rushed because I was trying to advocate for my daughter at the time and it was you know during lockdown and we were all home. I was trying to you know home school and work and everything and she was nine at the time. I've got three other kids and she was the one that was sort of struggling the most with being left to her own device. I like a child at nine shouldn't be really left to study or anything on their own and there was a lot of online schooling and sitting through you know lots of zoom classes and all things.

like that and she really really struggled with all of that and so I had to sit with her and I had to like help her and watch her and it was the very first time I'd seen the difficulties that I guess had been flagged up at school over the years so this none of this was sort of new but it was through my own eyes apart from you know a couple of hours here and there doing homework whatever.

And it was when I started to watch her with her overwhelm and her processing and her not being able to sit still and struggling to even sort of sit on a chair properly without kind of wanting to roll around and walk around the room and everything. I started really properly looking into what is going on here because we'd had a recess for dyslexia and...

dyspraxia and nothing really came back conclusive. So no one had ever talked about ADHD, no one had ever mentioned it, even though I'd grown up with two brothers with ADHD. So I knew about ADHD in boys.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

That was it. had anyone ever mentioned ADHD in girls. And it was when I was putting all her different sort of traits in and what I was seeing, it kind of came up as like, you know, what ADHD in girls looks like. And that was when I started to think about myself and growing up and, you know, throughout all the different years and all the different, you know, incarnations of my life.

And it was like a huge penny dropping moment. So obviously my priority was to get her assessed, diagnosed, helped. Thank goodness the school were on board via online stuff. And we got her diagnosed. And then I was like, this is definitely me. that was nearly six years ago. So it was a bit easier to get online appointments and all of that. And I just went and had an assessment. And within a few weeks later, I had this diagnosis.

Mm-hmm.

It was absolutely life-changing, huge epiphany. Good, bad, awful, brilliant, scary, sad. It was like the full stages of what people talk about, you know, of the grief with regards to a diagnosis. You can't compare it to grief in another way. So that is kind of, you know, how it all began. And then, you know, so much has come from that.

Yes.

Yeah, and I do think that a lot of people that advocate is because they've been through it themselves. They understand the desperation and they see how much you can struggle and it really does kind of open these paths for really beautiful connections and advocacy. I would love to hear about when you said that you went and got an assessment, where did you go to get your assessment and what did that look like for you?

Yeah, so we were in November 2020. So we were about what, five months into lockdown.

Mm-hmm.

So the world was sort of starting to get quite used to being online and I spoke to my GP initially and it was very much kind of, this is what I think is going on, I had a conversation with her on the phone and she said, that sounds like anxiety and I said, I understand what you're saying and yes, it's a very stressful time.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

know, lockdown, my husband's business, you know, he was having to navigate a lot. I was holding forth with my kids and retraining. just retrained as a health and wellbeing coach. So I was sort of like trying to build a business from scratch. It was a crazy time. I don't even know how I got through it. And yes, I was definitely anxious. But what I did know at the time that there was definite perimenopausal, you know, symptoms coming through again, had no idea that I would be perimenopausal at 40, but we know that, you know,

Mm.

hormones are more extreme in their fluctuations in neurodivergent women. And I said to her, I have had this for all my life. This is not a new COVID anxiety. Yes, it's been exacerbated by all the stressors. So I kind of pushed back a little bit on her and she said, why don't you try the anxiety medication and come back to me in a few weeks and see if that helps.

So I took the medication, never tried it, because there was just a part of me was like, I don't want to go down this route because I know it's, yes, there's anxiety then and there always has been, but this is just the surface level. So as I was helping my daughter, I was like, this is me, this is me. And I went privately and I found a psychiatrist and I called my GP and I said, just so you know, I found a psychiatrist. I've booked an appointment.

Thank

No, I think it was actually after. So afterwards I said, just so you know, I've had the assessment, this is what it's come back to, I'm sure he'll send you all the notes. And she was like, okay, wow, all right. She did believe me, but I wouldn't call her hugely helpful, validating or supportive. So I really did have to advocate for myself while also advocating for my daughter.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And advocating is like a huge part of what I do, helping other women, but I've had to advocate for myself through every single step of this way. I've never been led by a health professional. It's always been me leading and then explaining and either being kind of like sort of dismissed or...

maybe listen to, but I've never really felt like a healthcare professional has advocated for me. But I also kind of give them the benefit of the doubt because I speak to a huge amount of people on my podcast. So I'm kind of ahead of the curve a little bit with this world. So I kind of try and navigate that a little bit.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I've been through a lot of health issues and different things and sometimes when I go into a doctor's office and I'm really educated about something, I find that they can push back even more because they want to be the expert. So I feel like there's a real balance there of going in there and saying, I know this is me and them saying, well, I'm the diagnostician. I'm going to tell you what is you. And that's a big part for me of advocacy is learning how to say,

Mmm. Yeah.

I know my normal, I know what's right for me and what's wrong for me, and this is either new for me or this is getting worse or this has always been me. These are hard things to say when you're in front of a doctor, especially when they're not really guiding you. Do you experience that a lot of women that you speak with have had this same experience?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I think I speak to a lot of women before diagnosis. So, you know, whether it's in my community or I get messages or coaching and it's almost like they have to build up the confidence or the courage that there's a fear, a real fear of being pushed back, being laughed at, ridiculed, dismissed because they have been over the years. This is not pretend. This is not, they're not imagining they have been gaslit by medical professionals in the past, whether it's to do with heavy periods.

Mm-hmm.

mental health, chronic pain, inflammation of different types, migraines, whether it's been sort of like postnatal depression. Like there has been, in most women's cases, by the time they get to the ADHD diagnosis, several trips to a doctor, several investigations.

and I want to say some have been helped, but a lot of the time they have had some form of pushback. So they're naturally very kind of cautious and trying to protect themselves. And so I try and help women, know, whether it's writing a list or chronicling things or really having like some confidence in their voice that they can be heard. And if they're not being heard to choose another healthcare professional. So unfortunately we have grown up in a very patriarchal healthcare

Mm-hmm.

system and I'm not saying it's all men or male doctors but we've not had any focus on female health like it's been we've been the scraps forever and it's only just these past few years you know realizing actually women do matter maybe we should be listening to women and maybe we should be investing in women's know health and research so there's a turning point that we are decades and decades and decades behind

Yes, absolutely. And you know, you were talking about women that have had all these other things with hormones and with migraines and all these different... I find that that's a real issue because women's health is complicated. It's one of the reasons that they were left out of scientific research is because it was very hard to find a control. Men, it was a bit easier. And so for women, you know, the cycles, the periods, pregnancy, post-pregnancy, it was challenging. But what I think is interesting is...

By the time midlife, for example, women goes in at 40 and she has a handful of issues, especially if she's going in for an ADHD diagnosis. So I've found, at least for me, when I go in to doctors and I list six conditions, at that point they're like, well, this could be mental health, this could be anxiety, this is too complicated for just one more thing. And I find that you really have to push back when you have overlapping conditions. They're hard to track.

You have to be very clear. You have to speak with conviction. It is a really overwhelming experience. Tell me about tracking, about writing lists and things like that. What are some tangible pieces of advice that you give women when they are trying to kind of organize these symptoms?

Yeah, I mean, again, with ADHD people, often we can get quite overwhelmed.

we can sort of jump from different periods of time and especially when we're under pressure, so to verbally process or articulate what we want suddenly just gets very difficult. If we're put on the spot and we know we're under a time limit with the doctor, we know we've got a short period of time, to then explain your whole life story is really, hard because there's gonna be trauma involved. There's gonna be all these different chapters of our life and different crises and stresses. We can't, you can't just sort of like,

you put your life in like a two minute kind of chronicle or whatever you want to say. So I try and say to women before the doctors, however it is easiest for you to chronicle your life or how you can remember where your ADHD showed up.

maybe voice note it to yourself. And now with AI, thankfully there's lots of amazing tools. So again, I'm probably behind on some of the AI tools out there, but something that I've done in the past is I will leave a transcription of my voice note and I'll put it through AI and say, right, please, can you put this into bullet points? Please make this into very...

concise points to make to the doctor and I will and that will work and it'll be very helpful. whatever way is the easiest for you to get whatever's happened to you out of your brain, out of your mind and onto paper because that is what we need to give to the doctor or we can email it to them before or after as well and say just so you know I'm sending you this before our appointment or here it is after our appointment. Another thing to do is

Bring your phone and press record so you can record the appointment and then afterwards say, you know, here are the notes from From our appointment just so just to make sure that you have all the information So we don't have to rely on our working memory our executive functioning our processing or the pressure that the anxiety that we might feel Like that is not going to get in our way because it's gotten our way for thought for far too long

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

And we have that small window of opportunity to be heard. And hopefully you will have a compassionate doctor and a compassionate doctor that will want to help you. But we do need to help ourselves as well. And the difficult thing with ADHD in women and maybe autism and however you want to phrase it, neurodivergent.

is that it's like you say, it's very hormonal, fluctuating, cyclical based. So we will remember from probably puberty onwards, and remember puberty, there's a buildup, so it could be from the age of sort of seven, eight onwards. Meltdowns, tantrums, nightmares, social issues, RSD.

problems like the list just goes on and on and on and you go to a doctor and you try and explain all of this the doctor's gonna be like whoa this person is like you know seriously unhinged but and that's what we've we've dealt with but we've just had to you know as women that has never been we've never had the articulation we've never had the language we've never been heard or understood

Yes.

it's really important that we are able to vocalise what's happened to us because it builds a story. And for so many women that diagnosis is crucial because...

It's a validation, it's an acceptance, it's a recognition, but it's also a gateway. We do want medication. And a lot of women kind of go, what's the point of a diagnosis? You it's just a label or it's just, you know, something that I can, you know, bandy around. It's topical, it's trendy. I was like, no, no, no. A diagnosis is that opportunity for you to understand yourself, but also ask for the support that you need. And that, because we can always be wondering, I think I've got ADHD, but I'm not sure.

and we never really lean into that. We never ask for the support or advocate for ourselves. We might have imposter syndrome around it. So yeah, it's very, very nuanced and layered. But yeah, hope that answers what you asked me.

Hmm.

No, it definitely does. And I mean, I think that, you know, if you start in puberty and you start really kind of struggling with this executive function and all of these kind of snowball that you're talking about, I think it's very easy to lose confidence in yourself that you're capable of dealing with things and with life. And now women have a lot of responsibilities as mothers and, you know, parents and work and that.

that confidence can really damage the ability for women to gain the ability to talk to their doctors or to track their symptoms or to understand that they can manage this and that there is help. So I do think that a diagnosis is really great and that it gives them an explanation, like you said, validation. I also think that diagnoses can also label people and put them in a box. And, you know, I don't think that your diagnosis is your identity.

Yeah.

And I think that that's really important to understand that it's a part of you, it's a piece of your pie, but it doesn't mean that it's all of you.

correct.

Yeah, I agree, 100%. And that's what a lot of people say, you know, is it worth getting my child diagnosed? I don't want them to be labeled. I don't want them to think that that's it. They can't do anything now. can't, you know, they're never going to be good at academics or can't get to university or all these different things. But I personally see it as a door that you can open it. I see it as a very positive experience because you're finally able to remove the self-criticism and seeing it as a personality flaw and thinking that

there's something wrong with you and you're able to separate. So instead of it being all of you, it's almost like, we separate it and we understand and we know that, okay, this ADHD is gonna sometimes challenge us and it's gonna sometimes cause some difficulties. But if we can see it, we're able to help ourselves. It's when we can't see it. Like if you go out and it's dark outside and you hear noises and rustling and all of that, your brain goes to all over.

If you have the lights on, go, okay, that was just like a little bird or whatever, all these sweet, nice things. And so we need to turn the lights on. We need to create some light so we can understand where we need some help, where we need some support, where's brilliant, what part of our ADHD do we love? The enthusiasm and the curiosity and the creativity and the effectious, kind of like wanting to help and socialize and all these different things. But where...

Yes.

do I also need to support myself and be kind to myself and delegate or ask for help or support? Because I always think awareness is key. People say to me all the time, what are your best ADHD hacks or tools or this? And I say the very best is the awareness so you can see what it is that you need so you don't blame and shame and judge and criticize.

and that's when we're able to create a little bit of distance so we don't make ADHD a whole personality.

Mm-hmm, right. I'd love to talk to you about expectations because I think that perhaps if a woman is diagnosed with ADHD and she has struggled for so many years or since puberty, perhaps she might think that it's part of her personality that these types of issues are just who she is, right? Maybe I'm always running late or I forget things or, you know, I have a hard time structuring tasks, things like that. And then she gets the diagnosis. What is, talk about the expectation of

what that then does to her life or what she can expect to see in terms of management and feeling better. Because I don't think that a diagnosis is going to completely change you into this type A personality that has all of the clothes folded perfectly in your closet, right? So talk a little bit about if you can the expectations or not having expectations once you get a diagnosis.

Yeah.

Yeah, mean, essentially it doesn't really change, you know, we don't suddenly get a new brain, but what we are able to then...

I kind of similar to what I said before is that say if you are one of those people that really struggles with time and that's always been an issue and you're always you know running late and everywhere you get to you sort of like heart racing you're able to then do a bit of psycho education and not see it as like a personality flaw or something that you're really bad at you can understand that there is this sort of link between ADHD and either not understanding time or you know some people call it a time blindness

there's probably a nicer way of saying it, but being able to process time in a different way. So we are able to bring in things like more digital clocks or little timer, you know, clocks on our desks so we can see the countdown. We're able to put more alarms or reminders and we're able to...

you know, if you work with a coach and you can say to the coach, listen, timing has always been a part of me that I really don't like and I've let people down in the past. And that's been something that I've really struggled with. And now I understand it's a part of ADHD and it's very common. I want to be able to help myself with this so you can build scaffolding around it. So it then becomes very practical. It becomes compassionate. It becomes curious, becomes proactive. And we don't have to just be like, I'm that loser that's always

Mm-hmm.

I'm that person that just can never, you know, misses flights and can't get to wherever I need to on time. And I'm one of those people that is always a little bit late. And I always want to say to myself, just get there early, just get there a little bit early. But I know that the ADHD part of me, there's just one more thing. And can just fit one that one more thing. And even coming today, I was like, I can just quickly put the things in the dishwasher. And I'll just quickly run upstairs and, you know, open the window or whatever.

And I'm always like separate from that. I know what I'm doing and I'm like, oh, hello ADHD. I know what you're doing. Sometimes I'll listen to that version of myself that will say that is your ADHD and you don't want to be late. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to be late.

So I'm not doing things unconsciously anymore. I'm a lot more conscious. Sometimes I can't stop it. know, like you wonder if sometimes you get on a bit of a rabbit hole and you're so interested in subjects and you know that you've just wasted 15 minutes.

Hmm.

But that's like, that's my ADHD curiosity. And I know I really like love researching interesting things. So you're able to create a bit of distance with it. And there's amazing coaches out there now. There's amazing tools and resources. I've put loads in my book, the podcast. There's so many ways now to help ourselves with psychoeducation and ADHD. You know, there's no...

I don't want to use the word excuse because that sounds a bit stern, I like to remove the victim mentality of everything's awful, my life is dreadful, because very much so, maybe generations before, no one had any clue what was going on. And so there very much was that terminology of...

Mm-hmm.

that person's just a bit of a loser, or that person just can't quite get their act together, or that person's chronically messy, lazy, disorganized, that person just can never hold down a job, and there's lots of negative wording, and yes, you can fall into that victim mentality because there was no help. So if there's no help, and there's no positivity, and there's no support, then the only thing you can do is sit in self-blame and self-anger.

Thank

Mm-hmm.

But now we've got help. So I try and move people from, okay, yes, you can wallow a little bit and there can be grief and sadness and anger and all these things, but now what? Let's move forwards because there's always a way forwards.

Right.

Right. I would love to talk about the workplace and women in the workplace because I think that this is quite challenging when you're in this structured environment. What is the advice that you would give to a woman who perhaps needs to ask for accommodations in a workplace or, you know, issues with time and being on time for meetings and appointments? What advice would you offer for her in terms of navigating this diagnosis in the workplace?

Yeah, I mean.

Sadly, I speak to a lot of women who are getting this understanding. It's midlife, it's colliding with perimenopause, it's colliding with kids' needs, older parents, relationship struggles. It sort of seems to be this ecosystem that so many women are living in, and their corporate career has burnt them out. They've worked so, so hard for this corporate career. They've been ambitious and really focused on...

doing so well and despite all the difficulties that they've gone through, know, through getting through to high school, getting the qualifications, university, all of that, it's been hard work. They've not done this breezily. This has been, it's impacted their nervous system. It's probably made them quite ill in many different, you know, circumstances. So they've got a career that they've worked hard for and then they're trapped in this sort of corporate mold that just does not suit their nervous system.

And I wrote something the other day on Substack actually about neurodivergent people really need space, they need autonomy, they need flexibility and quite a lot of freedom. And those things don't happen very often in corporate life. So then there's a correlation as to why so many people, ADHD people especially like to go and work for themselves or become entrepreneurs.

self-employed because they can't get that flexibility, that fluidity in a corporate environment. However, that's not possible for everybody. Not everybody can just leave their jobs and start their own business. So what I would love to see more of in corporate environments and something I'm actually wanting to work more.

know, towards is educating people in corporate, you know, businesses to support these incredible women who are bringing so much to their business, but just need some tweaks and a bit of flexibility and a bit of help and support to keep them in their jobs because too many brilliant women are...

pulling back because of burnout. There was also something else I wrote on Instagram. It was actually based on a Psychology Today article and it was kind of...

entitled, like, why do so many ADHD women dumb down their careers? And it got so much traction because it really resonated. And there was so many women that said, I was a corporate lawyer or I was a banker or as a doctor or I was a teacher. And I had to pivot because I couldn't handle the hours or the, you know, the impact it was having on trying to juggle my career with my family and all of that. you know, I became a nursery teacher. I became a gardener.

Hmm.

I a hairdresser, I went and worked with children.

because our nervous systems are naturally more stressed, I would say, kind of more erring on that sympathetic state. And we need to actively find ways to, you know, switch gears into parasympathetic, into sort of the calmer. And we need that, you know, we need to feel more regulated. So we have to find ways, whether that's being outside in nature, you know, having space in our diaries, not being back to back, having some freedom and flexibility to be

to maneuver know meetings if we can if we you know if we've woken up and we're not mentally feeling great.

And we don't have that, it feels very suffocating in corporate environments if no one's there supporting these incredible women. So these incredible women then leave and then they have, that has a huge impact on their self-esteem and their self-belief and then they think they're not able to do the jobs and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. So it's kind of trying to keep them in the job, tweak it a little bit if they really do want to stay, if they've worked really hard.

Mm-hmm.

and making sure they've got a supportive team and colleagues and managers around them so they can thrive in these positions.

Right. When you're talking about this, I'm thinking of kind of this capability versus sustainability of, you know, what are women capable of doing? And they have these huge capabilities and they're these brilliant women, but then what can their bodies actually sustain so that they don't burn out and so that they can stay in these positions if they choose to? I would love for you to touch on the nervous system because that's a huge piece of that pie as well. So what would you share about

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I know a lot of your work, you talk about burnout, you talk about RSD, rejection sensitivity disorder, hormones play a role, obviously the perimenopause and menopause. Do you wanna talk a little bit about the nervous system, go a little bit deeper into that and kind of how you help coach women to find that balance between what they're capable of and what they're sustainable?

Yeah, I I love that, the capability and sustainability because it is our nervous system that's holding this. So I started doing quite a bit of work on the nervous system a few years ago and did some polyvagal training and really understanding that safety and connection and everything. Because I would just kind of say things like, my nervous system feels so, you

stressed or activated, but I wouldn't really understand what the triggers were, what the stressors were or how to move from, you know, from one end of the ladder to the other. again, there's a whole chapter in my book about the ADHD nervous system and regulating our nervous system because it's so key. It's almost the foundations. It's, you know, if we understand our nervous system, then we're able to hold things and we're able to create more sustainability because then we can find ways to move in and out of those

different states and find things like glimmers that things that can kind of calm and regulate on other system and we can notice the stresses and we can pull back and find ways to prevent these these very sort of debilitating burnout cycles that many women have found themselves in. So it's very much about prevention, it's about calming, it's about regulating, it's about noticing

when your nervous system has been highly activated, highly stressed, what caused that? Who caused that? What was the buildup to it? What were those compounding factors? And really gaining a huge amount of awareness so we can be more intentional because our nervous system knows very quickly before maybe our brain knows when we are feeling disconnected or unsafe or we're feeling like we're not

Thank

being heard or listened to, we can't be our authentic selves. So it's always about safety and connection. And we have to start thinking, okay, so if I'm not feeling safe in my job, and I'm not feeling connected, I'm not able to be my authentic self, I'm not able to verbalise what I need, you're just going to be in this perpetual state of chronic stress. Your nervous system is going to be activated, causing inflammation in your body, which then causes things like gut issues and migraines.

Mm-hmm.

and exacerbate hormonal issues like endometriosis. So it really is, it's like the bottom, it's the foundations of everything. So if we operate, and I'm not saying I walk around Zen every day, I really, really don't, but I try and notice, I can feel, you you've gone to many meetings back to back, you need to go have a walk.

am I gonna have a walk with a podcast? No, I really need to just put my phone away and just completely switch off and do some breath work and come back and really kind of decompress a little bit. Or if I've not had any meetings, yeah, actually, I feel like I wanna kind of get some inspiration or here's something interesting and I will take my phone with me. So it's almost like we're in control. We've got the gear stick and we're able to move the gear stick instead of.

Mm-hmm.

someone else moving the geistick for us and that's when it becomes very empowering.

Right.

Yeah, I do agree. There are a lot of things I think about. I do, in my experience, find that women are very busy. They have a lot of responsibilities. And there are a lot of things in a female life that we don't have control over. If you have children, if you have a job, perhaps you don't have flexibility, like you said, to become an entrepreneur, which is its own full-time job to begin with, especially for someone. Exactly. There's a lot to manage. But I think that perhaps women don't realize that they have options.

Oh my god, it seems like it's more stressful. Yes.

that they can do for themselves. Like you said, making a choice between going on a walk and listening to a podcast or just going outside listening to the birds and going on a walk and looking around. Sometimes it's these small choices that can make such a big difference. But I think that it's hard to make these choices. We live in these really fast paced environments. There's a lot of distractions and it takes a lot of purpose and real attention to say,

I'm going to sit here and be quiet. I also think that for some women, connecting to their bodies is very challenging for them. We are ingrained to just keep moving forward and carry on. So listening to actually what our bodies are saying is a huge skill. And it's something that you really do have to foster of what is my baseline, what makes me feel calm, what makes me feel stressed. These are not just things that we inherently know. It's a practice.

Yeah.

Correct, yeah, 100%. And we are very much being taught to do, do and not to be. And being is often much harder than doing. We know, like you say, definitely as women we've been conditioned to be as productive as we can, to do as much for others as we can because then we're people, we're kind people, we're good friends, all of that. And so the do, do, doing is almost the easy bit. But I would say...

The hardest thing for me, like go back to the analogy of the walk, is to leave my phone behind because I would be then, I'm gonna miss a phone, I'm gonna miss emails, important messages. Oh my God, now I'm gonna have to walk and like all I'm gonna hear about is in my own brain and I don't know, I'm not interested in the birds. But I have to fight that because we've passed the first 10 minutes of the walk of my nervous system saying what if, what if, you're gonna miss this, you're gonna miss that and I take some intentional breaths.

Mm-hmm.

It's still not easy, but after you do it a few times, and even if it's a 10 minute walk, like you don't have to do a full hour, it can just be, I'm gonna do 10 minutes walking on the block without my phone. And that just teaches and trains our nervous system that it's okay, it's okay to not always be doing and not always be on.

Like you say, many of us have very little control over our lives. You know, we could be single parents, we could be the sole providers, like we have to work and we are looking after children. It's trying to find those tiny little pockets, those little tiny intentional tweaks that...

could just be 30 seconds of breathing every couple of hours and having like a little reminder on your phone, just do a minute of just gentle breath work. And if that's the only thing you can do all day, that's just a little sign to your nervous system that it's safe, it's just safe to just slow down, bring it down a little level. Because if no one reminds us, we're not gonna give ourselves that permission and no one's gonna give ourselves that

mission. So we have to be intentional about it and it takes some time and it takes some time getting used to but you will be surprised at what those little tiny tweaks can do can actually make a big difference. It's that compound effect.

Right? You know, I think of when I was in my 20s, I just wanted to go to yoga class. I've always had a very kind of hypersensitive nervous system. And so I thought I'd come in to do yoga. And I went for the first class. And the beginning of the class was breathing. It was just kind of getting your mind to kind of relax and be inside your body. And it gave me a panic attack. I had to run out of the room and leave because I couldn't sit there with my mind. It was so active.

And when I tried to relax it, my breath just went out of control. And you know, it was really, I still remember it was 20 plus years ago, and it was a really big lesson for me to learn about pushing through the discomfort. Because sometimes I think that when you feel this really heavy discomfort, it's a sign from your body of I don't feel safe or this isn't right for me. But sometimes you have to push through that wall to get to the other side of it.

And that was a big lesson that I've used in a lot of areas of my life is that discomfort is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's just a wall, a barrier to where you need to go.

Yeah, I love that. And just today, actually, I've just been in quite a long sort coaching meeting, being coached myself. And my coach was saying to me, we have to do one uncomfortable thing almost every day to push ourselves because...

The safety is often in the doing. The safety is in the overproductivity or the people pleasing, because it's what we know. And even though it doesn't feel so great, our nervous system is like, well, you know that. And if you do something different, what's going to happen? And so even if it doesn't feel great, we sort of still do it. But there is, it's the discomfort that we have to push through to see the change. And that could be, you know, after an ADHD diagnosis, just recognizing, okay, me working back to back,

meeting after meeting, nine till five, no outside, no movement. Something needs to change now and I understand how my nervous system works and what will help me. And that discomfort might come from having a conversation with a manager or a colleague and saying, you know, can't do these back to back meetings anymore. If we're gonna do back to back, can one of them be a walking meeting or can one of them...

do I have to be at all of them? know, like now we've got AI. Again, it's kind of like, well, do I need to be in everything or is it possible for me to read the notes of that meeting or the transcription or something like that? Like there's ways, like we can always be quite resourceful and creative and find ways. And I think that's what's changing. There's an evolution now of the corporate life that...

Right.

Mm-hmm.

we thought was the right way, we can evolve that and there's ways to find flexibility and freedom but other people don't know about that yet so we might have to bring it to the table for them and that's what our brains are very good at. We're very good at kind of being like well if you like why don't we try this way or you know let's give something else a go because that is like an old way of doing things so yeah we might have to be a little bit kind of creative with some suggestions.

Yeah, and I think there are tons of options and I think it's important you talked earlier about kind of the victim mentality of, well, this is the way I am and change is hard. Going through discomfort is really hard. You do have to be really intentional about it. And so I do think that it's not always an upward slope as you're working to kind of change these habits. And if you go up and then you slide back, that's okay. Giving yourself some compassion and understanding that this isn't gonna change overnight. These small habits.

build on each other. But I do think that when you go through a diagnosis like this, or you're trying to give yourself more structure in your life, it's not always going to be perfect. And it's accepting the imperfection as you move forward.

Yeah.

Absolutely, yeah. And many of us have kind of used perfectionism as a little bit of a mask, you know, especially when we found things quite difficult. So we've kind of had to kind of almost push through to sort of prove ourselves and maybe others, you know. Lots of people have said that, you know, they've gone through so many different criticisms or people questioning them or questioning the way they do things. the only sort of way through it has been, well, I better be perfect at it.

to excel, I'm going to just show everybody I want to get that external validation. And that's exhausting. That can't be something that is a long, sustainable way of living. It's going to break us. And so I am definitely less perfectionistic now that I understand myself, because I kind of think, well, it's done is better than perfect. The fact that I've done it, and ADHD people, I'm going to speak very specifically with ADHD people.

Mm-hmm.

I think we execute things quite quickly. Like if we're interested and we want it done and there's a hyper focus there, we tend to execute quickly. And I think it's quite good that we just, it's almost like we need to purge it out of our system. And sometimes it's, we just have to be like, well, it's not going to be perfect. And we just, you know, need to get it out there because...

we've got vision or that type of thing. I would definitely say allow yourself to let the perfectionism go and just see and have a play and try different things because what's the point of putting ourselves through this for the rest of our lives now that we understand what it is? And I do see a lot of people...

Mm-hmm.

Having like a change of chapter after an ADHD diagnosis, it's almost like that 2.0 version of yourself where you can drop the perfectionism, you stop people pleasing, you have better boundaries, you're able to be more discerning in your choices, you don't let things be the way they have been in the past, maybe with generational patterns. It's almost like a permission slip to say, I'm not going to do this anymore. Like, I've seen this play out in different family members and it didn't work.

Mm-hmm.

but I now have the understanding or the key to the door or the articulation and I don't have to do it like that anymore because I understand what's going on and I find that very, very powerful because it's a new way of living.

yeah, absolutely. And I really do resonate with the done is better than perfect because I think, in my experience, I've either been quite impulsive and made a decision very quickly or I've procrastinated. And really, I mean, and the snowball just gets so much bigger. It was a tiny task that would have taken me two and a half minutes and then I just waited and waited and it becomes this huge thing that takes me so much longer. So the done is better than perfect for me. It works in a lot of areas because

Yeah.

there is this perfectionism of, I do think that there's a lot of proving, especially when we talk about how it affects your confidence, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so the perfectionism is like, well, if I've messed up these things, then this has to be perfect. And that can become a really loud voice in your head. So I do really believe that letting that go and finding resources like you online, there's so much now that is out there that is very empowering for ADHD.

I will say though that there is a lot of misinformation and I'm curious if you find that there's something that's really glaring, that is just so misinformed around ADHD and women, what would kind of jump out at you that you've seen either online or on social media that is just very incorrect information about midlife ADHD diagnoses?

don't really see a huge amount but maybe it's because I'm not following, don't, you know, don't use...

those, I don't go on those accounts or TikTok or whatever, it's like, here's one hack to solve your ADHD or do these five things and you'll cure your ADHD. So I don't really follow any of those accounts, so I don't really see it, but I would say that's probably it, is that, you know, it's one of those things that you were born with. It's gonna be with you probably until you die and it's gonna impact you in lots of different ways throughout your life. However.

I think we can- Sorry. That's my dog.

It's okay, don't worry. Don't worry.

We can find ways to live with it and live more with ease and understand it. And it's almost kind of like a companion in life that we are going to have with us. And it's going to be, you know, like a traveling companion that sometimes is really annoying and you just want to kind of get rid of and not speak to. And then other times you can have like fun and adventures with and you're going to laugh and be silly with. It's going to help you. And we have to recognize

it's all those things and it's very important that you do find trusted resources and you do understand your options and you if you're not happy with the way you have been supported whether it's through a coach or a therapist or a doctor or with your titration of your medication that you are allowed to question it and you are allowed to push back and

Mm-hmm.

The amazing thing about this world that we live in now is that we have incredible resources online. You know, we've got doctors who are advocating on Instagram and TikTok, and we're able to find people across the world that are doing research that we'd never be able to hear from. Again, that's another thing that, you know, with my podcast, I'm sure yours, is that you bring people in that you know are gonna help spread this awareness. And so when I bring guests onto my podcast,

Mm-hmm.

right.

I think of like an avatar of a listener who lives in a small town in a country that doesn't have a huge amount of ADHD knowledge and there aren't a lot of, you know, doctors doing huge amount of research. And I think that one person who can't speak to their friends and family, they can't access a therapist. I think, right, what does that person need to hear? What does that person need to know? And that is kind of like where I go and ask all my questions and everything because yeah, if you live in New York or you live in London or Sydney,

you

or wherever, you are going to have access to these experts. But most people have to wait months, if not years, to see someone. Most people can't afford the care, can't afford the medication, and we need to find other ways and tools and support and help for them that they can do themselves. And again, when I was writing my book, everything was like, right, what can I give them? What can I put in the book that is going to help them on a

Yeah.

in a daily basis. That money is not going to be a barrier, education is not going to be a barrier, like all of that. I just want women to have accessible, inclusive information so they can make different choices and share that information with, whether it's their own communities, with their daughters, with their other female family members or male family members.

and really allow women to finally feel empowered because we've never had this information before. You know, and I'll probably look back in a few years time and be like, my god, like, there is so much now and that will be a great thing.

It is a good thing. mean, I do think that especially online, there's kind of this quick fix culture where, you know, people are saying this one supplement will fix you or, you know, especially when you encounter influencers that kind of offer one solution and only their solution. I mean, there's a lot of red flags, but I do feel that there are wonderful resources, especially like you, where you see that sharing health information is a responsibility. You know, I find that really important when I

Yeah.

that my guests that come on is that I really believe that this is a responsibility to educate women and I don't take it lightly. I also believe that there's a beautiful community of women fighting for women that is just amazing and it's really finding it exactly what you said, find interesting sources. speaking of that, going into that, I would love for you to talk about your book. You have an amazing book. I do want to mention that your podcast is incredible and you just reached three and a half million downloads.

Yeah.

which is amazing. Congratulations on that. And I would love to talk about your book. Yeah, you released a toolkit. Please tell us about that.

Thank you.

Yeah, so the podcast is 100 % a labor of love. It's my fifth child. It's been going since the beginning of 2021, so four and a half years. And so that 3.5 million downloads is four and a half years of blood, sweat and tears and huge amount of advocacy. And I'm very, very proud of it. And that's what led to the book because I was thinking, right, there's, I don't know, hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of content. And I want to be able to kind of

Yeah.

decipher this, put this into, or siphon it even, into a conciser way of helping people so that if they don't want to sit and listen to all the podcast episodes, they can sort of like gain some of the wisdom from the guests and I guess myself as well. that's it. So I wrote a toolkit and we really focus on the different parts of how ADHD shows up, especially in women, but I think you can probably read it, know, male could probably read it.

and find it very helpful. it's things like anxiety and RSD and our nervous system. then we sort of like lean into things like...

what brings us joy and finding creativity and fulfillment and sort of almost bringing a bit of a of a spiritual angle to it because ADHD is all encompassing. It's your whole life, you know, it doesn't just impact your career, it impacts your health, it impacts your self-esteem, it impacts your relationships.

Mm-hmm.

your dreams and visions for yourself, your potential, harnessing that's, the strapline of the book is, I haven't got it right in front of me, but it's about harnessing your potential.

And it's like tapping in, embracing your authentic self and harnessing your true potential. That's the strap line. And that is what I wanted to convey because you can't do any of that without acknowledging the difficulties of ADHD. So that's what we talk about, know, the hormonal fluctuations on nervous system, on mental health, the difficulties. But then once we've acknowledged all of that and we've got tools and ways of helping ourselves,

Thank you.

Yeah.

Now what? know, how can we enjoy life? How can we thrive? And how can we do it on our own terms that we've never had those options before? Because we've had to contour into a box and live according to different types of conditioning. This is so new. Like women have never had this information before. I'm not saying my information, I'm just saying women have never had the articulation.

Yeah.

Right.

Mm-mm.

Yeah.

And there's women throughout history that we will see who were on the periphery of society, who were the trailblazers. They were the women that were pushing boundaries. They were really doing different things. But they also struggled with their mental health, or they really struggled with their relationships or career or money or whatever that might have been. And so now we're able to get a bit of a better understanding of all of this. And that's what I find really exciting that women are going to be...

Yeah.

able to do things differently with education and understanding and awareness about this and they won't be called things like neurotic or chaotic or all the other horrible things that women, know, hysterical, yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, hysterical. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and I think also what you're saying is that the stigma is finally being lowered against women and how, you know, it's like you're saying that they've been labeled hysterical and dramatic and chaotic. You know, now we're starting to see it in such a bigger picture. It's like we finally have this peripheral vision and it's not just this one pinhole that we've been looking through. And I think that's what's really beautiful about female health and what's changing right now is that

Yeah.

We're talking about things like vagina health and sexual health. mean, we're really kind of blowing the door open to talk about everything that's happening in the female body because the male body has been the standard for what has been science and what has been studied. And now women are really fighting to have more space in the medical system. So I find that very exciting as a woman that that's changing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, likewise. Yeah, absolutely.

I would love for you to tell us about your membership program that you offer on your website that I've seen. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah, so it's a membership community. It's called More Yourself. So it's kind of like based on my surname, Yousef, but it's also based around like finally you're here to be more yourself. Like you are here, you can show up exactly who you are. You don't have to explain yourself, no apologizing. And it's just different women, women in Medlife who are discovering their neurodivergence. And I bring in different guest experts. We have different workshops. We have Q &As. We have a community space.

for your people to ask questions and it's just a really low-cost place to come and be supported.

It's not like a high intensity community where you have to kind of show up all the time and homework and all things like that. It's just a place to be and if you want to educate yourself, there's lots of resources and then there's lots of live workshops and things. And it's just my way of trying to help people because, you know, typical ADHD, I've written the book, done the podcast.

Building all my resources, I'm a little bit tired now. So I'm sort of pulling back from one-to-one coaching and trying to find different ways where I can show up and advocate and support, but also don't exhaust me and pull me back into those burnout cycles as well. So I'm kind of doing the job as well. I'm walking the walk alongside the community, maybe just one or two steps ahead with awareness. So yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that it's your name. Similar to your name. I didn't think about that when I was reading it. So I think that's so creative. You know, I believe that one of the most challenging things of either poor health or struggles in life is loneliness is when you really feel like nobody understands or that you're really going through it by yourself. And yes, at the end of the day, we fight our own battles of our bodies and our minds. But, you know, communities are such beautiful places to understand that we're not alone.

And even if it's a person through the internet that you don't know and you just engage in this kind of community setting with like-minded people, it can cause such a shift in how you process and getting out of that victim mentality and being able to move those steps forward because change is hard. I think it's very inspiring, the community aspect. So that's wonderful that you offer that. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, no, community is incredibly important, so thank you.

well, we're winding down. Is there anything else that you want to add? Is there anything else that you want to tell the women that are listening about your work or kind of last words?

Yeah, I mean, if this has resonated, I would highly recommend the book, because I know just from hearing from a lot of women how helpful it's been. And if you don't read books, I did an audio version as well. I recorded for three hours in an airless.

studio and it was the hardest thing I've ever done but I'm glad I did it because a lot of women said I don't normally read books but I've listened to the audio version that was also very helpful. yeah, think it's just look have a look on the website and see what resources there's a lot of workshops and especially around you know nervous system regulation that's something that I really enjoy teaching on. So have a look at the library on the website it's adhdwomenswellbeing.co.uk and there's free resources on there and

Mm-hmm.

and all sorts of things. And so just have a little nosey and see what works for you. And of course we've got the podcast. So if you don't want to do any of that and you just want to listen to podcast episodes, that will keep you going for a few years.

That's fantastic. And you also have an Instagram account, you have a YouTube account, and I will have all of these links in the show notes so that they are easily clickable. Thank you so much. I really appreciate this conversation and your time. It's been really just interesting and informative, and I'm really appreciative.

Thank so much Spencer, I really enjoyed it as well. Thank you.