🌟 Looking for further ADHD support? Kate is hosting a 'Ask Me Anything' Q&A workshop on Monday, 13th July at 6.30 pm, where you can submit your question ahead of time and join the conversation live on Zoom. Book your space here.

🌟 Kate's also opening a small number of 1-2-1 sessions, a chance to bring whatever's on your mind and get some focused time together. Book your session here.

This week's episode: When we finally receive a diagnosis, it can feel like the missing piece. But for so many AuDHD women, it's only the beginning of a much longer journey — one that takes us back through everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

This week on The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm welcoming back Dr Samantha Hiew, AuDHDer, scientist, and founder of ADHD Girls. Diagnosed with ADHD at 40, Sam has since received a working autism diagnosis after a seven-month struggle with clinicians who focused on developmental delays and trauma, rather than listening to her experiences.

Since we last spoke, Sam has launched a major lived experience survey, and the findings are both validating and hard to sit with. This is a rich and honest conversation about what it really means to be a neurodivergent woman navigating identity, relationships, midlife, and a healthcare system that still doesn't fully see us.

In this episode, we explore:

• Sam's seven-month fight for an autism diagnosis and what it reveals about how the system fails women
• What a lived experience survey of 400+ AuDHD women found about masking, identity and emotional safety
• Why AuDHD women are predisposed to abandon themselves and how masking becomes survival
• Relational trauma, sexual trauma, and patterns of conditioning in neurodivergent women
• Perimenopause, unmasking, and what the hormonal shift reveals
• Rebuilding self-trust and building community after a lifetime of masking as an AuDHD woman
• The seasons of womanhood framework and how perimenopause represents autumn
• The neuroscience of RSD and the salience network in ADHD and autism
• Why psychiatry prescribes without brain scans, genetic testing, or hormonal context and the harm this causes
• Self-advocacy tool for ND women navigating healthcare systems
• Sam's AuDHD women's advanced practitioner programme

Listen to our previous episodes with Samantha below:

Episode 28: Advocating For Your Neurodiversity In The Workplace with Samantha Hiew

Episode 108: The Intersection Between ADHD and Autism with Dr Samantha Hiew

Support and information on topics raised in today's episode:

Refuge website and support link

Women's Aid Website

The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Event Recording is here!

My first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event sold out, and now the full experience is available to you wherever you are, whenever it feels right.

Alongside three neuro-affirming experts, we spent four hours exploring the questions that matter most to late-diagnosed women. Get lifetime access here!

Inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Recording, you'll find:

• Kate Moryoussef on post-diagnosis growth and her gentle framework for what comes next
• Dr Hannah Cullen on the neuroscience of ADHD and why your brain works the way it does
• Hannah Miller on reconnecting with purpose through a neurodivergent lens
• Adele Wimsett myth-busting on hormones, HRT, progesterone and perimenopause

Understand yourself more deeply, feel less alone, and finally access the expert knowledge you deserve because every woman with ADHD deserves access to the knowledge, expertise and understanding that for too long hasn't been available to us.

To get lifetime access for £44, click here.

Links and Resources:

• Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].
• Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod
• Visit Samantha's website (samanthahiew.com) or connect with Samantha on LinkedIn
• Samantha's AuDHD women's advanced practitioner programme
• Samantha's self-advocacy tool for ND women navigating healthcare systems
• Master's Event: Transform Trauma Oxford

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clarity.

This week's episode is sponsored by Elete, a simple way to support your hydration by adding essential electrolytes to the water you're already drinking. So many of us get completely absorbed in a task and forget to drink anything for hours, then wonder why we feel foggy or flat later in the day. Elete is sugar-free, with no artificial sweeteners or unnecessary additives, and it's trusted by health-conscious families, athletes and wellness professionals alike. Head to eletewater.co.uk and use the code WWP20 for an exclusive 20% listener discount.

Welcome to the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

I'm Kate Moore Youssef, and I'm a wellbeing and lifestyle coach, EFT practitioner, mum to four kids and passionate about helping more women to understand and accept their amazing ADHD brains.

After speaking to many women just like me and probably you, I know there is a need for more health and lifestyle support for women newly diagnosed with adhd.

In these conversations, you'll learn from insightful guests, hear new findings, and discover powerful perspectives and lifestyle tools to enable you to live your most fulfilled, calm and purposeful life wherever you are on your ADHD journey.

Here's today's episode.

I'm so happy to welcome back a guest that I had on way, way, way back at the very beginning, the beginning of the incarnation of the podcast.

And she is back and we have a lot to catch up on.

So we have Dr. Samantha Hu here now.

Dr. Samantha Hugh is an Audi HDR.

She's a scientist, a storyteller on a mission to humanize neurodiversity.

And as a founder of ADHD Girls, she has created a platform that empowers neurodivergent women and professionals to embrace their authentic selves and thrive in work and life.

And Sam was diagnosed with ADHD at 40.

Samantha then, or Sam or Samantha channels her personal journey into advocacy and education, building the community she once wished existed.

Her work bridges lived experience and scientific insight, exploring adhd, autism, gender and mental health to reshape understanding of neurodivergent lives.

So you are very, very welcome on this podcast.

Welcome back.

Thank you so much, Kate.

Yeah, it's been a few years.

It's amazing to see how we've both changed, you know, on this journey.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you definitely were one of my very early guests.

You know, I think back at myself and you, and we were probably still discovering lots about ourselves, still learning, maybe not even knowing half the things that we know now.

And we'll probably look back at this in a few years and think, oh, we didn't know anything then because this has been a very.

Even though it kind of feels like a long time we've been here, we were both diagnosed at 40, so I'm 45 now and you're the same.

Yeah.

So we obviously have walked this path very similarly.

So that's nearly five years of well over five years of us going along with this understanding of neurodiversity in women.

And I'd love to maybe just hear, like a very quick catch up of maybe from the Last time you spoke until now, because you've done a huge amount of amazing research.

You've.

You've built things, you've built an amazing community.

Tell me a little bit about what's been going on with you.

I know it's a big question.

Yeah, thanks, Kate.

I love this question because it shows the evolution, right, of our journey.

And since I came on your show, I think back then I was still doing neurodiversity training.

A lot of it was working with corporates and also speaking in public for the public events, speaking to the community.

But then I also self identified as being autistic as well as adhd.

I already had the ADHD diagnosis, but didn't think that I need to pursue a formal assessment.

But since then I have received a diagnosis, a working diagnosis for autism spectrum condition.

I don't like to call it the D word, but that journey was so interesting because I really struggled to get a formal diagnosis for autism.

And people today, when I, when they read part of my story, they still get quite suspicious because they're like, it should be really concerning that you had to fight for so long, which was seven months to get the diagnosis.

And they didn't know that it was seven months with the same clinicians.

And it was seven months of them really not fully understanding the picture of autism because they were still looking at that.

Did you have developmental delay?

And I didn't have a developmental witness because my mom was in Malaysia and her memory is like not that great.

And she always says I'm really cheerful and sociable as a girl, so it just makes it harder anyway, so I thought, okay.

I asked my ex husband to be my developmental witness, which was a mistake.

And so there wasn't really any clear idea around what happened to, to me when I was younger.

So they put my challenges down to trauma, which was obviously happening at a time of my assessment.

The assessment itself was traumatic.

But also I was going through a divorce and, you know, there was co parenting and trying to find my foot in everything.

It just, you know, what we know as transitions, right?

Very difficult, challenging times.

I mean, it's that fighting.

It's that advocacy, isn't it?

It's of.

We hear this story all the time of women who maybe have that easier diagnosis of the adhd.

And then things still don't quite feel like we've got all the answers or don't feel.

We still feel like there's something unsettled within us and then we have to go back all the way through the system once again.

To get the autism diagnosis.

Yes.

And that was the part I think most people resist.

Sometimes they're like, do I really need someone else to tell me that I'm autistic?

And is that even going to be true?

Because they don't always trust the doctors and the clinicians that diagnose them.

And so many women I know in my community, the neurodivergent women, you know, they've been gaslit inside appointments and by people who do not represent their experience, often someone younger, of a different gender or a different social, you know, culture, class.

And so they really struggled to come out.

And then I did my life experience research because I really want to find out what being ODHD means, you know, as a woman, and because so many people were also saying they struggled to get diagnosed and they didn't want to even pursue it because they didn't want to go through the disappointment.

And so one of the top things we found was that or DHD woman mask really heavily.

So heavily that it's become our second skin.

That was quite hard to really read because it is true.

And there were just so many truth bombs inside the survey that.

Wow, tell me a little bit about this survey, because I know the lived experience is so, so valid.

What else were you hearing?

Because I do want to talk about the masking, but how many women taken part in the survey?

And what are those sort of like, glaring things that, you know, stood out that women need to hear?

Yeah.

It was so traumatic that I posted about it on LinkedIn and I started talking about how it was such a struggle because I. I could lift by myself.

I could, you know, cook and clean and do stuff that that means I'm not autistic and.

But I've had to learn all these things.

So then I thought, you know, let's just find out what it's about, because I've done lived experience research for years anyway, so I launched this with the thought that I'm going to share the results with a community event at the end of it.

And so within a month, we had over 400 women filling in the survey.

And, you know, it just didn't feel like it was going to be possible because I really didn't expect so many replies.

And I think there was this.

It really shows that there is this real hunger for the truth and because we weren't getting it anywhere.

And so within a month of me publishing that survey, Gina Rippon's book came out, Lost Girls of Autism.

And yeah, she wrote about what being an autistic girl and woman is like, you know, and that we had a completely wrong standard for it for assessment all these years.

And she also said in that book that she was part of the problem that she was trying to solve in that she didn't think that there were any gender differences for years, you know, in our brain structure.

But after doing the research herself, and she quotes AI for it, so she has done that research that allowed her to see the more rare and rarely cited papers, scientific papers that talked about brain structural differences and how that contribute to behavioral differences.

And one of it is that we are wired to look for social reward, for connection.

Might not be easy, but that we are wired to tune in and see what people need.

And, you know, and then you add the socialization and the conditioning, the psychological development of being a sensitive woman is that.

Would you say, like there's a higher propensity for people pleasing, like you say, masking perfectionism, looking for validation.

So, yeah, you're talking about both nature and nurture.

So if we are inherently innately born with that structure to scan what is needed and actually draw reward from social connection and then feel intense pain when people don't accept you, then you can think from a very young age we are really predisposed to abandon ourselves.

To say it very directly is such a difficult truth to have to face and to heal from.

And then you get this people pleasing, the masking, the perfectionism part of it is innate, but also a lot of that is survival strategies.

We've had to adapt and camouflage and be a way that we didn't really fully know in order to fit in.

And then you get to later in life, whether it's 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, so many issues, you know, that I've worked myself, you know, and it's not just relational too.

It's your identity piece that's the biggest one, that identity dissolution as we become adults, but actually so many of us are kids in adults costumes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think the identity piece is so huge because I think the common denominator that I hear from, from a lot of neurodivergent women, whether they, you know, have had the two diagnoses or just the one that they have always felt on the periphery of whatever social situation that they found themselves in.

And it was almost like they.

They've got.

I think it's the metacognition, seeing that they don't fit in, not quite understanding why not having the language to articulate, but having this inner knowing that there's a female dynamic going on that other people seem to get that I don't seem to get.

But I'm gonna watch the cues and I'm gonna learn, I'm gonna memorize and I'm going to sort of do this all almost like an acting of myself to make sure that I do fit in.

Because it's dangerous.

You know, from an anthropological perspective, we want to be part of a community.

We want to fit in because we don't want to be on the outskirts.

And then you wonder why so many women have such deep trauma, but also mental health conditions and difficulties.

Burnout.

Were you seeing this in the survey?

Were you seeing like tick, tick, tick.

It was just all these different common denominators.

It was really interesting.

I wanted to create a survey that was largely about stories, stories that I took and analyzed for common themes.

Because I realized that after working with so many women and being one myself, so many of us actually brain dump before we actually, you know, regulate and then, you know, trust and tell more of the deeper stuff about ourselves.

So, so, but also, you know, I mean it's a trigger warning because of the identity piece too.

There was the sexual trauma that can come with it and the relational trauma.

In fact, I recently got talking to Dr. Carly Jones.

She's an amazing advocate for autistic girls and women safeguarding.

And she said in her survey, she's another live experience researcher.

She's found 91% of autistic women have been sexually abused.

Wow.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, it's really jarring.

And actually most of our.

Yeah, trauma happen inside intimate relationships.

And if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense because of that.

Looking for a safe space.

You know, we think the partner would be one and then we, you know, so over attune to them and kind of forget about ourselves.

And then over time if you are with someone who's used to taking and you can't self reflect, you know, you can end up giving people all of yourself and then you lose yourself.

Yeah, it's like a self worth and I guess it's your self esteem is so low that we again maybe accept situations and people and conditions that are not acceptable in any way.

I see it from so many different ways of like maybe we don't even know how to get out of that situation.

But also we don't believe that we're worthy of being.

Not being in that situation.

Perhaps.

Yeah.

So much of this is actually perhaps unaware and Unconscious in the beginning.

And then as the pattern set in, we're talking about behavioral conditioning.

You know, if someone does condition you to give, you know, them what they need, and then you forget about yourself, then over time, there is something that's new neurological that's happening in your brain.

If that person almost threatens to leave and then, you know, come back.

And then the pushbull dynamic that I talk about quite a lot, and that is the strongest behavioral conditioning possible inside relationships.

And a lot of that abuse happens, and it is involuntary.

Our behavior becomes something we cannot control consciously.

But knowing that pattern helps, you know, you can seek help outside of yourself.

Sometimes you can't do it yourself.

Do you think, I guess, going back to the survey, that the women who perhaps were in these more vulnerable situations, did the diagnosis help them then distance themselves from these unhealthy, dysfunctional relationships?

Was that kind of like a moment where they could make a decision about who they were or how they wanted to show up in the next chapter of their lives?

Or am I trying to sort of like, idealize the situation a bit?

I didn't go that in depth in the survey.

I asked about their relational trends and what they need inside relationship.

I do think that knowing that you're autistic and ADHD does help.

And also knowing what.

What you need inside relationships.

And this is what I. I've used the survey for also.

I glean some of the themes that ODHD women need to feel safe inside relationships and to thrive in it.

And emotional safety, tops.

It was the number one factor.

It's nice to know that.

And.

And the reason I even went into relationships and wanted to support in that space, because I was called borderline by my trainee therapist.

Like I was seeing.

I had two therapists.

One of them said that.

And I just felt like for the first time, really unsafe because I was working in a field of neurodiversity, you know, and on the outside, I was someone who appeared to have it all together, but I was going through a divorce.

And then I was.

I started a relationship with somebody else who very quickly withdrew when it got real.

And so from my perspective, I was just a mess because I just thought, how on earth.

And I'm going to navigate this.

This mess along with, you know, having to be there for my children when there was a reason why I thought that relationship was a good idea in the first place.

And that was my own insecurity playing out.

You know, I was in my, like, 40s and leaving a relationship and not knowing how on Earth.

I was going to do it.

You know, I mean, listen, you're telling us a story that is.

You're sort of like weaving through your own lived experience of the women's lived experience, working to advocate for women like yourself and all the many other women that you have heard from.

It's hard.

It's hard because you.

I understand it deeply as well, because we want to advocate and we want to see change, but we also have to, like you say that emotional safety is so key because we're so prone to burnout.

I feel like this is just constant push, pull, push, pull.

Because we want to push forwards and be just like, yeah, let's.

We're going to change the world.

And then whatever might just sort of emotionally, hormonally, something might just kind of, like, trigger us.

And then we just kind of want to withdraw and retreat and.

And, you know, have time to heal again.

And, you know, you're doing such amazing work to advocate for other women, but we also have to protect ourselves.

It's kind of like living in your own film that you're filming yourself.

That's kind of what the analogy that I was thinking about is.

Like, you're kind of like, in the film and you're filming it and you're producing it, and that's quite hard work.

Yeah, no, I hear you totally.

I'm there right now where I actually think not everything needs to be shared.

But I went through a period where I think it was largely because of that remark that I thought, you know, one of the traits of being borderline is that you have.

Yeah.

Personalities that are not integrated.

Right.

And I thought about it.

Yeah, there is that public image, and there is this me who is struggling behind closed doors that no one see.

And I decided to just integrate that by talking about it or writing about it for a whole year.

And it was really interesting because I was suddenly this person who looked quite unhinged in public.

And I was getting women who really, really, really resonated and really trusted me.

But there were also those who didn't know where to place me because, you know, I was useful.

I was born useful to be someone who helps other people, you know, hold space, being a responsible one.

But I just didn't want to do that anymore because I was not being helped.

You know, you were the responsible one your whole life.

Then no one knows you're struggling.

No one is in your corner.

But then I started doing that and.

And it was interesting because there was good and bad from that side.

You know, the good was that yet I think I, I was able to then be true to myself and believe myself.

And that was the most important thing, you know, because you really do need to believe yourself whilst you're working also inside the field of neurodiversity and trauma.

Because otherwise you just go a bit stir crazy, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I guess that vulnerability, you know, if people are used to you being the fixer, the helper, the resourceful one, the scientists, that one with the answers, all of that.

And then many women I think through perimenopause are just like, no, that's bullshit.

Like get rid of that, get rid of this.

I don't want that identity, I want to get rid of that.

And we want more of a simplified, authentic life which might not be according to everyone's taste.

Maybe this is just a kind of a version, you know, of you that is been screaming to get out for a little while, but the conditioning and everything.

Because I think we can still do all those things.

We can still be very helpful, we can be an advocate and do all things like help people.

But maybe it just doesn't have to be the way it used to look.

I don't know.

No, yeah, you're right, you're right.

All this, you know, it is shedding and you know, eventually you are going to step into it all and you'll become instead of, you know, someone who need people, crave people, you become someone who attracts others.

But ultimately it is, it is really to be able to sit with yourself and because masking is painful and masking uses so much energy and you don't trust yourself so much, you know, when you're masking all the time.

So me, the big one is to get my self trust and then really root, really truly root from there.

And actually so many autistic ADHD women, autistic women around my age, we've learned to find our peace.

We might be more solitary, you know, lesser people around us, but we also know that we're okay with that.

We'll, you know, navigate smaller groups and make truer connections.

That is so important.

Yeah, yeah, I've definitely felt that for sure.

I do think it is the hormones strip things back.

I really do believe that.

So maybe like you said, you know, the masking is exhausting, but we might have had the hormone scaffolding us giving us that kind of extra push.

And then as our hormones, you know, fluctuate, deplete, strip back and then we're sort of re rebuilding ourselves.

We let go of all the things that you know, I'm thinking.

Actually, the analogy I'm thinking is, you know, where I've been.

Like, I'm such a NASA space geek that, you know, when they were, you know, when they did the moon.

The moon, you know, circumnavigation, and they came down and loads of things happening.

Fly off because he had to get through the atmosphere.

And so I kind of feel like we have to just like, strip things back, let go of things, because that is what is going to keep us grounded.

And maybe we need to let go of the social stuff that we used to do and the friendships, maybe the relationships, maybe the careers, maybe the identities that we had to share.

And we just have a little bit more of a streamlined, refined way of being that, like you say, contributes to our inner peace.

You're completely right.

We have this.

Different seasons of our lives.

You know, I bought this, actually.

I just had it in my eyeline when I was talking to you.

It's called the Perimenopause Journal.

Oh, great.

And they have this amazing graphic inside it.

You know, like inside every month there are four different seasons, right?

Spring, summer, autumn and winter.

But then also in this book, I found it so interesting that they categorize different seasons of life, you know, through the seasons as well.

And I think the 20s and 30s were like equivalent to ovulation.

Like your springtime.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think perimenopause is autumn.

Yes, it is.

Yeah.

It's a season of truth in authenticity and also supporting others.

Not supporting in a way, like a martyr way.

But you are gaining the wisdom to pass back on.

Do you know what?

I've got my HRT in place now, so I'm quite looking forward to turning 50.

I'm always looking forward to the next stage because the brain and hormone remodeling that we're going through right now is supposedly going to help us care less about what people think about us.

That's apparently what happens.

That, yeah, we just don't give a shit anymore about what people think.

Whereas we would always have cared.

Women definitely have been conditioned to be people pleasers.

Whether we're neurodivergent or not.

Most women do want to be approved of and most women, you know, put that higher.

I guess it's a safety thing.

Again, it comes back to safety.

What's.

Just remind me what the name of the author is of this book, because.

I think people might want to be Kate Codrington.

So C O D R I N G T O N. It's a beautiful cover.

Look at the COVID of that.

And I love using this concept because it is spiritual.

It's spiritual development of being a woman and actually I'll be talking about self differentiation as a neurodivergent woman, a sensitive woman, you know, growing up and it's, it's a commitment to adulting except that we never really got a manual for adulting.

So it's about yeah eventually being differentiated in how you can retain a level of autonomy and self trust whilst connecting with others.

That is really, really pertinent, isn't it?

I'm so interested in your new coaching program that you're doing.

Tell me a little bit about that and a little bit about I guess who you would like to see in this course.

Course and who's it for?

Yeah, it's, it's for every practitioner who work with ODHD women and it's, I mean therapists like 90% of people who join it are therapists and a psychologist, psychiatrist actually Very important because I wanted to support people to diagnose and yeah treat properly and also coaches out so them inside this cohort and 99% of people are ODHD women themselves who joined this program.

Oh wow.

And I run it as a cohort for six weeks and it's a container where I show up, you know, every week.

You know we have the modules online and then we have this live sessions every week where we discuss for about an hour and a half or two hours almost sometimes about the development of being.

And it's like a personal and spiritual development of being.

Being an ODHD woman from the body, the mind and the spirit.

I come from the perspective of I suppose the nervous system.

It is a lot of how we feel every day begins from the inside.

Right.

And the insight is, you know, you can't get away with not knowing the biology in order to support your health, you know.

And that's where I talk about the more granular pieces of being an ODHD woman.

The genes we inherit, how that manifests into proteins and biochemical pathways that can be disrupted inside us that then cause imbalance that eventually give rise to co occurring physical and mental health conditions.

Because we know the body and the mind is connected.

We talk about the neuroscience of odhd.

It helps explain a lot around rejection, sensitivity around why we can also be more vigilant to threats sometimes and yeah the sex differences to help them understand the other parts.

The counterpart, the ODHD men which is all really, really interesting.

I think doing this helps to increase self compassion when you know that this is the head that you're given.

We're not making this up.

And then there's socialization and that see intersectional lens where you're looking at cultural input into who you then become.

And, and it's very confronting.

I've got to say that it is something that it is, it is something that you have to be ready for.

And I'm interested because you said it's for therapists and psychologists, psychiatrists.

So.

And that, and Most of them, 99% of them are also or DHT themselves.

So they're coming.

Is it kind of like a self development style container which is also then going to hopefully help many of their clients and patients as well?

Yeah.

And I think most people think they're coming in for them.

For, for other people.

Yeah.

That is already a pattern because that's how we justify spending time and money on things by helping other people.

And then they get in and they're like, oh my God, you know, I have to now look at myself and I need to now value my energy and time and, and usually there is a bit of adjustment period afterwards where like when I've heard from my cohort, they then restructure the way they do things.

I think what I tend to do is wake people up and I don't choose to be this way, but this is how I'm built, you know, and, and, and it's not always easy to be like that.

But then this is I think my, my, my role, you know, in, in the world and, and I've accepted it.

I just need to learn to soften into doing it, you know, and hold people gently because some of the content is hard to, you know, really face because this is based on our collective experience.

So.

But they also find it very comforting at the same time.

I think what it is, is I tend to attract people who are in transitions or the way forward and they want to just know who they want to be the next stage.

And this is very personalized.

I think I had this message from a woman in her 50s who said that she's done so many trainings and she said she's never encountered something that is so personalized to her.

And that's because we look at the chains, you know, and there's nothing more personalized than that.

And then we look at the conditioning and.

Yeah.

And the peace inside relationship.

So it helps them feel rooted inside themselves to create environments that are suited for them and also have better relationships going forward.

Beginning with relationship with herself.

Yeah.

I think many of us who've gone through life not understanding or knowing or having any language, maybe has sort of gaslit ourselves, shamed ourselves.

You know, maybe I'm imagining it, I'm exaggerating it.

All of these terminologies I hear a lot or maybe maybe I'm just, you know, imagining it that I'm not really like this or I'm definitely jumping on bandwagon or something.

And like you say, if you're there being quite confronting with it, it's quite hard to, to then be like, oh, actually okay, maybe this is, this is something real.

You mentioned about the neuroscience and the genes, especially with rsd.

What is that from a neuroscience perspective that you have found?

Because that is very validating for people to understand that.

Yeah.

So the Salience Network, you know, there are a few different brain networks, you know, that they found to light up and is altered in autistic adhd.

One of the ones are the Salience Network which scans the environment for stimuli and look for input, you know, whether it's good ones or bad ones.

And the connection with that, like you can be so attuned and understand what's going on, but then the connection with your Satan's network, with the part of the brain that decides what to do with that information is not as connected.

And so then you're getting all this input without a real answer what to do with this information because the connection is blurred and, and then it can make you doubt yourself.

So sometimes people, even if they know in the heart of heart the truth, there's so much noise that you can't properly hear it.

And I've personally seen with the right level of input, and you can do that through hormonal replacement therapy, you know, or neurotransmitters that are supplied by medication in which we also need to start low and go slow due to our inherent way of being of potentially accumulating levels of neurotransmitters that can be too high for us.

And that's part of the problem in prescribing.

We where if women or ODHD women who can't metabolize neurotransmitters as quickly as those that they believe for ADHD years, then it can accumulate to a point that causes all sorts of issues like panic attacks or more seriously, serotonin syndrome.

So there are all these gene variants that you need to be aware, you know, if you were to encounter prescribing or, you know, being treated.

Because I've just had so many emails from women who started on a dose and then Quickly, you know, spiked.

It's taken up so high that they started to develop like, you know, mental health challenges and physical health challenges.

Because those neurotransmitters increasing these neurotransmitters are involved in the stress response.

And anything that increases stress in your body at a time when you're already not as resilient to stress, it's going to be a problem for your physical health.

Yeah.

And I mean, I guess what you're saying is if you've had the diagnosis of ADHD and then maybe afterwards with autism, but you're taking the ADHD medication, there's many women and maybe men as well, who just.

That medication is not going to work.

But because we don't routinely do genetic testing, we don't understand, do we, which medication is going to be the best for us?

Maybe what dosing.

It's so, so much of it is trial and error and then it can be so traumatic when the medication doesn't work.

It's just like we, we just knock it on the head.

I mean, that's my experience and some of my kids experience as well, because we've.

And yeah, you're right.

I mean most people only do this test once they have side effects and for years because they're like, what's going on?

You know, because most of psychiatry is prescribing very blindly shoot in the dark.

And I absolutely don't agree with it.

It's the only, it's the only medical discipline, I think is is the word where you don't brain scam, do you, for the medic, for the medication.

So if you had a, something wrong with your knee or something wrong with your heart or your lungs, you'd have an MRI and you'd see what it is and then they'd know which medication or what treatment.

But with the brain, because brain scanning is just not done that commonly, it is like the psychiatry is a lot more, you know, shooting in the dark.

But then you kind of put neurodiversity within this and it is literally just like, oh, let's try this or that doesn't work, let's try that.

Let's add some antidepressants or let's take the anti anxiety away.

And that is a trauma in itself for so many patients.

Yes.

And I talk a lot about iatrogenic harm where people take psychiatric medications and then their body starts to struggle and something else changes because these medications weren't made for women who are menstruating, who has hormonal shifts, you know, because.

Yeah, the neurotransmitters, they affect also the hormones in some pathways.

The antipsychotic medication that they give, like, concomitantly, it affects the level of prolactin.

Not all.

There are some that are more friendly, but what they generally do is they're supposed to stabilize, but they drop the neurotransmitter level so low that people then get depressed and.

And then what do they do?

They get another medication up to stabilize it.

So they are propped up by these medications that are stabilizing people's mental health.

When this mental health ebb and flow throughout your life and situations and relationships,.

Especially with hormones as well.

Yeah, yes.

So what is the justification for treating this way?

You know, unfortunately, without alternatives, people are reliant on it.

I mean, I'm fascinated by the intersection of psychiatry and hormones with, you know, for women and mental health conditions that women are finding themselves in, especially in, you know, the different cycles of their life.

And also obviously in perimenopause and this sort of psychiatric first approach when.

Why are we not testing and checking for hormonal fluctuations and using that.

And again, I'm not medical in any way, but it's like putting a stick in plaster when we need to be looking at the root cause.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Our hormones make us as women, you know, especially as older women when it's no longer playing ball as.

As much as used to.

Yeah, you're right.

And the connection that you talked about, psychiatry, hormones and trauma and mental health services are the areas that are so just disjointed that the women in our survey has said we have to be their own case file manager.

It's horrible because it's not that they don't know what's going on, but it is trying to present that at the moment of the appointment when they know that they're going to be disbelieved, that the hardest, you know, and that's why I'm creating this tool to try and help people advocate for themselves and map out their symptoms in a way that is organized so they don't have to rely on the executive functioning in the moment of being disbelieved.

Yeah, absolutely.

That, I mean, I say a lot to my community is if you can, and you've got the bandwidth to do it, have a printed document with you where you can just put out bullet points of what you've experienced, what shows up for you, what perhaps has happened generationally with the women in your, your family tree, I guess maybe from, you know, your childhood puberty and beyond hormonally how that's been and just have that as your working document because for sure, when we're put on that spot, it's so hard for us to be able to articulate, especially we're under pressure of timing from a gp, but also that pressure of already being on the back foot of knowing that we might not be believed and kind of going in there thinking, oh God, I'm going to be told, stop jumping on a bandwagon or you're too young for perimenopause or not another one asking for an adhd, you know, assessment or not everyone's autistic because of this.

Women are getting that pushback all the time and especially with regards to perimenopausal symptoms who are going in at 45.

You know, they could be in the full throes of perimenopause and still being told they're too young for hrt.

So I do try and say to my, to my community is just when you have that bandwidth, get a Google Doc or voice note it and then get a transcription AI tool to write it out and put it in an organized document and just keep it with you, print it out and give it to your doctor.

Because we don't have the strength anymore to advocate for ourselves.

Oh gosh, yeah.

You have said everything.

You know, that most of the world women have, you know, experience.

And you're right, sometimes it's not even that you don't have the strength because, you know, you're pushing a boulder up the hill and it's like it's not as though you're not telling the truth.

It's because your lived experience isn't believed.

That cannot be more gaslighting than, you know, actually not believing someone for what they feel when they already doubt themselves.

Yeah.

If you follow it, it's so hard.

Yeah.

And that's why I'm making this.

And I keep trying to figure out how to make it in a way that's most authentic so I can do this for the next 10 years, you know, see how it's.

Well, we need it.

We need it because there's women out there who don't even, you know, we work in this space so we're very much sort of well tuned with the language and the nuances and how it can show up.

But that's because we've been doing years of advocacy.

If you're just stepping into this space.

And you're advocating for children.

Most women, neurodivergent women, if you're a mother, you're probably advocating for a child as well.

We know from statistics it's mostly women doing it.

They're the ones that are speaking to the SEN departments, the doctors, the psychologists.

And then we're having to navigate our own health challenges.

We are operating on minus energy at the moment.

So anything that you can do to help women advocate for themselves, I know will be crazy.

Greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much.

Kate, tell people how they can find you and work with you, especially this training cohort that I know you've got coming up as well.

Yeah, so you can go to ADHD girls.co.uk It's a website for ADHD girls.

And in there, there are some of the newest things that I'm working on.

The tool is one of them.

I've got a survey up as usual, and then I've got the program that's coming in June, the next cohort, and hopefully we'll have something for the cohort to test as well, like by then.

And yeah, I will be speaking at a few events.

One of it is trauma and mental health conference called the Masters event this September.

And I just received an email two days ago, this woman from Miami, she said she's traveling from there to come to see me because of the title and the description of my talk, which is where science meets the underworld.

And it's about the neurodivergent women or sensitive woman's self differentiation, you know, in reclaiming yourself.

And it's from the perspective of the body, the mind and the spirit, because that is the theme of that conference in, in Oxford.

And I think that's really, really apt because our nervous system is the one that, you know, navigates the world and we need to be embodied.

And so much of what happens to us is our environment and then also relationally.

So I talk about self differentiation in this talk because of my own journey of having to come back from darkness and face myself and, and gain the trust to navigate going forward.

It is a lot about.

Yeah.

Becoming an adult at the age of 45.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for sharing that and perhaps we can put it in the show notes as well, if anybody is interested in attending.

But in the meantime, Dr. Samantha Hu, thank you so much for coming back and what we'll do, we'll put a link to our last conversation, which was probably about four years ago, and if people want to hear more from you, that was the.

The incarnation of you then and the, the incarnation of you now.

And it's just nice to be able to, just to have a listen.

It's kind of like going back in time and seeing, you know, all that we've covered in today's conversation.

But thank you so much for being here, for being so honest and brave and sharing and really appreciate everything that you contribute to this community.

Thank you.

Kate, it's so lovely talking to you today.

You're such a lovely, a kind of comforting presence and very present, which is so rare, I would say.

Well, thank you.

I do, I do love doing this, I have to say.

It's kept me engaged for about, yeah, four or five years.

So I am definitely doing what I love.

But thank you so, so much and I hope to see you very soon.

Thank you.

If you've been affected by difficult topics mentioned in today's episode, please do go to the Show Notes for links to helpful resources and support.

Thank you for being here and listening to today's episode.

I just want to remind you that if you are looking for more support on your ADHD journey, there are so many resources waiting for you over@adhd womenswellbeing.co.uk so inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Workshop library, you'll find practical and compassionate guidance on topics such as nervous system regulation, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, perfectionism, emotional regulation, hormones, parenting and so much more.

All designed specifically for late diagnosed neurodivergent women.

You can also explore my new book, the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Toolkit, which was published by dk, which is also available in ebook and audiobook, which is packed full of tools to help you feel feel calmer, more regulated and more like yourself.

And if you do crave a bit more deeper connection and ongoing support, come and join us inside the More Yourself community.

It's a gentle space for learning, reflection and connection with other neurodivergent women.

And you'll also find the recordings from our first ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event, which brought together incredible speakers and a room full of inspiring women for a trip.

Truly special day.

We have recorded it all for you and it's there to buy.

So whether you're just starting your journey or looking to go deeper, there's something there for every stage.

Just head to ADHD womenswellbeing.co.uk to explore everything.

And as always, thank you so much for being here and for being part of this community.

Sa.