That's why it's so difficult for millions of girls and women to receive accurate ADHD diagnoses, if any; not only can ADHD can look like depression, OCD, and anxiety disorders (and vice versa), but psychiatrists, parents, and educators are less likely to suspect that a well-behaved girl—let alone a high-achieving woman—could be struggling with a condition associated with boys who maintain gym-class-dodgeball levels of hyperactivity at all times.The Better Together Festival, a daylong celebration of women with ADD that took place near Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the middle of May, was conceived by psychologist Michelle Frank, and Sari Solden, a psychotherapist who pioneered and popularized the idea that adult women like Courtney, me, and thousands of others could, in fact, have something in common with hyperactive boys. While there were speakers—life coaches and ADHD professionals and therapists and former recording artists (including Solden's husband, Dean)—the affair was avowedly anti-conference. The "ADD-friendly pep rally," as Solden deemed it, was designed around the specific fears women had voiced about coming, like not knowing anyone or having to sit still for ten hours.Read more: No One Believes You Have ADHD, Especially if You're a Girl
Solden stood on the main wooden stage, addressing a crowd of 100-something women, aged 20 to 70, and a handful of men, all seated at round, white tables in a large heated tent. Solden, who has a smooth brown bob and wears expertly applied makeup, smiles when she speaks and manages to exude a warm, encouraging energy even when she's talking about the "wounds women carry with them."Settling in at a table of women I'd met that morning, I took a moment to appreciate that an objectively terrifying premise—being emotionally vulnerable with strangers in a rural location—had become almost instantly cathartic. Not working double-time to hide my ADHD felt like one giant exhale, like relaxing in a hot tub after a long day of cleaning the cereal out of my bed frame. I wasn't questioned for picking at my cuticles or scribbling in my notebook during a long presentation. (Scribble notebooks were strategically included in the welcome bags.) When I told my table that I couldn't really see because I'd just lost my second pair of glasses in two weeks, I was met with solemn nods of understanding.People told me, 'You need to study harder!' But there was no one who studied harder than I did.
Regina Carey doing a demonstration at the Better Together Festival. Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
"At the end of the day, if you're just dealing with ADD, that's great," Solden said. "But most women—because they weren't diagnosed as children, because they didn't have hyperactivity or were smart—grew up absorbing a lot of wounds and shame. These women are often twice exceptional. They have incredible strengths and are really smart and creative, but they have these struggles that nobody understands, including them."Terry Matlen, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist who was diagnosed with ADHD in her 50s, told me that this sense of hopelessness and regret can linger, especially for women diagnosed much later in life.OK, you're distracted, but it is a pretty color, so enjoy that.
In 2013, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 6.4 million children between the ages of 4 and 17 had received an ADHD diagnosis at some point in their lives, up 16 percent since 2007. This is, understandably, terrifying, and has colored the coverage of ADHD in the media, where the current line is that kids (read: boys) are being over-diagnosed and over-medicated. Early clinical studies in the 1970s focused on hyperactive white boys, which shaped the diagnostic criteria we still use today, making it very difficult for girls—let alone women—to get diagnosed if they don't behave like hyperactive white boys. So as the serious conversation surrounding misdiagnoses and stimulant abuse dominates the public perception of ADHD, there's an estimated four million girls and women who are not receiving the treatment they desperately need because no one realizes they have the disorder. (A 2009 study from the University of Queensland found that girls displaying ADHD symptoms are less likely to be referred for mental health services than boys.) Even those who manage to get diagnoses can't always escape the embarrassment of having a condition that doesn't look the way people expect it to. You always have to explain yourself. Or, if that's too exhausting, hide.
Photo by the author
In a hangout session called "Powerful Ways to Be Present," a life coach named Regina Carey was demonstrating how to use your body to derail destructive thoughts. A woman lay on a hammock behind her, nodding, and other women stood or sat in lawn chairs around the tent—some coloring on pieces of paper, some drinking beer, some standing up and sitting down on loop. Carey, who has a face so kind and expressive you'd join her cult if she had one, wore a black sweater covered in a collage of text: "Even if you are emotionally distracted, do you find that there are times when your power of concentration is laser-beam intense?" "Are you usually eager to try something new?" "My room may be a mess. But it's an organized mess. I know where everything is." "ADHD."
After the session, I ventured to buy a glass of red wine because someone I cared about wasn't texting me back. When I arrived at the bar, I couldn't feel the hard trace of credit card in my back pocket, so I squatted down on the ground and removed the contents of my backpack. I found the loose card three minutes later, wedged in the pages of my planner.Anyone who knows me knows this look well: hunched, flinging objects, muttering."I'm a mess!" I said, instinctively, to a woman who asked me if I needed help. "I really should get a wallet." This line usually kills. In the real world, the idea of not having a wallet to store your credit card, cash, and ID is so wacky as to be laughable.I have two college degrees—why can I do that, but I can't figure out how to get to a grocery store?
Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
Sari Solden speaking at the Better Together Festival. Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
Photo by Howard Morris/Maciejka (Em) Gorzelnik. Courtesy of Morris Creative Services LLC
"Maybe I'm not the perfect corporate person—I'm okay with pushing boundaries," she said. She explained that there are hard deadlines and soft deadlines, and she had to learn figure out which is which. I write "soft deadlines" in my notebook. I circled it three times. "'I know you want it by this time, but I need this space to get what you need done.' If that doesn't work, [the task] needs to be reassigned."While the arc of the moral universe may bend towards adaptability, Sarah's experience isn't necessarily the norm quite yet. A woman told me that one of her clients recently got frustrated with her for always being a few minutes late. "I had to tell her, this is not about you, it's about me," she said. When I lost the company credit card, my credit card, company keys, and my keys—all within the span of two weeks— at a job a few years ago, my boss did not understand and was frustrated. I, too, did not understand and was frustrated; it's the sort of thing that's hard to adapt to. Now, I work triple-time to hide these quirks of executive functioning that, more often than not, make me feel stupid.But here, at the festival, "stupid" was just an adverb I paired with "beautiful" to describe the deep-fried cheese curds I'd eaten the night before.I took my last bite of cake. I left the icing on my pants.Read more: When People Live-Stream Murder and Suicide, Who Watches?
