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308: You Might Also Like Climbing the Walls from Understood.org · Beautifully Complex

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids, straight from the trenches.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Welcome everyone.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: In this episode, we're doing something a little bit different.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I want to play you an episode of another show
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that I think you will like and will be relatable
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for you. It's called Climbing the Walls. This six part
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: series investigates why women with ADHD have gone undiagnosed for
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: so long and how that changed dramatically during the pandemic
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: when the diagnosis of ADHD and women skyrocketed. This show
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Why Women, Why Now? How has underdiagnosis impacted women's mental health?
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I checked out the first episode and I was blown away.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Y'all.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Not only is it shining a much needed spotlight on
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: ADHD in women and girls, but it's full of so
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: many facts about ADHD that are largely unknown to the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: public and rarely communicated to the individual or the parent
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: at the time of diagnosis. They discussed so many things
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: that I wish I had known when my kid was diagnosed,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: instead of learning them on my own over multiple years.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: So here it is. I hope you enjoy it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: I've never been all that good at listening to instructions.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: When flight attendants ask passengers to put their phones on
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: airplane mode, I don't. I usually scroll in stie until
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: we lose service. That's what I was doing one morning
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: in February twenty twenty four. I was scrolling Instagram when
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: the little red icon appeared in the top left corner
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: of the app a new message. I opened it. It
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: was a link to a video. My thumb was hovering
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: over it. As the wheels lifted off the runway, I
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: saw the top half of the news anchor's head and
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the logo for Fox News. The screen froze like that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: At the time, I was working on a film about
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: affirmative action, so I assumed that the link had something
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: to do with that. We were in the air for
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: about six hours, and as we landed, I opened Instagram again.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I saw four more messages. Everyone was sending me the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: same link. As it loaded, I realized it had nothing
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: to do with affirmative action.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Adult women are being diagnosed with ADHD at a record pace.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: In just two years, diagnosis rate has nearly doubled. So
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: what's drying?
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Ah? Yes, ADHD attention deficit high activity disorder.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Phones could be a root cause, but ironically it's also
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: what's raising awareness about it.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: It was all over the news that week.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is Brooke Schnittman. She's an ADHD and
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: executive function coach. It's great to have you here, So
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: tell us why why?
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: Women? Why now?
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Why are these diagnoses going up?
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: Diagnosis in ADHD is going People are understanding more about
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: themselves since the pandemic. So when we had so much
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: downtime to really understand ourselves, that's when mental health was
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: on the rise.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: And it seemed like Brooke had more to say, but
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: the anchor jumped in.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: But you know, all of us are distracted because of
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: our phones, right. I can be reading the Wall Street
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Journal editorial page at night. I'm like, wait, let me
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: check what my sister just sent me on Instagram. But
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: where's the line between someone who feels distracted because of
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: their phone and someone who actually has ADHD and gets
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: a diagnosis like that?
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: And I knew exactly why my friends were sending me
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: this clip. Why are so many women being diagnosed with ADHD?
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: Do they really have it?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I started asking these questions sometime in the summer of
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, a few months after I joined the
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: ranks of the recently diagnosed. Listening to a news anchor
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: question the rise and diagnosis, I realized, I really do
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: want to know why women?
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Why now.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: For the last year or so, I've tried to answer
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: these questions. I've talked to scientists, doctors, and I've talked
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: to many many women who have ADHD, some who were
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: recently diagnosed, others who have known for decades. This is
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: a story about science, social expectations, stress, and the way
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: we live. It's about who we trust. Most importantly, it's
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a story about women. This is climbing the walls. I'm
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Daniel Elliott. I had a fairly unique pandemic experience. I
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: started dating someone in the first week. I was thirty five,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: and this was honestly my first relationship, unless you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: you actually want to count the revolving door of four
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: month situations I've been in for the last ten years. Anyway,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: everything was new, and it was distracting me from everything else.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Happening in the world. We moved in together. Things were
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: good for a while. I remember waking up one morning
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: and just staring at the wall, not really moving. I
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: laid there long enough that my partner looked at me
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: and said, are you okay, and still without moving, I said.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: We used to be able to get on planes and
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a few hours later land in a completely different part
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: of the world. I just missed being able to be
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: anywhere else. A few months later, we got vaccinate. A
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: few months after that, we broke up. I stashed a
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: few boxes at my parents' house, booked a flight, and left.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I spent the next two months working remotely from Mexico
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and Belize, then went to California and Colorado for work.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: It was fun, but the whole time I kept thinking
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: about the night we broke up.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: We needed to break up. We both knew this was coming.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: He initiated a conversation and I exploded.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: I had this visceral reaction.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I said things that I knew would cut deep. I
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: couldn't look at him. I started packing, taking frames off
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: the walls. I felt out of control, and it felt
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: really out of character. I don't yell at people, ever,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I thought I'd learned to control my emotions, but that
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: night I acted like a child, So three months later
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: I was still beating myself up over it. One night
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I googled extreme reactions to rejection and this article popped
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: up about something called rejection sensitive dysphoria RSD. I'd never
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: heard of it. One magazine article described it like this.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: It is always triggered by the perceived or real loss
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: of approval, love, or respect. It looks like an impressive,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: instantaneous rage at the person or situation responsible for causing
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: the pain. Some people use the pain of RSD to
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: find adaptations and overachieve. They constantly work to be the
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: best of what they do and strive for idealized perfection.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: The last section of the article started with this sentence,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Rejection sensitivity is part of ADHD. I remember reading that
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: sentence and thinking, wait, do I have ADHD. I didn't
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: really think I could, because, as far as I knew,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: ADHD meant you couldn't focus. When I'm interested in something
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: or I have a deadline, I focus so well that
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I sort of forget the rest of the world exists.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I found an article on ADHD. It explained that ADHD
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: is a spectrum of attentional issues. The next day I
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: talked to my therapist. She suggested I take a self screener,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: so I took it and it said that I have
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: symptoms of ADHD, and I, for lack of a better word,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: I pouted. I didn't want to have ADHD. Everything I
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: read said that women with ADHD struggle in relationships, careers,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: and as parents. I wanted to believe I'd figure these
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: things out. And to hear I might have a condition
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: that apparently makes it harder to do these things, it
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: felt scary. I booked a telehealth appointment with a psychiatrist.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: On a cold morning in February twenty twenty two, I
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: sat down in front of my computer, logged into a
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: video platform, and started talking to a psychiatrist, having made
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: the diagnosis.
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: If it's not like so glaringly obvious child, usually it's
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: the hyperactivity symptoms.
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: That draw attention.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: There was a cop outside my wind.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I looked back at the screen and tried to focus
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: on what the psychiatrist was saying. She seemed to be
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: sitting on a bench at a kitchen table. I could
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: see a green lawn behind her and wondered where she lived.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: I realized I was distracted and tried to tune back in.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: She was still explaining how teachers or doctors usually spot
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: ADHD in kids.
• 9:17
  Speaker 7: The teacher is saying, oh, Billy, you're really wick right.
• 9:21
  Speaker 7: It's often harder when it's more the attentional symptoms.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: I was recording on my phone because I wanted to
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: be able to listen back to what she said about treatment.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I wanted to get this right. She explained that girls
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: with ADHD are usually not as hyperactive or disruptive as
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: boys with ADHD, and since they're not disturbing their classmates
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: or their teachers, their symptoms go unnoticed. She asked me
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: about my childhood. How did I do in school? Did
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I make friends? Do I have any specific memories? I
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: told her stories from preschool, kindergarten, second grade, fifth grade,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: seventh grade. I asked her if ADHD is I didn't
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: talk or walk until a year after most kids my age.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: My mom says she had me tested for special education preschool,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: but I didn't get in. In grad school, my advisor
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: always said, Danielle, I think you have shiny ball syndrome.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: None of us suspected an actual syndrome. I just like
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: chasing new ideas usually before finishing whatever I'm working on.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Ten minutes into the call, the doctor said she thinks
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I have ADHD. I wanted this to be much more complicated.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I wanted her to do a whole series of tests.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: But there are no definitive biological markers for ADHD, no
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: blood test that says yep, you have it. Instead, the
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: diagnosis is based on your experiences throughout your life and
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: your family history. The official criteria is listed in a
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: the DSM. It's published by the American Psychiatric Association. The
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: DSM says that symptoms of ADHD develop by the time
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: person turns twelve. If the symptoms begin after that, it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: not Adhdly.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: Our executive function right from the frontal lobe is the
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: seed of a lot of this, and it's tricky. Our
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: front a lobe is not fully developed into well into teenage.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Here so the way, So again, this is a lot
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of executive function.
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: So executive function is a lot of part of our cognition.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: She went on like this a little bit longer, talking
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: about something called executive function, which I'd never heard of
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Then she prescribed a stimulant, which is a type of
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: medication often used to treat ADHD, and with that I
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: joined the ranks of what seemed to be a rapidly
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: emerging demographic women diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic. One
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: five hundred dollars video appointment and I was now one
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: of those women. Fox News was talking about. My insurance
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: didn't even cover it. I wasn't sure. I wanted to
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: be honest stimulant. I wasn't sure I wanted to hear
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: any of this honestly, but I dug into it anyway,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: doing my research alongside self discovery. That's what I do,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: after all, I should mention I'm a science journalist. I
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: also produced documentaries and podcasts. The more I learned about ADHD,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: it was clear that I have it, and I learned
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that it was so much more than what I had
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: thought it was. I thought it was about focus and attention,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: but it turns out it's also about emotional regulation and
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: scheduling and your ability to stay organized and sustain interests.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: I read things that said people with ADHD have a
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: constant battle between structure and stimulation, and that we have
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: strong internal voices that are often completely set on telling
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: us that we're doing everything wrong. On social media, there
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: were a lot of women talking about ADHD, and honestly,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: they all seemed a lot like me, college educated, mostly
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: well adjusted, white women who apparently wanted to be more adjusted,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: and that started to give me doubts. I would scroll
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: through Instagram and TikTok and think, you all seem to
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: have part and children and big enough careers to help
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: you reach large audiences on social media. If you have ADHD,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: how do you stay organized enough to create all this content?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Is there any chance you're just capitalizing on this moment
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: when ADHD seems to be trending. I don't like to
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: minimize anyone else's experience. I think I was just pushing
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: back against the idea that I had ADHD by proposing
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: that maybe none of us women had it, that maybe
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: we just weren't good enough, as if that's somehow better.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: You can't spell Danielle without denial. My notion of who
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: was talking about ADHD started to expand When I moved
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: into a new apartment that summer, great light, closet space
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: friendly building. I got to know three of the women
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: on my floor we were watching TV one night and
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: one of them mentioned her ADHD. Another one of the
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: women jumped in and said, oh, I was diagnosed last year.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Over the next few months, I started hearing this everywhere.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: A bartender at my favorite spot, two friends talking on
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the train, friends telling me about their moms being diagnosed.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: Unlike what I saw on social media, they weren't all
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: white women. Then researchers published data that supported what I
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: was seeing around me. Tons of women are being diagnosed
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: with ADHD. From twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, the
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: rate of diagnosis skyrocketed. Okay, let me get inside your
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: head for a minute. You're probably thinking, what's the big deal.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: A lot of women were diagnosed with ADHD in the
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: past few years. So what sounds like you made some
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: new friends and got some helpful meds out of it.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Why are you so mystified? Like this subject needs a podcast?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Mystified is this year lates shit? It goes back to
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: what the psychiatrist told me on the phone about why
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: my own ADHD wasn't identified when I was a kid.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Girls tend to have different symptoms, she'd said, hyperactivity is
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: much less common our brains, though no less unique than
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: that of any rambunctious boys slipped under the radar. For many,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: many years, this was the accepted wisdom. Doctors weren't diagnosing
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: ADHD in girls because they simply didn't know they had it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: One doctor told me that in the nineteen seventies and
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: early eighties he was taught the ratio of boys to
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: girls with ADHD was ten to one. On top of that,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the medical community also firmly believed that people outgrow ADHD
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: in adulthood. Those two beliefs together meant that very little
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: thought was ever given to women grown up, adult women
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: having ADHD. When I was in grad school in twenty
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: thirteen and my advice joked that I had shiny ball syndrome,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: she didn't consider that I might have ADHD. I was
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: studying science journalism. I read so many journals and articles
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: that year and never came across anything that would suggest
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: such an idea. Obviously, something had changed in the last
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: few years. Women with ADHD were now being found everywhere,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: from my apartment building to Fox News. I talked to
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: dozens of women who, like me, went undiagnosed until recently,
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Women in their twenties thirties forties, fifties, sixties, one woman
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: in her mid seventies. So yeah, that's my shiny ball,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: my podcast worthy question. Why women? Why Now? One day
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I was at a friend's birthday party and someone said
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: something I've never heard before.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: He said his mom was.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Diagnosed with ADHD early back in nineteen sixty three. I
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: couldn't resident. A week later, I was in Michigan meeting
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: his mom. If I wanted to figure out how we
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: missed this in an entire generation of women, I felt
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: like talking to someone who hadn't missed it was a
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: pretty good place to start.
• 17:13
  Speaker 7: I was a famously active child, kinetic. The word then
• 17:19
  Speaker 7: was hyperactive.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: This is Emily Mitchell. She's a graphic designer in Traverse City, Michigan.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: We met at her house and sat in a basement office.
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: So I was famously hyperactive, kinetic, always moving. When you
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: hit public school and you're in kindergarten as I was,
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: there is naptim and I couldn't sit stillly still on
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: my matt. My mother made me a chain of safety
• 17:45
  Speaker 7: pins that we attached to my matt so I would
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: have something to.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Do, something to play with somewhat quiet.
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: She tried things that would help me not conformed, but
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: to participate in the ruction of the day. And because
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: I was young, I don't know how it went, but
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: say the teacher complained.
• 18:06
  Speaker 6: And then my mother.
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: Took me to a our doctor who was a pediatrician
• 18:12
  Speaker 7: who was young. He was just out of med school.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: I mean, he was in a young crop of new
• 18:16
  Speaker 7: pediatricians and in Michigan, in the Detroit area, Oak Park, Michigan.
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: And he I remember him.
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: I was fond of him, and I felt special in
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: his office, you know. And he he said to my mother,
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: you know, Emily likes people, and the last thing she
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: needs is to be a problem to her teacher as
• 18:36
  Speaker 7: she starts for public education. That's not going to be
• 18:39
  Speaker 7: good for her. So I have something that we should try.
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: And it was Riddlin, and I took it and it helped.
• 18:46
  Speaker 6: It helped.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: The first time we know of a doctor giving stimulants
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: to kids is in nineteen thirty seven. About twenty years later,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty five, the FDA approved Riddlin as a
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: medication for adults battling depression and a handful of other conditions.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Then in nineteen sixty two, the FDA approved it for
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: use in children with attentional deficits and hyperactivity. A year later,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty three, a young pediatrician recognized this in
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: six year old Emily, and he prescribed Riddlin.
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: I called it my silly pill, my silly pill, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 7: that was just part of my life. So it helped
• 19:24
  Speaker 7: me be a good student. And we didn't realize that
• 19:26
  Speaker 7: until I stopped taking the Riddlin.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: The American Psychiatric Association published the second edition of the
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: DSM in nineteen sixty eight, when Emily was in fifth grade.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: This edition described a condition called hyperkinetic reaction of childhood.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: It's characterized by overactivity, restlessness, distractability, and short attention span.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: The DSM said children outgrow this by the time they
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: become teenagers. Emily was eleven years old and she was
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: starting to feel self conscious about her silly pill.
• 19:57
  Speaker 7: So when I was in fifth grade, I stopped taking it,
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: and my grades immediately went down.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: And it didn't alarm my parents.
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: You know, I think it was just the thing to
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: do at the time, and you just you grow out
• 20:09
  Speaker 7: of that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: You don't have to take that anymore, however.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: Like you had grown out of it, like did you
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: as a fifth gear. Did you remember then having a
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: harder time sitting still? Or yeah, you're nodding.
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: Couldn't focus on you know. The evidence is that my
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: grades went down and I graduated high school undistinguished academically
• 20:27
  Speaker 6: under three point zero.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: No one suspected that Emily's grades might somehow have been
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: affected by this hyperkinetic energy, because doctors thought kids outgrow
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: the condition. She was in high school in nineteen seventy
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: one when a Canadian psychologist named Virginia Douglas gave a
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: speech that would change everyone's understanding of hyperactivity, hyperkinesis, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: attentional disorders. This was at the annual meeting of the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Association of Canadian Psychologists. Doctor Douglas explained research she'd conducted
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: at Montreal Children's House Hospital, where she determined that hyperkinesis
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: is associated with attentional deficits and impulsivity. Hyperkinetic reaction of
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: childhood became known as attention deficit disorder ADD. In nineteen eighty,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the third edition of the DSM updated the diagnostic criteria
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: and officially changed the name. By then, Emily was a
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: recent art school grad living in Toronto. She was married,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: building a life as a textile designer and weaver that.
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: Wasn't even interested in the fuzzy stuff. It was the
• 21:33
  Speaker 7: structure and the fact that you could do something with
• 21:35
  Speaker 7: a slimp piece of thread and turned it into a whole.
• 21:39
  Speaker 7: Humankind's history of both art and function, that's an amazing
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: history and it was interesting to do my husband.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Emily started to gain a reputation in the art world.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: One of her pieces was exhibited at a museum in
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: New York. But she and her husband were feeling the
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: pole to move home to Michigan.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: They bought an.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Old schoolhouse in Traverse City. It's a picturesque town, right
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: on the water. It's dreamy and in many ways, so
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: was their life. Financially, though it was tough. Emily waitressed
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: and continued making art. But being an artist in Traverse City,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Michigan wasn't the same as being an artist in Toronto.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Her husband had started a graphic design.
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: Firm, so I joined the company and we've been together
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: as creative and life partners ever since.
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: What a life.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: She met someone and fell in love, built a creative career,
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: moved to this beautiful place. They had two little boys.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Emily absolutely loved being a mom but a few years
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: into joining her husband at the design firm, Emily was
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: struggling at work.
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: So I'm in a business now with deadlines. I'm in
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: business with a partner, someone who, in his case was
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: a champion workhorse, could get things done in a very
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: structured way, on time, reliably and at a high level,
• 22:53
  Speaker 7: at a high professional standard. I am very good at
• 22:56
  Speaker 7: generating ideas, but you have to close it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Up, meaning you have to hit deadlines. And to hit
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: those deadlines, you have to be decisive. She would start
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: with lots of ideas. She could whittle the ideas down
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: to three front runners.
• 23:09
  Speaker 7: And I might get stuck on the three and say, yeah,
• 23:14
  Speaker 7: I just see the potential in everything. I might say, well,
• 23:18
  Speaker 7: I really need to run out all three, you know,
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: I need to take these three the next level. Or
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: and then while you're looking at the three, you might say,
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: you know, this one has led me to a variation
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: that and so on.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: It was a problem because the schedule has only allowed
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: her to run through one final choice. She was doing
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: three times the work and it wasn't working. Emily was
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: figuring this out as it was happening. The company was
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: successful and the work was demanding. She was in a
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: high stakes environment. She loved it most days, but when deadlines.
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: Approached, I suffered. So I was suffering at work. Also,
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: the just the office environment. You got a list of
• 23:55
  Speaker 7: things you have to get done every single day, So
• 23:58
  Speaker 7: I found myself often staying up all my and that
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: wasn't In some people's lives, that's not a problem, but
• 24:06
  Speaker 7: it was difficult for my partner. It caused a lot
• 24:09
  Speaker 7: of anxiety for him. That was a painful for me.
• 24:13
  Speaker 7: It was painful for me because I don't like letting
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: people down, which, if you remember the doctor in kindergarten,
• 24:20
  Speaker 7: Emily likes people. She does not like to be a
• 24:22
  Speaker 7: problem to people. And I didn't when I was twenty
• 24:25
  Speaker 7: four or thirty eight either.
• 24:28
  Speaker 6: So I started wondering it was just.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: You felt down.
• 24:32
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, But in the meantime, we know we're starting
• 24:36
  Speaker 7: to have a family of small children and we're running
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: this business.
• 24:39
  Speaker 6: So I think I spoke to.
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: A guidance counselor the local college to double check that
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: I had made a good decision.
• 24:48
  Speaker 6: You know, it wasn't the profession. It was office work, office.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Work in the job that you choose.
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: Yeah, why am I unhappy in my job. You know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: you know, why does this feel? It's just so stressful.
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: I ended up speaking to my family doctor annual physical
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: how are you?
• 25:07
  Speaker 6: How you doing?
• 25:08
  Speaker 7: And he said, you know you you let's have a
• 25:13
  Speaker 7: look at your brain. It might be just your brain
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: that the way your brain is.
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: So I went in nineties.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Emily stopped to do the math. She counted on her
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: fingers and we laughed, because this is something I do too.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Emily thinks she talked to her doctor when she was thirty,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: so that would be nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: They talked about her medical history, including the diagnosis in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: kindergarten and her silly pill. By then, doctors were starting
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: to recognize that adults often have symptoms of ADHD, but
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: officially it was still considered a condition of childhood. Emily
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: was lucky to have a doctor who was up to
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: date on the clinical findings.
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: So at thirty I was diagnosed with ADD. There's no
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: mention of H. There's no H in there.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: A revised edition of the DSM combined ADD and hyperactivity
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty seven, now officially calling it ADHD. It was
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: a controversial update and one that didn't quite reach Emily.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: At the time, she still thought of her childhood condition
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: and her add as separate things. It would be a
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: few more years before she connected them. Still, she had
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: her diagnosis and it helped.
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: It answered a lot of questions about my path to
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: that point. And it did help me make a list
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: in my day job and stick to the list, and
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: to just use my time differently. There was impulsivity. It
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: helped with that less interrupting, so it was about work.
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: The goal was to be productive at work.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: And it worked.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Emily is my idea of the best case scenario. Each
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: time she recognized a challenge, she sought help, and she
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: was diagnosed according to the most advanced scientific understanding of
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: the time. Most women didn't have this sort of law
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: or privilege. Emily is quick to acknowledge that she comes
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: from a highly educated, open minded family. She had access
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to great doctors and they treated her appropriately. It helped
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: that she had symptoms most commonly associated with boys, but
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: still her experience is rare. Ideally, the science would have
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: moved faster, but it advanced quickly enough to meet most
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of her needs. There was still one complication of her
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: ADHD that she couldn't quite figure out it wasn't about
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: her ability to make deadlines. It had more to do
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: with the way people treated her when she struggled with
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: those deadlines. She grew up in a family where she
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: was cherished and celebrated. She said she didn't really know
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: criticism until she became an adult. Now, people including her husband,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: expected her to do things in certain ways, and when
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: she didn't, they were harsh. She struggled with this for
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: once her doctors didn't have a new diagnosis. She read
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: everything she could find on adult ADHD. She saw that
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: someone was hosting a conference in Michigan to discuss adult ADHD,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and she went.
• 28:02
  Speaker 7: I just was very curious about how to really thrive,
• 28:06
  Speaker 7: you know, to really stay with it, about that brain trait,
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: and to be in the company of people who were
• 28:15
  Speaker 7: putting on workshops and conferences.
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: They happened to be almost entirely by women about women.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: At one of these conferences, Emily picked up a book
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: called Women with add.
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: My copy of that book is full of pencil on
• 28:31
  Speaker 7: every page.
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: It was about my job.
• 28:33
  Speaker 7: It was also about my marriage and my partnership and
• 28:35
  Speaker 7: what kind of partner I chosen, how it was playing
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: out that way.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: The book was written by a woman named Sari Sulden.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: It was published in nineteen ninety five. Emily said it
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: helped her understand the emotional side of ADHD. For her,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: it was the final piece of the puzzle. But wait,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five, what about that common story I'd heard
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: that women were only now being diagnosed because up until recently,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: no one understood how ADHD impacts girls and women. I've
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: seen versions of this story reported in the New York Times,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: The Guardian, the New York Post, and all over digital media.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: I've heard it in newscasts. Friends say it. A psychiatrist
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: said it to me as she diagnosed me. It's a
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: clean story. I bought it and repeated it. Then I
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: read Sari Stulten's book, and I realized there's a problem
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: with this version of events, in which doctors just didn't
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: know how women experience ADHD. The problem is it's not true.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Sari lives a few hours from Emily, so I went
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to see her, and that day she helped me understand
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: my questions why women?
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Why now? In New ways, there.
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: Was a huge fight keeping out adults.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: And then women.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Sari was deep in this fight She never planned to
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: be a pioneer, but she became one when she wrote
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: about what it's like for women with ADHD.
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: You don't usually get to be there at the birth
• 30:02
  Speaker 8: of a whole new way of looking at human beings,
• 30:04
  Speaker 8: and that was what it was, and that was why
• 30:07
  Speaker 8: it was eye openers, like, Wow, we can look at
• 30:09
  Speaker 8: these people and ourselves to this new lens.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: That's next time Unclimbing the Walls. Climbing the Walls was
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: written and reported by me Danielle Elliott. It was edited
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: by Neil Drumming. Sound designed by Cody Nelson. Brianna Barry
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: was our production director. Ash Beecher was our supervising producer
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: and Diana White was our associate producer. Fact checking by
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Mary Mathis, research by Karen Wattanabe. Our music was composed
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: by Quame Brant Pearce, with additional music provided by Blue
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Dot Sessions, and our mixing was done by Justin d.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: Wright.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: The series was brought to you by Understood dot Org,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia. From Understood dot Org,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cochier, and Seth Melnick.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: A very special thanks to Ray Jacobsen, Julie Zeitz, Jordan Davidson,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Sarah Greenberg, and Kathleen Nadou. If you want to help
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Understood continue this work, consider making a donation at Understood
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: dot org slash give.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: That was the first episode of Climbing the Walls. Wasn't
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: it fantastic? To listen to more episodes, search for Climbing
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: the Walls in your favorite podcast app that's Climbing the Walls.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully Complex podcast. If
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share, and don't
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: forget to check out my online courses and parentcoaching at
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com and at The Behavior Revolution
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: dot com.