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payroll-related topic you could throw at me, and when I had my sights set on something you bet it’d be the best it could be, but I was rarely motivated to achieve them. I craved organisation and structure but couldn’t create that consistently for myself. In the office, I was witty and charismatic but had a very low tolerance for people who didn’t meet my often unachievably high expectations. My brutal self- awareness meant that I was my own worst enemy, I’d spend hours awake at night beating myself up mentally after a day of meetings for not saying the right thing or worrying if I came across badly. My communication could often be quite direct and that was a constant source of worry for me. An Obvious Diagnosis A visit to the doctor at one point told me that I couldn’t have ADHD or ASD since I had a good career and a family, and it was very rare for women to have either anyway. I was given a prescription for antidepressants and sent on my way. The antidepressants didn’t help so I stopped taking them and 3 years passed of me trying and failing miserably to cope. January 2020 brought a new low for me so I took myself off to a private therapist convinced I was mad and after 2 sessions she asked me if I’d ever considered that I might have ADHD or ASD. What followed was a whirlwind 6 months of meetings and assessments, resulting in a diagnosis of AuDHD – the term used to describe ASD and ADHD when they co-occur.
“I didn’t know it at the t my career were a lifelin to hide from the overwh
Looking back now it is glaringly obvious that I was neurodivergent. Of course, this term didn’t exist back then but Autism and ADHD did, so why did nobody notice?
Overlooked & Misdiagnosed Neurodiversity, a concept that
celebrates the range of differences in brain function and behavior as part of normal human variation, has become central to discussions about autism. Its rise in the past 3 years emphasises the need for a more inclusive approach, acknowledging that autism presents differently across genders, cultures, and stages of life. For women, whose autistic experiences have long been
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