How to Be a Grownup: A Humorous Guide for Moms, with CK & GK

ADHD in Women: The Late Diagnosis Epidemic (And the 10 Signs You Ignored)

• Jenny GK and Caitlin Kindred • Season 4 • Episode 154

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Ever lose your phone while holding it? Start 10 projects and finish zero? Or hyper-fixate on Pope Leo’s baseball fandom at 2 AM? 👀 Welcome to the ADHD club, friend. In this episode, Caitlin and Ariella (a fellow ‘elder millennial with a PhD in awesome’) break down what ADHD really looks like in women—and why so many of us are just now figuring it out.

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Who Should Listen

  • Moms who’ve been called "scatterbrained" but suspect there’s more to it.
  • Women diagnosed with anxiety/depression but still feel like something’s "off."
  • Anyone who’s ever gone to put away the box of Cheerios and ended up reorganizing the entire pantry.

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What You Get In This Episode

  • ADHD 101: It’s not "squirrel syndrome"—it’s erratic brain Wi-Fi, y’all.
  • Overlooked Signs in Women: Perfectionism masking chaos, time blindness ("I’ll be ready in 5 minutes" = lies), and why you cry over spilled milk (then apologize to the dog).
  • The Diagnosis Gap: Why girls fly under the radar (hint: society hates feral women).
  • "Wait, That’s ADHD?!" From losing your keys in your hand to winning shower arguments that never happened.
  • Why It’s Everywhere Now: TikTok, pandemics, Millennial parenting, and Gen Z’s refusal to suffer in silence.

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Bios

Caitlin Kindred: Recovering teacher, professional overthinker, and mom who finally got diagnosed with ADHD at 38. Host of How to Be a Grownup—where "adulting" is a group project.

Ariella Monti: Author of Roots in Ink, flannel-clad bisexual icon, and mom who registered her car 2 months late (the ADHD angels spared her).

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Sources & Mentions

📖 Articles/Studies:

🧠 Instagram Recs:

  • @ADHDoers (memes + truths)
  • @coachingwithbrooke (actionable tips)
  • @alex_partridge_100 (founder of UNILAD)

💡 5-Second Therapy:

  • "Progress = Wellness" (Caitlin’s mantra for task overwhelm)

The best support is a rating and a share.

Love,
CK & GK

Support the show

View our website at ckandgkpodcast.com. Find us on social media @ckandgkpodcast on
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Thanks, y'all!

Caitlin Kindred:

Hello, hello, friends. We are so glad you're here today. Welcome to how to Be a Grown-Up the show, with hosts who are constantly hunting for dopamine. Yes, I would. I think we are Always, all the time, always. That's A fact of life at this point. See, it's gone. See, yeah, that's unfortunate and we're done Bye everybody. See, done bye everybody. That was the episode dopamine hit lost. Okay, uh, I'm caitlin, and with me today co-hosting for johnny is ariela monte, who is the author of roots and ink, and she is a sunbeam wrapped in a flannel shirt I love that.

Ariella Monti:

I love flannel as my, you know, as my, my fellow bisexuals know, we. It's the uniform of my people. The peoples, yeah, the uniform of my people Also elder millennials Right, I was gonna say like I came of age.

Caitlin Kindred:

Right, I am from San Francisco. During the 90s, grunge was my life, right? Okay, today we are starting a series on a topic that is very near and dear to the show, to Ariella and myself, to Jenny, to our entire families, and that is ADHD in general, in particular ADHD in women, and we've got a whole host of topics around this. So I hope you'll stick around for the next few weeks as we kind of take a deep dive into what this means for us. But today I'm just going to go over the basics, meaning what it is, what it looks like in women, particularly my symptoms and I'm sure I'll mention some of Arielle's as well and why you're hearing so much about ADHD now when, as we mentioned, the elder millennial generation did not grow up with it like that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, the whole point of this episode and this whole series is is validation, which is what we're always here for. If you see yourself here, you are not broken, there is nothing wrong with you. Here's what helped us, here's what we've learned about ourselves, here's what we've learned about our children, and I hope that you find some peace and comfort in this episode, if this is relatable to you at all. I have a couple of sources today. One of them is from the New York Times. It's called We've Been Thinking About ADHD All Wrong. I will link that in the show notes. Another one was Speaking of Psychology why Are More Adults being Diagnosed with ADHD? With Russell Ramsey, this is the ADA's podcast and it's a really the episode is really great. The transcript is super helpful if you want to learn more. Really really fascinating, so highly recommend. And, of course, us, as we've learned things from therapists. And when we say I read something somewhere, we mean we saw it on TikTok.

Caitlin Kindred:

Okay, okay, um, yeah, what is adhd? It's not squirrel syndrome, it's not. You're not a magpie, you're not like something shiny might distract you, but it's not that. It gets characterized in some some funky ways which I will go into in just a second. But imagine your brain or your computer with 47 tabs open. Someone else is holding the mouse, one of them is playing an ad over and over again and the other one's got a YouTube video on loud.

Caitlin Kindred:

So it's not an inability to pay attention. Rather, I would characterize it as the inability to focus one's attention on one thing at a time. It's your. You're hypersensitive to everything, so everything is getting your attention all at once or, in the case of a hyperfixation, only one thing for all eternity. By that I mean the next 27 hours. So it is officially in the DSM it's got like. You know, dsm is the diagnostic book of all the mental health disorders and there's all these different versions we're on. The five are something, something doesn't matter, but it is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects executive function, like working memory, focus and impulse control, which is a very short and succinct definition for something that is anything but that right.

Ariella Monti:

Yes, yeah right.

Caitlin Kindred:

What we know is that there are brain differences in people with ADHD versus those without. There are imbalances with dopamine, which is why I made that reference to dopamine earlier in the episode, and also norepinephrine, which both are chemicals that interact with parts of the brain, and it kind of has been mentioned as like erratic brain Wi-Fi signal. I don't know why that was the term that I kept seeing over and over again, but it does make sense to me.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, yeah, that does make sense. Yeah, I've learned more about neurotransmitters in the past like four years, than I think I have ever in my life.

Caitlin Kindred:

Those are the transmitters or neurotransmitters that are out of whack if you have ADHD. So dopamine and norepinephrine Within ADHD. There are technically three types. There's the stereotypical one, which is the hyperactive boy. Presentation right, they can't sit still. Their legs jiggle, they're constantly tapping. Presentation right, they can't sit still. Their legs jiggle, they're constantly tapping. They're always on the move, they're forever talking, they blurt out answers, they interrupt, they take risks without thinking. They're incredibly impulsive.

Caitlin Kindred:

A lot of the time we think of little boys when we think of hyperactive disorder. It's very common in women too, but you don't see it because the hyperactivity is not physical, it's in the brain. It's jumping from one idea to the next all the time. Yes, the next type would be inattentive, which is very common in women and girls. It often looks like zoning out in mid-conversation. For me it's not necessarily zoning out, although that does happen to me quite a bit. It's also taking a minute to process. But saying what instead? So someone says something, I hear it and I go what, and then I answer the question right after that. The delay, yes, the what delay? I swear I'm not stupid, I just needed a second.

Caitlin Kindred:

Losing things, but not just losing them, it's losing them when they were just in your hand. Things like you put something in a safe place for safekeeping and then you can't remember where that safe place was. You have folders for folders for folders in your computer, so everything is too complicated. You over complicate the organization so you lose things. That way, I often will put something down and then need it 13 seconds later and cannot find it. And you'll often hear people say someone took my, and then they're like oh my bad, nobody took it, you just didn't know. Avoiding tasks that demand your focus, like my taxes, that did not get done until very late this year. And time blindness is another inattentive symptom. This is probably the one that makes my husband the most crazy, because me I'll be ready in five minutes actually means 45 or 15 or 20.

Caitlin Kindred:

This is the one where people get they don't seem adhd. You don't seem like you have adhd because it's not hyperactive, but it is the other type. And then, of course, there's the combined type, the one I'm the most familiar. It looks like both. You know that hyperactivity and inattention. For me, the hyperactivity is in my head and then I have the inattention. This is the person who starts 10 projects and finishes zero, like me and my crochet Snoopy that only took me four months to complete.

Caitlin Kindred:

Talks, fast, jumps between topics, forgets appointments, and it should be well noted that this is the most common type for adults to experience. Be well noted that this is the most common type for adults to experience and, honestly, characterizing someone as just one or just the other is pretty ridiculous. It just doesn't really exist that way. So there have been many attempts to pinpoint an actual biological marker for people with ADHD. Some of them said things like oh, they have less brain power, they don't process as fast, they're not as smart, their brain mass is smaller.

Caitlin Kindred:

There's all these things that have happened in the past trying to diagnose someone with ADHD, but, unlike something like hypothyroidism or diabetes or other physical ailments, there is no medical test.

Caitlin Kindred:

The things that we've said do prove someone has ADHD biologically have actually all been debunked and there's no way to assess for ADHD with a physical exam like that.

Caitlin Kindred:

So the criteria for diagnosing are fairly subjective in nature and it makes that diagnosis something of an art for most specialists. So the other piece to consider here is that there's a lot of overlap between ADHD symptoms and symptoms of other disorders like depression, anxiety, dyslexia is even one, and autism is a huge overlap between the two. So there's a lot to be said here with what it actually is and what it isn't, because there's so much overlap and there's so much gray area around what it actually is and looks like. But I thought this statistic was fascinating. One of the things about ADHD is that it often has comorbidities that go along with it right. So this from the New York Times article says more than three quarters of children diagnosed with ADHD do have another mental health condition as well, according to the CDC, and more than a third have a diagnosis of anxiety, a similar fraction of a diagnosed learning disorder and 44% have been diagnosed with a behavioral disorder like oppositional defiant disorder or ODD, on top of their ADHD diagnosis.

Ariella Monti:

That's my kid in like one paragraph. Diagnosed with ODD and anxiety and ADHD combined type. Yeah it's a lot, yeah, it is a lot. And then me myself. I was diagnosed with anxiety in my early 20s, depression in my teens, but it took until I was 38 to get my ADHD diagnosis. And it was like once I got the ADHD diagnosis a lot of my anxiety symptoms made sense.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yes.

Ariella Monti:

It was like the missing piece.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, agree, and I was actually also 38 when I had my diagnosis and I had also been diagnosed with anxiety. And actually my therapist at the time was like asking me kind of about how my family tends to process things. And I mentioned my sister, who I I firmly believe does and she manages herself very well. Um, and I don't think she has an official diagnosis, but I do believe just watching and looking at how she conducts herself, I do, she thinks she does. And my therapist goes your sister, but not you. And I went what? And she was like, yeah, I think you, I think you need to go get a diagnosis and then, due to ADHD form, I didn't get one for another year and a half after that. Okay, so let's talk about what it actually looks like, because this is some you might see yourself here, just so you know. It's less like can't sit still for women and more like why is my life a mess, why I need to grow up. So here are some common overlooked signs and then we'll go into some additional symptoms.

Caitlin Kindred:

Masking you are a perfectionist, but that's because you are hiding chaos. So me, I have many planners, I have the one on my, I have a phone calendar that I have everything on. I have things written down but they're all written down in different places, which is why I need one place to centralize everything. But this perfectionism that you have that's masking all the chaos in your life. It gets exhausting Like it's. It's a very tiresome mask that you are wearing. It's heavy Time blindness. As I mentioned earlier, I'll leave in five minutes. It's actually 17 minutes later and then you're late. Or I'll work on the podcast for an hour and then three hours later you're still sitting right. This one kind of hit me and I felt like I needed to go back to my therapist Emotional roller coaster. There is an element of ADHD called rejection, sensitivity dysphoria. It's where you get a critique of some sort and it feels like it's a personal attack. It's a very emotional experience to receive criticism and you feel like you're a failure receive criticism and you feel like you're a failure.

Ariella Monti:

And this is also the all my friends hate me, even though you have no reason. There's no reason for them to hate you, but they added a thumbs up at the end of a text and you're like that's it. I'm the worst. They hate me.

Caitlin Kindred:

That might have been one of the clues that you thought I had it, because at one point I was like no one's talking to me on our group chat, like did I say something awkward and no one's answered and I was like, are you guys okay? Like did I say something stupid? And then everybody was like, no, we just got busy, it's fine. Like your joke was funny, calm down. And I think you were like you might want to calm down with that.

Caitlin Kindred:

That also goes into this low emotional regulation, which is another overlooked symptom of ADHD, but it makes every feeling you have more intense, and this was really common for me when I was teaching. You react in a bigger way than you intended to. Or for me, I'd be like I'm in a great mood today and then I would get a kid ask me one thing and then 14 seconds later, the other kid would interrupt me as I was answering something and I would completely lose my mind and be like blow up like a volcano, even though I really thought I was in a good mood, and the kids are like, whoa, you're crazy. You know it was just. It's like an irritability, almost is the way that I would describe it, but you don't react the way that you expect to with this emotional regulation issue, hyper focus hijacking your time. Maybe you wanted to put away the box of Cheerios and instead you reorganize the entire pantry.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, I updated my LinkedIn profile. I updated my LinkedIn profile, which I go into. I don't use LinkedIn I'm not a corporate business person, so I don't use it but my sister wanted me to share something that she posted, so of course I'm going to do it. But then I logged in there and I ended up staying up well past my bedtime redoing my LinkedIn profile because the hyper-focus took over. That's amazing At 10.30 at night.

Caitlin Kindred:

That's amazing. Also, do I hear chickens in the background?

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, those are my chickens. They're probably laying an egg or something like that. Yeah, that's amazing.

Caitlin Kindred:

Hi chickens. The other one that I'm going to add in this other symptom is overthinking everything. It kind of goes into that low emotional regulation piece. I can't speak for everybody who has this, but for me I always felt like I was a little bit off compared to my friends, especially in school, and it kind of triggered this over analysis of everyone else's behavior towards me. And so I I overthink everything, like I will have an instinct. I will immediately second guess that instinct. Third guess research things that don't matter, because it's like you know, I'm over here looking at different types of deodorants for 30 minutes because it's like I don't know which one I need to buy and I like what if it. You know, I just constant overthinking and second guessing everything. So those are some common ones. Here are some other ones that I thought were exceptionally important to mention, and this is not all of them. These are the ones that I also experienced Poor object permanence, if you're not sure what that is, that's the thing that when, when there's a baby and mom hides behind a blanket, baby thinks mom's gone.

Caitlin Kindred:

This is why peekaboo is funny, right? Because all of a sudden mom's there again, right? But for people with ADHD who have poor object permanence. Literally out of sight, out of mind, is life. If it's not right in front of me, it doesn't exist. Here's what I mean. I will have alerts on my computer for when a meeting is supposed to start. The alerts used to go off 10 minutes before the meeting. I would dismiss the alert and then be 10 minutes late to the meeting because I forgot that I had the meeting. So this goes for calendar, appointments, everyday objects, people friends, family, oh.

Caitlin Kindred:

God, yes. And emotions. I've always said like, oh, I'm so good at compartmentalizing, that's not what I mean it is. But that's not what this is. This is me forgetting that someone that I love passed away and then, when I remember, I experienced that grief all over again. Or me forgetting that my friend, hi Anne, if you're listening, I got your text message a couple weeks ago. I legitimately thought I answered you in my brain and then didn't send it. And then I'll write the note that says text Anne. I'll stick it on my phone, see it there and remove it and put it somewhere else and then forget to text Anne Like it's just if you cover up something.

Caitlin Kindred:

It's gone to me. Yeah, don't know where. Anything is. Poor impulse control when I cover something up, I need to go buy another one. So it doesn't really it's not necessarily like cliff diving or anything Like. It doesn't really look like that, especially for women. It's more like overspending Right Amazon Prime addiction. Chasing dopamine by making impulse purchases is a really common one.

Caitlin Kindred:

Right, pretty sure this is why Jenny is not allowed to have a Prime account on her own. Okay, okay, oversharing, oversharing, and then regretting it and thinking everyone hates you and or you made an ass of yourself.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, yeah, and then also making someone else's story about you because you're oversharing. You're not trying to make it about you, you're just trying to show empathy, like, hey, my cat passed away, I'm sad. Oh, I know what that feels like when my cat passed away, here's what happened. And then the other person's like I'm so sorry that happened to you. And you're like, yeah, thanks, oh shoot.

Caitlin Kindred:

We were talking about you Like it's not intended to be. How many times have I done that? I was like, oh my gosh, my friend was hate me, and then and, and there you see the need for therapy. Okay, I loved this one Great in a crisis, overwhelmed by the everyday.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, do you have that. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Caitlin Kindred:

That one hit me and I didn't realize that that was a symptom, but it absolutely is. If my child throws up in the middle of the night, I know exactly what to do, how to do it, the order in which to do it, and I can stay calm, get it done and go back to sleep. However, if you tell me to write a blog post, for example, I cannot. I cannot get started, I cannot do it. I'm like, um, but I have this idea, and then I have this idea and then, oh shoot, but I also need to have the graphics. And then I can't. I can't do the, I can't move on to the, I can't write the next paragraph unless I have the graphic. That goes with it, like it's just complete overwhelm and it turns into paralysis because you there's so much to do in your head that you you can't even see what the next step is. Yeah, absolutely.

Caitlin Kindred:

And then poor self-esteem, because you know all these things about yourself. You know you have poor impulse control, you know you overshare, you know that you get overwhelmed easily, you know that you are terrible with time, you know that you overthink things and then you internalize those things with your RSD and strive to be perfect. So you get a lot of intense perfectionism. So I'm looking at my type A girlies over here. I personally consider myself to be type A minus because of the ADHD piece, but I want to be type a, I aspire um. And then that that perfectionism also becomes people-pleasing behavior and you'll often see people with adhd who are extremely kind, um, because they know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of someone who is not extremely kind. And then you could. You often see that kindness sort of get taken advantage of. It can lead to mostly taken taken advantage of. But straight up, abuse is something that you'll see a lot of adhd people experience because they're they want so badly to please and and people know that that's symptoms. I feel like here I am oversharing about myself. You're're welcome everyone.

Caitlin Kindred:

This is Real Talk with Caitlin. Here's why it's missed in women we talked about this a little bit earlier Cultural bias guys. So for a long time we researched boys. Boys were who we focused our attention on. It was considered a boy disorder and little girls? Their symptoms manifest differently than little boys. Girls it tends to manifest itself as more anxiety related, whereas boys you see that hyperactivity a little bit more. So there is a little bit of that that's causing that lack of research into what it looks like in women.

Ariella Monti:

And then there's also the way we raised boys versus raising girls, whereas boys were allowed to be rambunctious and girls were supposed to be quiet. So I think that's part of where the internal hyperactivity kind of stemmed from. And also, you know, fidgeting that maybe we didn't realize was fidgeting when we were kids, and sensory seeking because girls were not socialized when we were kids. Yes, you know, it was not socially acceptable for girls to be a bit feral.

Caitlin Kindred:

No, she got labeled a tomboy right away if she was yeah, yeah, that was me, I was labeled a tomboy, like right away.

Ariella Monti:

But I also, when I think back on it, I see a lot of, mostly because I see it in my son. My son has a lot of the same sensory seeking fidgets that I did growing up, lot of the same sensory seeking fidgets that I did growing up. So now I'm realizing, like, oh, when I was doing you know, like when I was chewing on the ends of my hair, like that's, that's a fidget, that's very common. Yeah, that's a stim for sure. Yeah, yeah, you know. So I think that is one of the reasons why another one of the reasons why we flew under the radar.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, I mean, when I told my mom that I was diagnosed, she she was like I never would have believed that you had that and that's because I did have school related anxiety and I, you know, I masked all that with that perfectionism piece of um. But yeah, I mean, it definitely, definitely was there, it just was not showing itself the same way. So, yeah, and because of this, the way that ADHD presents itself and how similar the symptoms are to other disorders women will often get mislabeled. They're labeled as anxious or scatterbrained or hormonal, which is the bane of my existence. So when we talk about racing thoughts, that's very often associated with anxiety, and in some ways it is.

Caitlin Kindred:

But I, I almost characterize anxiety as like racing thoughts that are also negatively focused. You don't, you're not worrying about like good stuff, that can happen. There's also some intrusivity that comes with that anxiety piece. I think, yeah, and and that happens to me I do have those those anxious, intrusive thoughts. But for me my racing thoughts are like first I have to go do the laundry, but before I can do the laundry I got to pick this up, and then where's my phone? And then, oh, I need a drink, and then like it, just it's all the back and forth and like I do the thing where you take a step forward here, but then you're like, oh wait, I got over. And you know you're kind of looks like you're trying to like juke someone on a basketball court, like you're just going back and forth all the time, like that's what most of my racing thoughts are. They're less doom and gloom and more incessant back and forth, like a ping pong ball or a pinball Right.

Ariella Monti:

Right. I think that is how mine manifests more now. It's the like I got to do this and then I got to do this and I got to do this. And when I think about what it was like when I was younger, or even like like pre child, it was the, the fights you have in your head while you're in the shower, you know, or every argument that you win while you're in the shower, you know, or every argument that you win while you're in the shower, right.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, it's, it's more stuff like that or like oh, I saw a thing on Facebook and now I'm thinking about how I would respond to something like that or like this is. This is where a lot of like like my book ideas ended up coming from, because a thing will trigger a thought and then my brain will just kind of run with it, and that is like all I'm thinking of for the rest of the day.

Caitlin Kindred:

The thinking about how you would respond. That's a pretty common one, and I don't. This isn't like when you were a kid and you would like count the number of paragraphs that you would have to read beforehand. This is like the situation has literally nothing to do with you, but somehow you put yourself in it and then you plan out the argument or conversation or whatever it's that's so that is a wild thing.

Caitlin Kindred:

I hadn't thought about that, but yes, that does happen. Yeah, that is a wild thing. I hadn't thought about that, but yes, that does happen. So the big thing that we're seeing is there's a big crush of content all related to ADHD and people with ADHD. Now, maybe that's just my feed, because I tend to like all of that stuff, but I do think that we're hearing a lot more about it now for a few reasons. So these are kind of the big ones that I have come up with, and you might have other ideas and I'd love to hear them, but here's what I'm thinking.

Caitlin Kindred:

One TikTok therapy is a thing this viral accessibility of content that one reduces the stigma of what it actually is but also is so relatable to so many people. People are seeing themselves in that content and going this is hitting a little bit too close to home. I think this is something I need to explore. I think, in some ways, there was a little bit of this whole spreading myths about what it is in some of the content that I've seen, and that always exists. You have to be careful about the content that you consume online, obviously, but there is quite a large number of content creators who are saying this is what it actually looks like. It's not. It's not that I forgot my keys, it's that I have my keys in my hand and I'm searching the house for my keys and I'm accusing my family members of stealing my keys from me. And they're in my hand. Yeah, yeah, um.

Caitlin Kindred:

The pandemic, I think, has a really big influence on this. I think one people's routines completely shattered during the pandemic and, as someone who thrives on routines an ADHD person in particular thrives on routines. They get bored to death of them, but they do better with them, so just keep that in mind. I think that that exposed a lot of people's hidden struggles with all of these issues. Like they're, they're I can't think of the word because brain what's the word for executive function?

Ariella Monti:

Oh, there it is.

Caitlin Kindred:

Oh, that's right. So when you? But when you're on a routine and you know this is what I'm going to do every day, and then your routine is completely shattered and you can't get anything done, that's a, that's a big shift and people kind of go wait, what's wrong with me? And I think a lot of people were like, well, it's the pandemic, everything's up in the air. We're all confused. It's not that for me. I noticed it after I quit my job, teaching, because teaching is a very regimented schedule. Right During first period I did this. During second period I did that, and eighth period is when I always made my copies and I could only pee during this time of the day. Like you, you had to follow a very structured routine, and then I got started working at home and I could not manage my workload.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah.

Caitlin Kindred:

I couldn't figure out why and I couldn't establish a routine for myself. I need someone else to create the routine for me and hold me to it, and I think that that was a big, big part of it. And in addition to the pandemic shattering routines, you also have people saying during the pandemic you need to take care of your mental health. This is a scary time for mental health. Be aware of what's happening, seek out support, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so people actually started to take it seriously and do that. And they're finding out at 38 that they have this disorder that they've had their whole life, and all of a sudden everything makes sense. And then they go out on TikTok and they talk about it. So you're seeing those things happen at the same time.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, I agree with all of that. The other piece of this is, I think, that there's been a lot of medical progress and we have a long way to go with medical progress here, especially with regard to women. But there is now a better understanding of how ADHD symptoms manifest themselves in women, who often present with that inattentive or combined type, and better diagnostic criteria in general for children too. Right, right, concern almost a blowback of like every every kid who's hyperactive in class has ADHD. So we're not going to diagnose anyone with ADHD for a little while.

Caitlin Kindred:

And I think now that we have better criteria of what that hyperactivity actually looks like, it's it's not being hyperactive, it's that the this impairment that you have actually impairs your everyday function. Right, hyperactivity is fine if it's not, if it's not messing with your everyday life, but when it is affecting your ability to learn or do your job or be a nice human, any of those things, it's time to get help. And there's also more openness I think some of it's coming from Gen Z and maybe even some millennials too about being willing to talk about mental health when that wasn't a thing that boomers or generations before really did talk about, of that not really talking about it so much. I think they're kind of coming along for the ride, though with with millennials in that sense. But I think there's some generational influence making it more prevalent in society now too, and that means more people are going to go seek answers. Now that we're talking about it.

Ariella Monti:

Yep, I think some of it is also people our age, so in like their 30s and their 40s, a lot of us who, because it's genetic, our kids are getting diagnosed. And it was not just a couple of friends starting challenges that my child had I also had, and I think that's part of it too, I think with more, with the better diagnostic criteria, and then you've got the kids getting diagnosed. And then you've got the kids getting diagnosed and now we know for sure that it's genetic. When the kids were getting diagnosed the parents are like, oh, maybe.

Caitlin Kindred:

Well, I mean, that's what happened to me, that's what happened to me. I mean I was like, oh my gosh, my six. So they tend to not, they don't diagnose kids before age six. And my son was six and like a couple of weeks and we were like, look we, we got to find out and we did. And if it was obvious, when he was that little, the apple didn't fall far from the tree and we know it's not my husband. So, yeah, so I'm looking at all these symptoms and going yeah, that's a little too.

Caitlin Kindred:

This is uh-huh, yep, yeah, uh, check, check, check, check, double check. Oh my gosh, this is my life. Everything makes sense.

Ariella Monti:

It's the most validating feeling too, to have that, but you're right.

Caitlin Kindred:

I think that's a big piece of it, this whole openness and better criteria and people seeking answers and getting it for their kids.

Ariella Monti:

That advocacy is now turning into self-ad of it too, because we do know that your cycle does impact your ADHD symptoms and, with more of us entering, like, our late 30s, early 40s and hitting perimenopause, when our hormones are starting to go bananas, that's going to have an impact on our symptoms. So symptoms that we have, maybe, were able to handle or didn't know that they were symptoms, are now not allowing us to function in in every day. So it's like oh well, like what's wrong with me, and like one you know again, like now you're.

Caitlin Kindred:

One thing leads to another and I think that is playing a role as well, I would agree with that, and I think that's one of the areas I think we need a lot more research into. Is we? We know that phases of a woman's cycle you're going to experience better symptom management versus much poorer symptom management, and I think it would be very beneficial. As women, our age, I think we need to be doing more than just cracking. I think we need to be sharing what this looks like, to see kind of what's going on here. But that is a fascinating point. I hadn't thought about it that way either. Yep, yeah, all that to say that if you've ever lost your phone, that doesn't mean you have ADHD, but if you've lost it while it's been in your hand, that doesn't mean you have ADHD, but if you've lost it while it's been in your hand, let's let's you and I have a conversation. Yeah, before we wrapped sort of this basic intro, which and we'll do we're doing a series on this, so you're going to get more information about this whole thing I wanted to share a few of my favorite Instagram accounts and I'm sure you'll have some too or TikTok accounts that that have really great ADHD content. Some, too, or TikTok accounts that have really great ADHD content. I really like Instagram accounts for this because it's very easy to go for, especially for an ADHD person to go down a rabbit hole here. But these bite-sized bits are often all I have the bandwidth to absorb, so that's why I'm saying let's look at this.

Caitlin Kindred:

One of my favorites is ADHDewers. They share memes, but they also share helpful tidbits of information, which is great. One of my favorites is ADH Doers. They share memes, but they also share helpful tidbits of information, which is great. One of my favorites who does not get enough credit, I don't think is Coaching with Brooke. She has amazing content and you're going to hear all kinds of content from Coaching with Brooke because she has so many actionable tips. One that I found so helpful that I actually had to comment and say like I use this and this is a life changing tip for me. Thank you so much. The other that I really like is Alex Partridge Alex Partridge 100. And there's Alex underscore Partridge, underscore 100. He is the founder of Unilad. Have you heard of that?

Ariella Monti:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, he's the founder of Unilad. Have you heard of that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's the founder of Unilad. He just wrote a book, he's got a podcast that is ADHD related and he has this one post that I it's pinned in his profile if you go find it, but it's like how to spot a woman with ADHD in 25 seconds or less. And it was one of those moments where I was like, oh, oh, this hurts me, I'm gonna start to cry. Oh, this is too real. Oh, my goodness. And I had to put it down for a second before I watched it like six more times, but I legitimately had tears in my eyes because I was like this man is nailing this. But anyway, those are a few good ones.

Caitlin Kindred:

We're gonna come back in just a minute and talk about our hyper fixations and things we finally got done this week. So stick around we'll be right back for links to resources mentioned in this episode. Head on over to ckngkpodcastcom slash blog to find everything you need, and be sure to follow us on social media. Head over to your favorite social media network and find us at CK and GK podcast. And now back to the show. All right, we're back, do you? Instead of an obsession we're going to call it a hyper fixation which is more than an obsession this is. It becomes your life for the next 47 hours, and then you buy all the things and then, when all the things show up, the dopamine's gone and you move on to a new hobby. That's my experience, pretty much, pretty much. Okay, what's yours?

Ariella Monti:

right now. Well, I've got to say that lately, the past 24 hours, my hyper fixation has been Pope Leo and finding out he's a white socks fan guys. Oh, really so happy.

Ariella Monti:

yeah, yeah, you know the as a former catholic, but somebody who remains culturally catholic, I guess, um, I was more invested in the Pope choosing than I thought I was going to be and yeah yesterday I got just about no work done because I was like I need to know more about this person and if it's, if he's going to make things better, worse or you, you know about the same, or you know like, I'm fine with this status quo is about what I would expect from the church.

Caitlin Kindred:

yeah, yeah, I'm with you um, I, I have feels about this. It's super cool that this is a like chicago, south chicago, born and bred pope. Like that is a very awesome thing 267 popes and not one of them has been american, so so that's kind of a big deal. I get the sense that he's gonna be his own dude, uh, and do his own thing, which is kind of great. But he's also of a similar order I don't want to say similar because I don't know how similar he is but like he's of one of those orders of of catholicism where you, there's a very big emphasis on marginalized groups of people. So I'm optimistic. Um, yeah, but I think he'll. I think he'll tow the party line for the most part, but I'm with you, I, I like him, I'm so far. I'm happy.

Ariella Monti:

So that is what I've been, you know, hyper-focused on anytime I'm on the internets and I anticipate it being my hyper-focus for maybe another 24 hours, and then I'll be over it and I will move on to something else.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, that sounds about right. I like that one, though that's a good one. I don't know that I have a particular hyper fixation right now. I did have a hyper fixation yesterday with work.

Caitlin Kindred:

I was very invested in making this is so dumb in making a table of contents page. A table of contents like piece of code on a web page where you can click the thing and go and scroll to the next part of the article that you want to read. I was very invested in making it sticky, which means that it scrolls with you, so you scroll and then it just stays there right next and I I am frustrated because on one page on our website it's sticky, and on another page on our website which sticky. And on another page on our website, which I had, I cloned the original page it's not sticky and I don't know why. So I got real. I'm very invested in figuring out why, and I may or may not have broken something in the process, but I did go fix it. So, jim, if you're listening, I fixed it. I swear, but I did, I did. I did break a little something. So, oopsies, it's fine. It's fine, it's fine. It's fine, it's all fine, it's fine, it's back to normal now it's fine. Fine, yeah, totally.

Caitlin Kindred:

That was my hyper fixation, though is is like fiddling with the website and trying to get it the way that I want, but, yeah, okay, did you accomplish? So? One of the other things we talked about is task avoidance Anything that's going to take too much focus and effort. So did you accomplish anything Instead of your gem? Did you accomplish anything this week?

Ariella Monti:

I registered my car six months late. No, no, not six months late. I take it back. Not six months late. No, no, not six months late. I take it back. Not six months late. I registered my car only two months late. Three, how could you get away?

Caitlin Kindred:

with driving. How did you not get ticketed Like?

Ariella Monti:

luck. I don't know. I got nothing. The ADHD angels were looking out for you. Yeah, I mean like I. I back in January, I did get my car inspected two months early, which is well within like range for it, and I was like yes, look look at me, I'm an adult, I am doing great, I am winning, yep. And then I never. And then I kept forgetting I just kept putting off yeah, no, I mean, the worst was a year and a half late during covid but they also well, during covid they they expand, like they extended it so, like they gave you like a buffer year or something.

Ariella Monti:

So technically it was only like six months, but that was the time that I did get pulled over and the cop was like your cars needs to be. I'm, like I know, covid child and so I did it it literally took me two minutes. It took me two minutes on the online. It took me two minutes, but it I got the sticker. I put it on my license plate and everything.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, but it doesn't take two minutes. It takes the time you have to go get the inspection and like there's more to it. That's the piece about it that I think people don't understand with ADHD is that it's not just, it's the work between the work, it's all of the teeny, tiny little steps that have to make something happen before you can accomplish anything.

Caitlin Kindred:

It's not just, it's the work between the work, it's all of the teeny, tiny little steps that have to make something happen before you can accomplish anything. It's so frustrating. Right, right, right, totally.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah totally yeah. So mine is speaking of that. I talked to my boss the other day and the thing I accomplished was that we are going to, from here on out, say progress is wellness Because, as I mentioned, it's not the work, it's the work between the work. It's not just getting a blog post live, it's writing the blog post, getting it approved, making all the graphics, designing the page so that it works properly. It's making oh, this file doesn't fit properly, got to remake the files. Now I have version one, two, three, four.

Caitlin Kindred:

It's all of the little things that go into what looks like a really easy thing getting done, crossing it off your list.

Caitlin Kindred:

And so, as nutso as it sounds, what our, what we accomplished was, we're going to set up. We have a task manager and we're just going to set it up so that you can see the progress, and we're going to put in every little subtask and we're going to, that way you can see the progress, and it's going to be so much better for both of our mental health, because we feel very overwhelmed by all the things that are on our plate right now and yet we are accomplishing things. It just looks like you're not because you can't cross the big thing off just yet, right? So, yeah, when I look at what I accomplished this week, I actually can cross some things off my list, because I did get things done, because I can see that. You know what I mean. I can see all the little stuff. So that's my, that's. My accomplishment is that I can't. I can't cross off any big things, and that's okay, but I can cross off a bunch of little things. I'm going to yeah, I'm going to accept that progress is wellness.

Ariella Monti:

Yes, I agree.

Caitlin Kindred:

That works. So okay. Well, this has been, I personally think, a very helpful conversation for myself. I think so. I hope you see yourself in this. I hope it feels validating. I hope that, if you do see yourself in this and you don't have a diagnosis, that you reach out to someone who can help you check out those creators on Instagram and see if any of them resonate with you. If they do, again, please go find someone who can be supportive, and I think that's all for today.

Ariella Monti:

Yeah, yeah, oh, and we are not doctors or mental health professionals. That is a very excellent point. Yeah, we forgot to say that because you know ADHD.

Caitlin Kindred:

Please seek professional help Right, not us.

Ariella Monti:

Not us. We are just sharing information. Go see somebody who went to school for this stuff and the ADA. Yeah, go see a real doctor not me. Yeah, I mean, at least you've got a bachelor's in Science. Yeah, it's a real doctor, not me. Yeah, I mean, at least you've got a bachelor's in Science.

Caitlin Kindred:

Yeah, it's a science. Yeah, I suppose that counts, but it's not a doctor. No, I'm not a doctor. Okay. So, as Jenny would say, make good choices. And I'm going to ask one more time for you to vote for me for the Women Podcasters Awards. The link is in the show notes, at the very top, right underneath, where it says send us a text. It just says vote for me. So please do that, because I want external validation. Okay, exactly.

Ariella Monti:

Bye, bye.

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Caitlin Kindred

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Jenny GK

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