Episode 6: ADHD in Girls: The Hidden Signs We Miss

In Episode 6, Jannine is joined by her daughter and colleague, Becca Channon, for a personal and research-informed conversation about ADHD in women and girls.

Becca shares the focus of her psychology dissertation, which explored ADHD, sex-based social expectations, and attitudes towards traditional and egalitarian roles. Together, Jannine and Becca reflect on why girls with ADHD are so often overlooked, how hyperactivity may be missed when it appears in socially acceptable ways, and how shame can build when women are expected to manage time, organisation, birthdays, homes, emotional labour, and relationships in ways that may not match their neurobiology.

The episode explores the hidden signs of ADHD in girls, including masking, helpfulness, movement, daydreaming, anxiety, perfectionism, time blindness and trying very hard not to be seen as a problem. Jannine and Becca also consider how the same behaviour may be interpreted differently depending on whether it is seen in a boy or a girl.

Importantly, this conversation also explores the impact on boys, particularly those who are identified early but then treated as “naughty” rather than supported. Becca reflects on watching her twin brother being repeatedly misunderstood, while also learning to mask her own ADHD in order not to be treated the same way.

This episode challenges the idea that rising ADHD diagnoses represent “overdiagnosis”. Instead, it asks whether many women, girls, and quieter or more compliant children are finally being recognised after years of being missed.

A thoughtful, honest and deeply personal conversation about ADHD, shame, diagnosis, masking, social expectations, and the relief that can come from finally understanding yourself.

Transcript

Jannine Perryman 0:01

Welcome to ADHD Wise Podcast. I'm Janine Perryman, and this is a space for open conversations about ADHD and neurodiversity, bringing together lived experience, professional insights, and the questions that help us move forward. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here. Hello everyone, and thank you for joining ADHD Wise Podcast again. My name is Jannine Perryman, and today I am joined by the beautiful inside and out Rebecca. Becca, um, who is my daughter and amazing colleague. Hello, Becca. Hello, thank you very much for having me.

Becca 0:43

I'm um yeah, feeling very excited. Are you excited or are you nervous? Oh, I'm nervous, yeah. I'm not sure why, but yeah.

Jannine Perryman 0:54

I think it's always nerve-wracking to come on and talk about something. I know you're you actually really know your stuff on this, um, because we're going to talk about women and girls and neurodiversity, but ADHD in particular, because that's what you did your research on. Um so even though you're knowledgeable, it's kind of completely understandable that you would feel anxious in this situation, because that's what we do, isn't it?

Becca 1:15

Yeah, and a bit of imposter syndrome of oh, I hope that I I don't like, you know, misspeak and say something wrong about my own research, which is obviously the completely unique research, because when you do a dissertation, you've become the person who knows the most about that particular topic. As is the idea.

Jannine Perryman 1:37

Yeah. Um, so you do know what you're talking about on this, but I totally understand that you're nervous. So we're just going to go through it nicely and um give people what we need. Remembering the north star of this podcast is what do people need to know from you right now? Okay, so that is the thing. And you know some stuff. And the reason I know you know some stuff is when I had the privilege of reading your dissertation, I found myself laughing out loud. Literally laughing out loud, because I was like, I missed that. I missed that in my own daughter, which means I would have missed that with some students, means I would have missed that clinically as well. Um, and um yeah, do you want to sort of give us a an insight into sort of like what your dissertation was? And also what made you study that particular thing?

Becca 2:27

Yeah, okay, so my dissertation was um, so I I was a psychology student, um, so I did pure psychology, and my research was on um ADHD and gender. So it was more specifically I was looking into people's attitudes towards gender roles and how those differ between genders and between those who have ADHD and those who don't have ADHD, um, with the ultimate idea that that might um explain some of the differences that we see in things like mental health and performance. So when you're doing research, so you look for a gap, right? You look for a gap. And I wanted to do it in about renewadiversity, but um ADHD specifically, I do know a bit more about than other types of university, um, although I am interested in all, and just as part of my work, I've picked up a lot. So that's what I wanted to do, and so I had a look at um the research, and researchers, generally speaking, all agreed that there was an issue with not having studied women and girls enough. So that's what I ended up looking into, and I happened to stumble across a paper which I was really, really interested in, which was um it was sort of it was it was the inspiration for for my research. Um, but it was about how couples, where one has ADHD and one doesn't have ADHD, how they have really, really different gender roles or gender role attitudes. And I thought that was so interesting, and I was really curious why. And there was no research on it other than that at all. So I did it about just people in general rather than couples, um to see whether women with ADHD would have more. I'm gonna use the wording I used in my research, um, which was egalitarian and traditional values, um, as opposites of that spectrum. So um, my hypothesis was that women with ADHD would have the most egalitarian attitudes, and men with ADHD would have the most traditional gender role attitudes. And I had, you know, very limited people and that kind of thing, but it was very, very interesting research. And so much of the benefit that I got from that was understanding other people's research, um, learning what there is about ADHD and gender. And I tell you what, not very much, all things considered. So that was why I did what I did and what made me interested. And yet it taught me a lot, which I would like to share with you. Okay. Can you define egalitarian, please? It usually means um equal. So in all things, but um in this context, meaning uh egalitarian genderal attitudes meaning men and women being v equal, being the same, should be treated the same. So there were all of these different items that I used to decide whether or not someone had egalitarian or traditional attitudes. So traditional is then the opposite of egalitarian in this situation. So traditional gender roles meaning that we're very different.

Jannine Perryman 5:42

Okay, so egalitarian meaning sort of where there's like flexibility in this, whereas traditional is there's a kind of like a set, men do this, women do this, like the blue jobs and the the pink jobs kind of thing. Is that have I got that right? Have I not got that right?

Becca 5:57

Um yeah, and it it was across all sorts of domains. Um but um one example would be like, do you agree or disagree that um that men should be responsible for earning an income for a family? So the egalitarian would strongly disagree that that's a man's role, and the traditional would strongly agree that that's the man's role. So what did you find with regards to that and ADHD? Well, I I didn't conclusively come to any uh to anything because obviously the um most of my research was scientific research. So um there was a lot of stats to it in the end, which I won't bore you with, but um I had a very limited number of people I was allowed to study because of you know ethics of research and all that kind of thing. Um but it certainly aligned with the other researchers um that ADHD women had more egalitarian general attitudes than ADHD men, and that there may be significant differences between ADHD men and men who don't have ADHD and ADHD women and women who don't have ADHD.

Jannine Perryman 7:12

So there was hang on, so just just to clarify, there's differences between the non-ADHD and the ADHD as well?

Becca 7:18

That's the idea, yeah. So my my hypothesis was basically so the the reason that I thought this might happen based on the research I did was um that women and girls internalise a lot, um, generally speaking, and men and boys less so, so um sort of externalise. So the research that I was looking at found that women and girls felt that they belonged in the generalisations. So they viewed themselves as less capable of being leaders and um how they should be more responsible and that kind of thing. Whereas men don't view themselves that way. So my hypothesis was that women and girls having these expectations on them, um, when they have ADHD, those would be really difficult to manage. Things like obviously a woman's role traditionally has been to keep a home and that kind of thing. And ADHD women would find that a lot more difficult. Um, so the idea was that that would then make them go, no, I don't agree with that, because that doesn't suit me. That that's not my experience of the world. Whereas for men with ADHD, where they struggle with that, they might think, Oh, well, that's because I'm a man. That's not my role. That was the idea that I was that I was sort of running with while trying to figure out if that might be a reason for that discrepancy.

Jannine Perryman 8:45

Mm-hmm. Okay, so then looking at the wider research and the things that made me chuckle when you when I was reading, well, not just chuckle, that's understating it. I laughed out loud, um, was because there were some things around what we considered to be hyperactivity, for example, and what m what we think of as hyperactivity in males, and what we think about as hyperactivity in girls. And as my daughter, I completely missed your hyperactivity until I read an explanation of it that had completely passed me by because I wasn't aware of my own my own bias. Do you want to go there with what that was?

Becca 9:23

So the research that I was able to find about this topic, basically there are all sorts of different explanations. Um so we all know it's a sort of like a widely accepted fact, and it is backed up by the research that girls are less likely to be identified when they have ADHD than boys. But there seem to be several reasons for that. Um, one of which being that girls may present in a way that is less problematic in the classroom environment. So they're not causing a problem to others. So it might go unnoticed. Um, so yeah, you know, like the stereotype of girls are more likely to be daydreamers, whereas the boys are more likely to be, you know, bouncing around and not able to sit still. So there's that explanation of it. But actually, what I found was a much more interesting explanation is that they um they did an observational study, I think it was, where they found that actually when they looked objectively at these boys' behavior and the girls' behavior, they were doing the same thing, but the girls' behavior was not seen as being the same as the boys' behavior. So it was almost like because they thought all girls shouldn't be like that, it just wasn't noticed at all. The way that you, you know, looking in front of you right now, you don't see your own nose because your brain is blocking it out. Because that's what your brain thinks to do. But if you look, you can see it. And so that is the idea, that was the idea that these researchers came to was that actually the same behaviour is not perceived the same, and there actually might not be very much difference between the behaviours, but instead it's the way that we perceive it that's different.

Jannine Perryman 11:04

So we sort of like become behaviour blind, like we become, you know, they talk about nose blind when you can't smell sort of we in inhaler smell so often you don't notice it anymore. Is it a bit like behavior is it behavior blind when you might not notice, I don't know, um, a girl get up and and constantly um move around in the classroom would be viewed differently to a boy doing the same thing?

Becca 11:27

Yeah, you probably seek to um find different explanations because um so much of sort of the foundations of psychology is something that we call a schema, which is not a very like complicated thing, but a schema just means like a part a building block in your brain, your thoughts, and your brain thinks that's really important. And I will make decisions based on that information, I will think things based on that information, and it's all about your worldview. So if you think boys are, like you particularly younger boys, are you know, they're they're they're rowdier and they're noisier and they're more aggressive, then that's what you're likely to see because it's what you think you'll see. And so when you see a girl constantly getting up and going to the toilet or whatever, you might think that sh it's for a different reason um than if a boy was doing it. You might think, oh, well, he's he's being disruptive because he's you know he's got ADHD, so he can't possibly sit down. Whereas a girl, you might be like, oh wow, she you know, maybe it's just she's having a bit of a difficult time, or you know, maybe maybe she just needs lots of wheeze, whatever. So it's just seen differently, even though it's the same behaviour.

Jannine Perryman 12:33

The thing that made me laugh was I realised that I had completely missed your hyperactivity. So, for example, it reading your stuff kind of hit me at around the same time as I saw something from somebody else. And what somebody else was saying, which tied very much into what you're also saying, the observation was actually at I think it was Warwick Castle or it was Hampton Court Palace, and this person was um out with their own children because they had children who were not in school. So they were out with their own children, but they are themselves a professional, and they had picked up that there was this group of children, the boys were doing a bit of roundhousing, and the girls were doing cartwheels and handstands, the boys were stopped, the girls were not. And I was reading your research around the same time because actually, is there less risk with roundhousing than there is with handstands and cartwheels in terms of somebody being kicked in the face and whatever else? This I just found completely fascinating because you didn't ever actually, when I think about it. When there was an opportunity to be doing a handstand or a cartwheel, that's what you were doing. And I just thought you were taking your gymnastics seriously. Which you were, but you are also managed, I think I can now reflect that you were managing your activity, your regulation, you're regulating yourself.

Becca 13:53

Yeah, absolutely. And like even in the classroom, obviously I wasn't doing handstand and things in the classroom, but in an attempt to regulate, I realised that I could get up whenever I wanted. If it was because I was offering to hand something out or to go and sharpen some pencils, to take the register, then I was allowed to leave, then I was allowed to move around, then I was allowed to be freely sort of, you know, meeting my own physical activity needs. Um and actually one of them one of the reasons that wasn't seen as a problem was because I was able to do my work faster than the other children in lessons. So there is partly the gendered aspect. There's partly the aspect that I knew that if I was doing it to be helpful, then that would be well received. And there was also the aspect of because I it wasn't causing any difficulty with my academics, no one saw it as a problem. So no one would have even noticed, let alone thought it was an issue, I would imagine.

Jannine Perryman 14:57

Um you found a socially acceptable way of meeting your own needs that probably isn't as available to boys because from your what you're saying is that if a boy was suddenly saying, Ah, can I hand out the pens? Can I sharpen the pencils? Can I do this? Can I do that, it would be viewed differently to a girl asking the same question. Particularly a girl who is of the of the um more academic type.

Becca 15:24

Yeah, I think so. Um particularly because boys with ADHD are often, you know, so they're they're sort of characterized and stereotyped as being you know, there's there's the naughty aspect, but there's also the aspect of like, oh well, even if you know that they have ADHD, you know, they're still they're still in control a little bit and it's on purpose or whatever. And so if they're they then offer to do something, it might be that the teacher thinks, oh well, what's the intent behind that? Why are you doing that? Because I think they don't get these boys don't get the opportunity in a way to learn that kind of skill because they're always in trouble. Um, and so I the one of the reasons that I became such a great masker for the ADHD when I was a child is because both my twin brother and my older sister showed these behaviours, but particularly my twin brother, and he was always in trouble, always, and it seemed horrible. So I just was desperate not to have that same judgment cast on me, and so that's why I found these socially acceptable ways to behave, and I didn't always manage it, but generally speaking, day to day, I wasn't causing a problem in the classroom. Um, but I was having real difficulty by the time I got to secondary school, but I was fine in primary school, but that was because the demand was low, and um so I don't I would say that's probably more of an academic um inclination thing. Because obviously some kids are going to thrive at school, some aren't. Um, and I I did I did thrive academically, but when it became more difficult and when more was expected of me socially and um in terms of you know things like self-care and um organization, that's when I started to really struggle. So there's all sorts of elements that impact whether or not a child is picked up. So I talk about the gender aspect, I research the gender aspect, but there are many more, and that's all something I also explored in my dissertation because it's very interesting.

Jannine Perryman 17:36

It is very interesting, and and um thank you for sharing the the the bit around your your twin brother, my other my son. Um, because he was he was always in trouble. Um and it it it was so hard, actually really, really hard to break that cycle and to get him to like himself and to get others to like him. And I think that if he had stood up and said, Oh, can I hand out the books, I think that he would have been told, No, Bill, sit down. Because they would have wanted to try to control him and that situation because they didn't know what was going to come next, whether they're when conversely they allowed that with you when generally speaking with with women and girls.

Becca 18:10

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the way that Will was spoken about to me by adults, and by adults I mostly mean teachers, but also other adults in our lives is honestly is unacceptable. And I feel like it's I I hope it's not so common now. But particularly because he wasn't actually diagnosed for a fair while. Um, because I mean so I'm I'm 23, so my twin brother's also obviously 23.

Jannine Perryman 18:40

He was 11 when he was diagnosed, so he's now 23. So yeah, that was and and you weren't picked up well, you were picked up by me and by yourself prior to, but we didn't actually manage to get you diagnosed. Were you 15 or 16 when you were diagnosed in the end? I think I was 16. Hmm. I'm pretty sure. We had quite the battle. We had quite the battle, and that was a gender-related issue as well, wasn't it?

Becca 19:06

It was, yeah. Um the the Senko at um at my school, I went to her and said about it, and um she said many, many things, a lot of which I won't go into, but the gender aspect is that she said, so her husband has ADHD. And so her view on what ADHD should look like was that of uh a middle-aged man. And I was a 16-year-old girl, so she she blamed it on my hormones and all of these kinds of things, and she was insistent that there was no way, and she went as far as to lie to a psychiatrist, uh, sorry, to um to my GP, when I when um they asked what my other teachers thought about it, and she said, Well, I've spoken to them all, and they all said that she doesn't have it. And I asked them, and they said, She's never spoken to us. We would have said that you absolutely do show signs of that. And I was so shocked by that behaviour, but it was that she saw what she wanted to see. She saw a teenage girl, I'd been struggling with my mental health because of the difficulty I was having. I do believe it was a lot of it was the undiagnosed ADHD and stuff, um, with you know, GCSEs. But she saw that and she she therefore saw what she wanted to see, and um, and was very, very unkind about the whole thing, obviously. Um fortunately, I was able to get diagnosed before my GCSEs, so there was some support, but not as much as I would have liked. But I still did relatively well. But because I wasn't causing issues in the classroom, I no one was no one was really bothered. But I had a couple of teachers who I was quite close to, um again, because you know, I did things like offer to hand things out and that kind of thing. So it made it quite easy to get on with my teachers. Um, and they were like, Oh no, I yeah, I really do see that for you. And yeah, so that's that otherwise I never would have even thought to ask them. Did she ask you?

Jannine Perryman 21:09

Yeah, and I think sometimes we have to remember that what the adults in our lives teach us is how not to behave. Um, and I'm gonna say um as kindly as I possibly can that this particular individual and this particular professional taught us how not to behave as professionals, right? Um, you know, to to challenge things and to to really think about things. So I think a lot of the reason, well I would assume, but do correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of the reason you chose to uh do this particular research was because of the struggle that you had yourself. So this sort of like facilitates you bringing you making things better for future generations because we can actually recognise what hyperactivity looks like in girls, uh for example.

Becca 21:50

Yeah, absolutely. Um we see now this pushback against uh um well, you the the the uh this sort of crisis about the the um overdiagnosing problem. Uh in diagnosing is overdiagnosing is in quote marks for anyone just listening. But the reason is, you know, a w part of the research that I did was finding out who is now being diagnosed and why that might be. And professionals, generally speaking, they agree a lot of it is just that women are realizing in their adulthood this is why I've struggled my whole life. I see why did no one pick this up for me? And so we know partly why and it seems like that's a lot of the reason is just that girls are now being picked up as children and women are realizing as adults that they can actually that that they can understand what's going on with them and what's always been going on with them.

Jannine Perryman 22:48

Because I was 41 when I was diagnosed with ADHD and actually I think well definitely I I know that if things have been picked up sooner there are um it would my life would have been I probably better there are some things mistakes I made and some situations I found myself in that I probably wouldn't have found myself in if I'd understood myself and liked myself actually sooner. And so I think that you and I are both big advocates for actually being assessed and understanding these things. But there is a huge barrier to assessments and I think that when as people became more aware of course it was going to be the case that there was a higher demand on the diagnostic pathways. Of course there was because you just doubled the amount of people that would be available that would would want to look at it each you know on a month by month basis. But because this is backlog of women and girls we've seen what we have seen and also there were a lot of males who had who have struggled so far and and and were also recognising actually this is probably me this probably explained some stuff for me. So I think that we we it's not really all that surprising that we've seen a massive uptake in um the demand for assessments because people deserve to know and because women and girls have been completely ignored and so have compliant boys. So the ones who are not causing a problem we're suddenly we're we're we're not being highlighted. But we are seeing a pushback now to those stereotypes to those very very very rigid um diagnostic criteria we're seeing a pushback to all of that which I'm really worried about and I'm sure you are too because I think that's going to push women and girls back into the the um the process of not being able to get registr recognized and not being able to therefore get understand themselves and and find support for themselves.

Becca 24:44

You talked about the North Star of this podcast at the beginning and the North Star for my research was that a big part of what I noticed was that there is a mental health gap between women with ADHD and men with ADHD and women with ADHD and women without ADHD. Women with ADHD have worse mental health outcomes significantly worse so that much more than is the difference between men with ADHD and men without ADHD so much bigger gap. And so much of that I I think I hypothesise is because we feel so much shame about what we feel we should be able to do. We are judged more harshly on a lot of things um and so that that was something I wrote about and it causes really really significant issues because there's nothing you can do about you can't shame yourself into being any different than you are and part of the reason that the ability to achieve to um to access diagnosis if it's the path you want to take so for me medication has been life changing so many people don't want to go on it and that's that's totally understandable um but for for me it's made such a big difference in just that I can then do what I want to do. I can think about what I want to do and then I can do it. So I needed that because I don't have um that pressure otherwise to to build that dopamine in me. So if I had a physical job or something I wouldn't require it. But like your twin brother does. Exactly um and that really helps him to regulate himself and when I was at school I largely didn't actually need medication because obviously there was someone there whose job it was to keep me on task but if I had struggled more with the learning I definitely would have struggled more to pay attention but I was paying attention because I was interested and if you're not interested then I can imagine how difficult that would be for these kids and I yeah it makes me really upset to think that some of them are won't be getting the support that they they need and deserve because we've manufactured a a problem of a fake problem. We've invented one.

Jannine Perryman 27:01

Which we don't need to be doing there's big enough problems without actually inventing more. That's what I think okay so just gonna sort of like flip back to something that you said and I was trying to hold it and I've now got to if I don't say it now I'm gonna I'm gonna lose it. You were talking about those those gender roles and the shame associated with them. As a woman I am expected to remember birthdays dates appointments etc I'm expected to be better at those things than um than are as a woman I'm supposed to be and I'm absolutely not because my time blindness is actually disabling I have I have a I have I I would I mean Becky you worked with me how bad is my time blind how bad is my time blindness it's quite profound my time blindness is quite profound and time blindness is not just minutes of the day or how long things take it is date blindness as well so that's an extension of it and I remember um a close family member that it did matter to me having um telling me that and they no one no longer wanted me in their life because I clearly didn't care about them or their children because of my late ness with birthday cards. So this is a family member for who I um I'm bothered about and I remember feeling jazz gutted and knowing he was wrong and that it was not reflection that I didn't care but also having no explanation for that back then. And I remember the guilt and the shame and the loss and the feeling misunderstood and I remember feeling that really very very painfully and then getting my ADHD diagnosis and then kind of like realizing Janine you need to be easier on yourself with regards to this because not everyone's innate ability to recognise perceive hold date time in mind is the same you are on the back foot before you started. Just because people think women are good at these things you're not and you're never going to be there are things that you're gonna do you're gonna have to do this manually because it's gone it's not there for you. And then I had a another family member who is now an ex-family member so this is my ex-mother-in-law and I'm glad that she's my ex-mother-in-law so we were right about that who um who said I wasn't a proper woman because didn't remember birthdays. Now there's gender stereotyping for you but I I just genuinely cannot do it and I'm so so lucky actually because Andy who is my other half he's really good with dates he's really good with time I drive him nuts um and he drives me nuts in return for different reasons um but I can't do it and so if we're going and we're doing anything we have to really talk about the timing and what he's what he's expecting of me and what I'm going to need in order to be able to achieve the timing that he said and he needs to say accurately I'm not somebody you can say oh we're leaving at two o'clock if we're not really actually leaving at two quarter past because that won't work with me once it won't work with me after that because I'll be like well I don't trust you now so I I need people to actually say what they mean and mean what they say because if there's kind of like too much move on that it doesn't work for me anymore.

Becca 30:10

Yeah absolutely the thing the thing with the dates I I lost a a friend because I'd forgotten her birthday and um and it obviously really upset her and she'd never mentioned it and um we were very very close so that like that still upsets me now that that happened and um it makes me very sad that that hurt her. I think she now understands that and that friendship was obviously not meant to be if that's something that's always going to upset her. I am actually pretty good at remembering birthdays usually I think that's why it was such an issue because I really I really try but even when you really try you still sometimes miss them.

Jannine Perryman 30:47

And well it's like colour blindness isn't it if you're colour blind you're always going to be colour blind. If you're time blind you're always going to be time blind.

Becca 30:54

Well yeah quite and I I think in comparison to both my twin brother and my partner now so my partner's diagnosed autistic I think he definitely has ADHD but he hasn't been assessed but the the way that they feel about their obligations to people say at Christmas time or to obviously we we me and my brother have the same parents and I have celebrate you know Mother's Day and Father's Day on behalf of my my partner's parents as well and neither of them think to do anything. But I always would and I would feel really guilty about that but they're like oh it's fine it's fine. And it just it's it's the difference in how you feel about it that creates a big part of the issue. So that was so much of what I of what I researched is that that I I think that causes a lot of the distress that we experience and so I worry about women not being able to access diagnosis and girls not being able to access diagnosis and feeling there's something wrong with them because there's nothing wrong with them. They're just different and that's fine.

Jannine Perryman 32:04

And if you understand what a problem is you can do something about supporting that problem. If you don't understand what the problem is you just feel like you're rubbish human.

Becca 32:13

Exactly and you're not rubbish human you're a lovely human and uh getting my ADHD diagnosis made such a big difference to my self-esteem I I I largely stopped having the mental health difficulties that I was having after like almost immediately after being diagnosed with ADHD because I knew what was going on. It's like oh I see I see and sometimes I do still obviously struggle with shame and whatever because everybody does but I have something where I can go okay I get it. I get why that's happened and that's really important and it's never an excuse for me because you still have to obviously try your best and everyone makes mistakes regardless of being your divergent or not everyone will occasionally forget someone's birthday also. Like that's obviously not an exclusive to us thing but it's the fact that no matter how hard you try you're always going to struggle a lot more with those things.

Jannine Perryman 33:10

It is because it's chronic and pervasive so when we sort of say that everybody can have those things at at times and that we we we're not sort of saying and we don't subscribe to the oh everyone's a little bit autistic or oh everyone's a little bit ADHD we don't subscribe to that at all because to get a diagnosis for say autism or for ADHD you have to have met a really high threshold actually the threshold for ADHD the diagnostic criteria is tight and it's high in order to get an ADHD diagnosis. So if someone has an ADHD diagnosis then they have chronic and pervasive difficulties. A clinician has looked at their case and they have said this person benefits from having a diagnosis because without it they're going to continue to struggle with this, this, this, this and this with it they may be able to secure some support for this or this and so chronic and pervasive is the language around that. So recognising people that just because we're saying that everybody can forget things sometimes people can lose track of time can struggle to estimate time can overshoot can undershoot that's not the same thing as saying everybody is a little bit time blind. We are saying that that little bit of insight that you have when you've got that timing wrong is an indication of what it is like but if you think about what it's like for somebody if that's their way of living that's who they are they are fundamentally that person who is not holding time well versus how you might be when you're under stress or when you're enjoying something or hating something and time gets away from you.

Becca 34:39

Yeah occasionally being late to a social gathering because you've misjudged the time is really frustrating. Imagine that being the case when you like need to go to the toilet between meetings at work or you've gone to get a cup of tea and then you realise you've been 15 minutes because you've just forgotten that the kettle was uh was done and so you've just disappeared and that constant having to be so vigilant because if you're not you'll forget and even if you are you'll still sometimes forget and it's really stressful. Um so for me with with time blindness because I feel so n anxious about being late I'll just get ready fasting in the morning. So I'm ready all day and because if if I don't then I'll I will be late I can guarantee I will be late. If I leave it to how long I think plus a significant amount of leeway I will still not be ready on time.

Jannine Perryman 35:33

They talk about waiting mode don't they? It's like if you've got an appointment at three o'clock you might well find you're paralysed all day long. I think we've learned how to navigate that and part of that is actually get ready put everything there and then move your way through it and use other people to sort of get you back into doing things and set loads of timers. So we're I think quite equipped to it but lots of people say they're in waiting mode and I can certainly be like that sometimes um where it's just like I Dan do anything else.

Becca 35:59

And I do get that but a a big part of the thing for me with having to try so hard not to be late is because if I'm going somewhere with my partner and we show up late everyone's going to assume it's my fault because I'm dressed nice and I have makeup on and whatever but I'm I feel like I have to I feel like that's what I'm meant to do. As a woman obviously I you know I I put my jewellery on but I but I know that people will assume that I'm the one who's late because it looks like I've taken more time to get ready even if it wasn't me. So I try really hard.

Jannine Perryman 36:30

Yeah these are and these are again gender stereotypes aren't they? So if somebody came round and your flat was in a mess it would be you who'd feel the judgment not your partner

Becca 36:39

That was originally going to be um the thing for my research but um I unfortunately couldn't um do the methodology I wanted to do. But yeah exactly that because of that that bias and so you know I'll I'll be cleaning and like my partner be like why why why do you feel like you need to I'm like because when people come here you don't feel like a problem with that because they won't judge you but they will judge me so they're not going to judge I'm like yes they will yes they will so it's going full circle yeah no you're right uh but going full circle to what you said at the beginning which I which even though I've done some I've looked at this research with you is still a difficult concept in terms of people being able to see things and not see things.

Jannine Perryman 37:23

I'm wondering if that might be the ideal ex um ideal um example actually that you would look at a boy's bedroom which could be a mess and because you're expecting it to be a mess you don't notice it is a mess. Whereas you look at a girl's bedroom which might be less messy but you'll look at it and you'll notice that it's mess.

Becca 37:42

Yeah that that was the research that actually inspired me to look at gender differences. And then obviously I was also looking at ADHD but yeah I I was shown that piece of research I think in one of my seminars and it was that people do perceive the exact same room as significantly more messy if it's a woman's room than if it's a man's room. But also as well as thinking oh the room's more messy they have very negative views comparatively on the people. And that'll be why we've got bigger issues with mental health than our male counterparts.

Jannine Perryman 38:21

Yeah and with the rest of the population so we're at higher risk of mental health outcomes um is there anything that males are are higher risk of with ADHD research?

Becca 38:33

yeah um males with ADHD are still more likely to have mental health difficulties and stuff than their non-ADHD counterparts so men without ADHD um so I'm trying not to be too science y but also like you know trying to explain it properly but yeah um the men also have their difficulties and um I mean we've talked actually quite a bit about that about how I I do feel that for men and boys they're often not actually given the opportunity to learn very important skills because everyone's just decided that actually it's it's too much of a pain to to teach them and help them to learn and it's almost like they're a lost cause and I I really I really really resent that like I was saying about the way that Will was spoken about to me as his sister and I was always very defensive of that because I was like why are you saying that to me like that I'm I'm not someone who is just going to listen to you talk to him like that because we were very close actually but I remember our PE teacher he was it was she was his form tutor but my PE teacher she said to me I'd forgotten my PE kit and I did so very rarely because I always had my PE kit. So I was always carrying my P kit even if I didn't have the E because otherwise I knew I'd forget it so it had to just be in my bag. And so when I did forget it she would say to me oh well it's a shame to see you acting just like your brother and things like that. And I was like that's so judgmental and mean like it's it's just not nice because he was only like 12. It was just a 12 year old boy with ADHD struggling and she knew that and yeah that judgment I still remember how that felt not just that it was negative to me but also that they thought that being like him would make me bad.

Jannine Perryman 40:28

And I was like I thought that you would that it would be the last thing that you would want but actually you did you did say at the beginning of this the last thing you would want was to be treated like him but what you didn't say was that you would do the last thing that you would want was to be like him but you just realised that you didn't want to be treated like him so you modified your behaviour in order to to not have that happen. Which is quite sad really isn't it um you know he he wasn't treated right he wasn't treated well um and that it that isn't okay. So you know uh staying sort of um having high expectations for your children but recognising that you might have put different support in place. Having high expectations for yourself but realizing that you might need to do things differently because there'll come a point in your life where you can't just work harder to achieve the same or less so it's like learning to work differently learning to work your ADHD your way um not deciding that a boy not having lower expectations of a boy and not having lower expectations of a girl in certain areas and noticing what hyperactivity looks like. Because for you how would you have described how would you still now describe your a your your hyperactivity ?

Becca 41:45 Speaker 1 41:45 Speaker 1 41:45

I feel like I have an extremely hyperactive brain which is something I think a lot of people with ADHD and maybe more so with ADHD will really relate to it's just that it's it's unbearable. It's just constant so I'm not medicated today um so it's it's really it really is quite something and I just feel like I constantly need to move but I actually am often quite paralysed physically because my brain's telling me to go physically do so many things at once that I actually can't move from the spot I'm rooted to and then when I am up it is nonstop. So I I have um POTS which is a um a heart condition so I'm not really meant to be stood for long periods of time makes me feel really poorly but when I'm up oh I just go I go go go drive my partner nuts um does like a a a tornado breaking around the house and yeah it's like you're just so restless but I am really restless and I feel or it's almost like guilt but it's not quite guilt but it's it's a similar feeling about being sat that I feel like I'm doing something wrong and that there's something I should be doing. I always feel like I'm forgetting to be physically doing something and so I'm always physically doing everything I can and it's really hard.

Jannine Perryman 43:07

So there's social expectation in there but there's also sort of your biological function of needing to move a lot. So it's like I feel like I will sit now and then I'll we'll get off this call for example and we'll probably have a bit of a chit chat afterwards and then we'll both need to just kind of regulate by getting up and moving around which actually is healthy for everybody but the need is higher for ADHD because movement creates dopamine and dopamine makes it possible for us to function better. So um yeah. Okay Becca is there anything else you would like to add before we finish this particular podcast episode.

Becca 43:42

I'd just like to say thank you to um so everyone listening. It's been really fun actually talking about my research because like I don't I don't actually get that much opportunity to do it. I'm extremely proud of my dissertation um I I wouldn't usually say this but I'm going Because I'm really proud of it. I got an 82 on my dissertation, which is the highest I've ever heard of anyone receiving on an undergraduate dissertation. I was so extremely shocked when I saw the grade, but I worked really, really hard on it because I am very, very passionate about this subject. Um, both neurodiversity and AD and gender and how that affects people. Um obviously everyone's exp experiences are really different, but you know, as as much as we can, while obviously having to make generalizations, I this is how I feel it is for me and for so many of the women I know and for so many of the men I know. And it was a real privilege to get to to look into it and to have people be interested. And the fact that I've got to show people it and they've read it and they've and they've enjoyed it and got something out of it means so much to me because that's that's all you can ever really ask for. So thank you for letting me talk about it.

Jannine Perryman 45:02

You're totally welcome, and thank you, Becca. Um, I shall probably get you to write at least a blog. If you're not prepared to put the whole research up, perhaps you could write a blog about it and put up pop it on the website for people. Um, because I think that it would be really good for people to to understand that the way we perceive things is is is um is sometimes narrowed by what we're expecting to see, um, and that hyperactivity in girls can look completely different to how you're expecting it to see, and boys get mistreated too, and that diagnostics, um, diagnostic assessments are it's not really a surprising that there was uh an upsurge, and I don't think that was even a problem, even if there wasn't the capacity to meet the need. We could have included, we could have increased the capacity, but instead we decided to demonize everybody, um, particularly women. So we're not fans of that particular outcome, um, and we're going to keep banging that drum. Um, and uh yeah, thank you very much, Becca. Um, it's very um brave of you to to share that. Uh, and and and I'm grateful that you did. And I hope people are also grateful that you did. And um thank you everybody for listening, and we'll see you on another episode.

Speaker 46:18

Thank you for listening to ADHDwise podcast. ADHD Wise exists to help bridge understanding and support for people exploring ADHD and broader neurodiversity. If you would like to know more about us and our services, please visit www.adhwise.uk. Follow ADHDwiseuk on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Take care and we'll see you next time.