E62 - Returning to Uni with late diagnosed ADHD - The Hidden World of Women

In this weeks episode of the Hidden World of Women, Emma is joined by Serena. Serena is one unit away from completing her masters in counselling and was diagnosed with ADHD when she was 54. While this episode was going to focus on studying and careers with ADHD, in true ADHD fashion we went everywhere! This episode talks about Serena’s path to diagnosis, her experiences as a child of a mother with ADHD and what it’s like starting a new career pathway in your 50’s. One subject Serena talks about in depth are the ways in which women are often more expected to mask and hide their ADHD symptoms due to the societal expectations on how a woman “should” behave. At 57 Serena is still unlearning those masking behaviours and marvels at her youngest daughter who doesn’t seem to have learned them while she and her eldest daughter learned ways to modify her behaviour to fit within a the expected mould. Young boys are expected to be hyperactive, fidgety, athletic and to take part in risk taking behaviour and it’s theorised this is why young boys are less likely to hide their ADHD traits. It’s the disruptive nature of external ADHD symptoms that get children diagnosed early, while Serena internalised her symptoms and got comments on her report like “Serena needs to focus more but she’s a pleasure to have in class” which resulted in her learning to look like she was listening rather than actually developing the skills to listen and learn. Serena talks about her academic career and the ways it has been shaped by her ADHD. In her life she’s jumped from passion project to passion project and had found she often wouldn’t work within the area afterwards. It’s only now she’s diagnosed and treated her ADHD that she feels like counselling will stick for her and that she’ll continue doing it after she graduates.

 

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