ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

Women are 4 times more likely to go undiagnosed than men when it comes to ADHD. This may seem surprising, but when you think about it really… is it? Girls tend to be brought up with greater focus placed on controlling emotions, learning how to keep them bottled up until in privacy, to closely observe all social cues, rules and niceties so as to be pleasant company. Essentially, neurotypical or not, girls are taught ‘masking’ techniques to the point where as adults, it comes naturally. Masking or camouflaging is artificially performing social behaviour that is deemed to be more socially acceptable (by neurotypical standards) or hiding behaviour that might be viewed as socially unacceptable. This. Is. Truly. Exhausting.

To the wider community, verbalising your struggle with “keeping up appearances”, if I