Why Did I Only Discover I Had ADHD at 52?

I always thought the way my brain worked was just who I was.

The dancing, the daydreaming, the multiple tabs open in my head, the procrastination, the sensitivity to criticism. I thought everyone was like that to some degree.

It wasn't until I went through perimenopause that things started to change. It was like the mask I'd been wearing without even knowing it started to drop away, and suddenly I could see just how much I'd been masking to appear "normal."

In this episode, I talk about growing up with ADHD without knowing it, what happened when perimenopause entered the picture, the shit show that followed, and what happened when I finally got diagnosed and tried medication.

I also talk about the unexpected upside of getting older: caring a whole lot less about what other people think and becoming much more comfortable with my own agency and autonomy.

This is my experience. It might be yours too. Or it might not.

Either way, let's talk about it.

Thanks for listening to The Shit Show.

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https://adhdmenopausehub.com/

Transcript

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I really wanted to talk about my experience of having ADHD and going through perimenopause. I don't know if my experience is the same as other people's. Maybe, maybe not. But there were certainly indicators when I was a child that I might have had ADHD. I'm surprised none of my teachers recognized it. But I guess being a girl, and I can only speak from my experience growing up in New Zealand, it was boys who were more focused on, particularly the characteristics that boys with ADHD tended to display. But I remember as a kid, I was crazy in the 80s. I was crazy about solid gold, the TV program Solid Gold, and I visualized myself as a solid gold dancer. In fact, even as a seven-year-old, I knew all their routines. I would dance around the house, dance at school, and my parents would just look at me. Dad would say, Okay, sit down now. You're making the floorboard shake. Or, we're trying to watch TV, sit down now. And it's funny because even now, as an adult, I still have those outbursts of external hyperactivity where I'll dance and do pirouettes down the hallway, jump up and do the splits. Just for context, I'm going to be 53 in September. So yeah, really funny little things like that. Another thing was that I was always getting told off for daydreaming. I would daydream all the time. I'd be sitting at school, and if it was boring, I'd sit there thinking, this is so boring, I want to be somewhere else. And I'd start to daydream. So I had inattention even from that young age, and it was often written in my school reports. Daydreams a lot. I got told off for daydreaming as I got older, as a teenager. And for me, growing up, those behaviors were just normal. I thought that's just how I was. I thought everybody else was like me, or different variations of those characteristics. It wasn't until I started going through perimenopause that I realized how much I had been masking to appear normal. And I think that's the thing. Once you start going through perimenopause, it's like the mask drops away and suddenly you have the real person underneath it. The way I think now when I look back is that my mind was like a computer with all these tabs open. I'd have all these little tabs open and I couldn't concentrate on one thing at a time. I was always doing multiple different things because all these tabs like a computer were open. And again, I just thought everybody else was like that. I started my PhD around about the time when I first started going through looking back now, perimenopause and I remember thinking Fuck, this is really hard. I know a PhD is supposed to be hard, but this seemed like climbing up a huge mountain wearing high heels. That's how it seemed to me. That's how it felt at the time. And then all of the perimenopause stuff started up. The bad sleeping. I don't know about anybody else, but my scalp and the tops of my ears would get so itchy that I'd scratch them until they were bleeding and I just couldn't stop. I got acne on my back that I'd never had in my life. I didn't even have acne as a teenager, and suddenly I was getting acne on my back. I found it harder to lose weight, even though I was exercising and had a reasonably okay diet. But all of a sudden, I had this stomach that was bigger than I'd ever had before, and it was like what the hell is happening to me? My dad died in 2023. He passed away, and I was right in the middle of perimenopause. And just before he passed away, I remember being angry I mean angry, but abnormally angry at life, at everything, at everyone. I remember my husband talking, and I wanted to stab him with a fork. And in my mind, I was thinking Shut the fuck up. Stop talking. Stop talking now. And I thought this is not me. I'm not like this. I'm a pretty placid person normally, unless I get annoyed about something. And I'm pretty chilled. And yeah, it was like this version of me that I'd never seen before. Combined with the ADHD that I was no longer masking, it was a perfect storm for a shit show and that's what it was. The first year or two after Dad passed away was really bad. A couple of months towards the end of 2023, I started on hormone replacement therapy. And for me, that made things a lot better. I wasn't having those extreme mood swings, but I still had the open tabs in my mind. I had the internal and external hyperactivity. And I don't know about anybody else, but I've always been extra sensitive to criticism. I'm a perfectionist by nature, but any bit of criticism, all of a sudden I couldn't just brush it off. I would take it to heart. I remember somebody saying something about me at work when I was working at a university and I was so upset for about two days afterwards. And yes, it wasn't very nice, but it shouldn't have been or normally wouldn't have been that big a deal to me. So I became highly sensitive to any kind of criticism. I found out later that this is a typical ADHD characteristic or behavior. And yeah, it really kind of shocked me and surprised me. I also found editing really difficult, so I was working at a university, marking students' assignments, and I was fine reading through them. I could get the main ideas of what they were writing about, provide them with feedback and give them next steps to help with their learning. But if I had to do any kind of editing, like commenting on their grammar or punctuation, I would just struggle to get motivated. It was those little details that I would procrastinate about because I just didn't like doing them. I would put it off and put it off, and I had to hand the stuff in on time, so I was really struggling with the deadlines. It was just a whole lot of things all happening at once. And yeah, I read an article, and it kind of triggered some thinking for me. I thought to myself, I wonder if I've got ADHD. I wonder if it would be worth finding out. So I went to the doctor and we had a conversation. He said, I think you could have ADHD. What would you like to do about it? And I said, Well, I'd like to try medication and see if it makes a difference. So I tried medication, I got put on stratera, and I knew that it takes a little while to work, but it made such a difference. After a couple of weeks, I could notice the difference. In the mornings, I was really focused. And it was really weird. It was like all of a sudden I could focus on one thing at a time. It was like all those tabs in my mind had all closed, and there was just one tab at a time. I suddenly became less sensitive to criticism. I don't know. I mean, this could be an all in my mind thing. Who knows? But it was like I suddenly was able to brush things off, like I used to be able to do in the past. So for me medication made such a difference. It's not perfect. I'm about to try a different medication because the downside to Stratera that I found is that in the afternoon I'm just so tired. I have to have a nap almost every day by about four PM. I'm really, really tired. And yeah, I sleep a lot more than I used to. I know some of it will be perimenopause. I don't know about anybody else, but I go to sleep okay. It's staying asleep that's hard. I'll have times at two AM when I'll wake up and I'm having an anxiety attack, or I'm just stressed about something. And I'm like what is this? I've never had that before. Pretty crazy. The biggest thing for me going through perimenopause and navigating ADHD, and one thing that's really cool, and it could be an age thing, is that I no longer give a fuck about anything that doesn't resonate with me. I don't care about trying to be a people pleaser. I do things now because I want to do them. I'm not interested in peer pressure or doing things because other people want me to. My agency and my autonomy now are really high, and that's a really positive thing for me. Yes, we're older and we've had this shit show of ADHD and perimenopause, but the flip side has been that I no longer care about what other people think, say or do. If I want to stay home, which, let's be honest, I don't know about anybody else, but I love being at home. I love staying at home, and I'll tell you, my favourite place at the moment is being in bed. I love getting into bed, especially in winter when I've got my electric blanket on. I hop into my bed, and it's nice and warm and cozy, and I've got a good book to read, and I eventually want to get a cat. So that would be nice to have a cute, fluffy cat to cuddle up with as well, but I just love being in bed, and I love being at home, and I don't care about going out anymore. So yeah, it's a journey. And I think my biggest takeaway for this episode is to just do what resonates with you. Don't give a fuck about pleasing anybody else. You are a strong woman, and yeah, just be strong in your own identity and do what makes you happy. So, yeah, I would love to hear your feedback and hear about your journey as well. Feel free to drop a comment or send me an email or message, and I will respond. Take care.