ADHD in Women: Late Diagnosis, Medication Rules, and Real-Life Coping

In this episode of Steel Roses Podcast, I’m sharing my adult ADHD diagnosis journey and what it felt like to connect the dots after my kids began the ADHD evaluation process for school support. We talk about what ADHD can look like in women, the gap between doing well in school and still struggling, and the coping strategies I used growing up, including flashcards, memorization tricks, and working twice as hard to keep up.

I also get honest about the frustrating barriers to ADHD medication, including in-person appointment requirements, long drives, work conflicts, and the admin burden that can make treatment feel overwhelming before it even starts.

Then I share what is helping me right now: short daily morning workouts with my husband. Keeping exercise to 20 minutes has made it sustainable, and I’m noticing better focus during the day while I continue to navigate hormones, weight gain, diet, and women’s health.

If you are weighing ADHD medication, exercise, lifestyle changes, or a mix of supports, this episode is an honest look at building something that actually fits real life.

Transcript

Welcome And Why We’re Here

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, this is Still Roses Podcast. This podcast is created for women by women to elevate women's voices. I am so, so happy to be with you

Realizing ADHD Runs In Family

SPEAKER_00 0:08

today. Uh, so I wanted to pick up where I left off with like sharing um my journey with ADHD, getting diagnosed, like what's what's happening now. Now, I have some complaining to do, um, and it pertains to our healthcare system and how things work, which is incredibly frustrating, but not healthcare system in general. But any case. So I had shared earlier this year that in going through the diagnosis journey with my children for ADHD, so that I can make sure they have the appropriate education support in place for them. I discovered, you know, I saw a lot of symptoms in myself that I see in my kids and that they're getting diagnosed. ADHD is actually hereditary. So it's one of those things that's like, well, as soon as they started getting diagnosed, I was like, well, hold on a minute. Like, if it's hereditary, where is this coming from? And since I saw so many through lines, I was like, you know what? Let me be the one to get tested. Let's figure this out. Because there was a lot of struggles that I was having. So I go ahead and get myself tested and comes comes out that I do have ADHD, right? So I tell my dad this. He's totally shocked. He's like, no, there's no way you were so good at school. And I'm like, yeah, but was I? Was I? Because I had to really work hard to get good grades. Like, this isn't like something that came really easily to me. I had a lot of friends that would just listen in class and take tests and do well. And they did had no need to really dive into studying and, you know, memorization, all that stuff. Whereas I always had to memorize things. I always had to study. There really was no getting around it. Flashcards were my friend. And the way that I studied was very much in the ADHD line of I was memorizing things. I was really good at remembering, developing mnemonic memorization devices and making myself remember stuff. Understanding it may have been something else, but remembering it, I could make that happen. And my diagnosis may be a little bit different for ADHD. Perhaps I didn't have it at nearly as severe as maybe my son or my daughter. Maybe it was a little bit less. I know I struggled significantly with math. Reading came very easy to me, but math was like, you may as well be speaking another language. I just can't handle it. Now, the ADHD, the reason why the things that I noticed as an adult was that I was having really, a really, really hard time focusing.

Telemedicine Limits And Medication Rules

SPEAKER_00 2:16

I would have days where it felt like I couldn't even string two sentences together. Um, there was days, there's been days where I am jumping from task to task so quickly that I'm not actually finishing anything. And then I like really just kind of get confused as to what I'm doing. And then I'm like frozen and I cannot do anything. That subsided quite a bit. So I'm gonna explain what's been going on. But that that was like really the that was what's pushed me to go and get the diagnosis. Now I'm an advocate for medication as needed. I work in pharma, so obviously I'm an advocate for pharmaceuticals. However, as needed, like for example, my kids, I'm not giving them anything. They're gonna get the appropriate guard rolls and plays for their education. They're starting their tutoring this week with their special education teacher. She's gonna tutor them for the whole summer. We're gonna make sure they're ready to rock for the fall. Now, for me, yeah, there was the, you know, the scattered brainness, which actually is happening real time right now because I completely lost my train of thought on where I was going with this. But in essence, I needed to have something, right? So I was gonna lean into medication. So I tell this to my the nurse practitioner that was working with me. And there's these guidelines where if you want to get medication for ADHD, you actually do have to physically live see somebody. Now, I was going through telemedicine, I was visiting with this person over the course of a few weeks to get diagnosed. And then at the end of it, he did tell me that, like, well, we'd have to leave me live. Now, the barrier here is that the office location, which I did not know, is in is about an hour and a half from my house. For me to get to the office location to go for my live meeting, which would have to have happen every three months. I would have to take a whole day off of work. And I'd basically be gone for the day. Like, I would just be gone for the whole day. There is no like workaround for it. I would just be gone for the day. And I can't wrap my head around that. I can't lose a whole day just for that. And now you might be thinking to yourself, but Jenny, like, you need this. Like you've talked about this, you need this medicine, like you need to go and figure this out for yourself. I don't want to lose one whole day. To me, losing an entire day every three months is it's a daunting task because of the amount of things I have going on, which you've heard in my prior episode, like how things get out of control for me. So I came to the conclusion that I cannot continue with this practitioner that I was working with.

Admin Tasks And The Local Provider Hunt

SPEAKER_00 4:26

I'm gonna have to find someone local. Herein lies the rabbit hole. Because when something like this happens, now I made sure that I got this, you know, this professional on the line, I got my appointment set up. It is very hard for me to take time to do these minor admin tasks that you have to do as an adult because from nine to like seven-ish, Monday through Friday, I'm working and offices aren't open on Saturdays and Sundays. So it's like, when am I supposed to do these things? I physically actually have to, on my list of tasks for work, I also need to have like a personal list on the side that says, like, Jetty, you really need to get your ish together. So that's the current challenge is that I'm like, I really wanted to go on medication. I thought it'd be really helpful, especially since I have really, really wonderful, amazing work happening at my job. Like I'm very proud of what's happening with my work and I'm very excited about it. And so I thought to myself, I really want to get medication before these work streams start because I really want to be top of the line, Jetty. I want to really hit the ground running. Now, what has happened is that instead of hitting the ground running, I am more so hitting, well, I instead of hitting the ground running via medication, I seem to have tapped into a different method that has been helping quite a bit.

Weight Changes Diet Caution And Hormones

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Now, I'm gonna say this next statement. And for those of you that know me, you're gonna be like, what the hell is happening? I had also, while this is all happening, noted that I gained some weight over the past year. And I've been making sure I'm eating really healthy to combat this, right? Diet is always the first place that I start because dieting for me is very easy. Unfortunately, it's a slippery slope because of my former eating disorder. So I do have to be very cautious when I diet, not to get too in my head about the number and and what's happening. And I know, and I was noticing, you know, especially I I'm assuming so I made a couple assumptions. I made an assumption that yes, while I probably had a hand in gaining some of the weight, it could also be hormonal. It could be because of Schlind, the birth control I'm taking for, you know, my hormones. There could be a couple of factors that are feeding into it. Predominantly, I think it's because I don't have as much muscle mass as I should

Daily Workouts As A Focus Strategy

SPEAKER_00 6:27

have. So I started working out with my husband and using him basically as my personal trainer. So every morning now, as soon as school let out, for the past, I want to say two weeks or three weeks, we've been working out together every day. He's been doing weight training with me. We're having a lot of fun working out together, and he keeps it to about 20 minutes because he knows that, like, if he starts depressed past 20 minutes, first not for some reason, my anxiety goes up because I start to get in my head about all the other things that are on my, you know, task list to get done. This is a constant problem that I have. So, in any case, I'm working out every single morning. Now, I have noticed that in working out every single morning, I haven't had as many issues focusing during the day. I know that's an annoying revelation. It's legit, and I'm pretty sure there's research to back it up that when you have ADHD, exercise is actually something that's really helpful to you. So now I'm exercising every day, and I feel less of an urgency to get on medication because I am exercising every day. So it's helping with keeping my brain focused during the day, which is like crazy to talk about. So in the mornings, instead of meditating, and instead of hopping online early to get work done, which is also something I like to do, I'm meditating. That's or excuse me, I'm exercising. I'm waiting to see how this plays out physically for me. I'm hoping that with building muscle mass, it will help my metasol my metabolism speed up more and thus help me lose weight. I also am looking to tone. I there's just so much to it. So we'll see how it goes. I'm gonna continue doing this. I think that with my kids' school schedule changing to earlier next year, this is actually gonna be feasible for me to just maintain and continue doing. And my husband is a great motivator, so it's just kind of a one-win

Next Steps Updates And Goodbye

SPEAKER_00 8:10

for me. But yeah, so that's my ADHD journey in a nutshell. I will keep you updated if I do decide to go the medication route. I think I probably will eventually, but I have to find time to find another practitioner down my knee. I hope you all are having a great week. I greatly, greatly appreciate you guys hanging in there with me. I'm so excited to be back and um I have more great topics to come now that I've dug out of the hole of where was Jenny in June. I hope everyone is having a great summer and I'll catch you on the next one. Take care.