A topic that I speak about a lot is what I call the Foundations of CONNECTION:

• Create a Safe Place
• Observe
• Nonjudgment
• Nod (& Smile)
• Explore
• Challenge Your Own Truths
• Take Your Time
• Innovate
• Own Your Own Story
• Nurture

Since much of the work I do surrounds teenagers & their families, I often speak to these in that context. But really, they apply in any relationship – including the one with yourself.

Last spring/early summer, I started feeling an increasing level of anxiety. I thought it was because my husband and I were going through a tumultuous time – and that was certainly part of it. (OBSERVE)

But then I started noticing that I wasn’t remembering things – I literally forgot to pay my rent on time, three months in a row. I started losing words – words I KNEW that I knew, but couldn’t find. I’d be in the middle of a conversation and felt like I was reaching into the clouds to find words. I remember chatting with a friend who’d navigated a traumatic brain injury, and she said it sounded to her like my symptoms matched her experience. But for the life of me, I could not figure out when I’d had a physical experience that would’ve resulted in a TBI. (More OBSERVE)

Sometime in November or December, I distinctly remember standing in my living room, trying to share something with my dad. My husband was nearby, listening in. I hit a point in my story that I couldn’t find the word I wanted and just looked at my husband, panic-stricken, wondering where my brain had gone. Thankfully, he knew what I was trying to relay, and was able to fill in for me. All the while I was trying NURTURE myself – fewer commitments, more sleep, more down time, less stress, etc.

I would write things down and not process them. I’d look back later and see that I had written something down and have absolutely zero recollection of having noted it. I literally wrote down ‘medical appointments’ when a friend shared she had some, but didn’t process WHY she’d need them – even though I knew she’d had a mammogram recently. I’d try really hard to stay focused in conversations, but still find myself zoning and have no idea what had just been said. Exhaustion increased significantly. Then I suddenly started needing reading glasses for close work.

I asked my ‘woo woo’ therapist: is this early onset Alzheimers? She said she highly doubted it, but she thought it could be a combination of significant overwhelm and ADHD.

Thus began the EXPLORE stage. Now, I suspected 20 years ago that I had ADHD, but the therapist I went to at the time dismissed it as anxiety. This time, I actually reached out to someone who is licensed to diagnose. Within an hour, she was like, YUP, pretty darned sure you’ve dealt with it your entire life. But she also said that a lot of what I was navigating could also be hormonal.

Well, it turns out that dopamine – a lack of which is the underpinning of ADHD – is highly impacted by estrogen levels. What happens to women’s estrogen levels in their 40s? Whackadoodle.

So, in the process of OWNING MY OWN STORY, I started learning about how ADHD shows up in women, and ran checkmarks right down just about every list of symptoms: rumination, rejection sensitive disorder, people-pleasing, perfectionist tendencies, disordered eating/weight loss challenges, procrastination, organizational challenges, inability to finish tasks, verbal impulsivity, depression/anxiety, hyperactivity….the list goes on.

OWN MY OWN STORY: ADHD explains SO. FREAKING. MUCH. About MY ENTIRE LIFE. Criticisms I remember from my parents and teachers during childhood – I now understand. Why coworking time with other professionals is so effective – body doubling is a thing for folks with ADHD. Why I feel SOOO different mentally when I do exercise versus when I don’t.

EXPLORE & INNOVATE: I’ve done a ton of research, study, exploration, and lots of trial & error of ways to work with ADHD, rather than trying to fit myself into a neurotypical mold, as I’ve done for 45 years. I’ve worked to continue to NURTURE myself, with more consistent exercise, meditation, somewhat less work (after all, I’m still an entrepreneur!), and more. I’ve tried to TAKE MY TIME and not beat myself up when something doesn’t work the way I think it ‘should.’

But here’s the kicker. About a month ago, I ended up in emergency oral surgery. The dentist put me on antibiotics, and within 2 days I had a mental clarity I haven’t had since I don’t know when. I’ve got energy again – I’m not needing to sleep as much. I HAVEN’T NEEDED THE READERS AT ALL. In speaking with each of my health team members since then, they all concur that I have probably had a low-grade infection for A LONG TIME, and we never realized it. I’d heard that especially with older women, UTIs are most easily identified by medical staff when the patient’s mental faculties decrease significantly. While I didn’t have a UTI, I did still have an infection – seemingly with a similarly SIGNIFICANT cognitive decline. So, in addition to hormones starting to fluctuate this last year, which definitely impacts the dopamine/ADHD side of things, I had more going on internally than even I realized. (This falls into CHALLENGE YOUR TRUTHS – both about yourself, and about what you believe to be true of the people around you. You can NEVER know the whole story. So when you find yourself tempted to say, ‘We both know what happened,’ when someone’s behavior is less than you’d expect – remind yourself that you cannot know.)

I share this very personal experience for a few reasons:

• If you are a 40- or 50-something woman and suspect you may deal with ADHD, you are not alone. I can not tell you how many women I’ve met in the last year who fall into this category. And I can tell you that my ENTIRE SENSE OF SELF has shifted.
• If you notice a sudden onset of lots of changes in how your body’s functioning, get your hormones & bloodwork done.
• If you notice a significant change in the behavior of someone you care about, please remember that YOU CANNOT KNOW the entirety of what happened. I invite you to practice NONJUDGMENT if you really care about them.