I was lucky to be diagnosed early, at 6 years old, which is incredibly rare for girls — especially a Black girl growing up in the early ’90s. That means I’ve had over 30 years to figure out my ADHD. It also means I’ve spent decades watching the science, the diagnostic process, and the public conversation about ADHD evolve. And now, we’re in the middle of a major shift: More women than ever are being diagnosed as adults.
Why is this happening now? For decades, ADHD research centered on young boys. It wasn’t until recently that researchers finally began looking at how differently ADHD shows up in women and girls. As a result, many women spent years struggling through school, work, and relationships without knowing why.
This month, Understood’s new podcast, Climbing the Walls, takes a deep dive into the systemic failures that left so many women undiagnosed — and how that’s finally starting to change.
Start listening to the first episodes here →
If this is your story, I want you to know that getting diagnosed as an adult can be a complicated experience. But worth it! It’s an enormous relief to finally have an explanation for your challenges, tools for growth, and a new community to belong to. On the other hand, trying to rebuild your life around a new understanding of yourself can be very overwhelming.
As a career coach, I often work with late-diagnosed professionals trying to figure out what this means for their professional lives. It starts with understanding your unique ADHD profile. How do your symptoms show up? How do they impact your work? And what kinds of jobs and environments actually support you?
I encourage my clients to start with this simple exercise:
Create a symptom grid. Grab a list of ADHD symptoms and sort them by how you experience them: frequent or infrequent, intense or mild. (Here’s a great list to get you started.)
Reflect on your past jobs. What caused your biggest challenges? What helped you thrive?
Use that knowledge to set your career transition goals. Look beyond job titles and evaluate roles through your new lens. How do the work environment and expectations line up with your unique ADHD profile?
This process helped me figure out why I was a terrible executive assistant and why I need to work from home as much as possible. (More on that journey in this episode of How’d You Get THAT Job?!)
