Why women may wait decades for an ADHD diagnosis

Gender bias is leaving many women with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder undiagnosed, leading psychologists are warning.

The prevailing stereotype ADHD affects only "naughty boys" means at least tens of thousands in the UK, it is estimated, are unaware they have the condition and not receiving the help they need.

"I used to tell doctors and therapists all the time, 'You've got to make this constant noise in my head stop. I can't think. I can't sleep. I can't get any peace,' but this was always dismissed as anxiety or women's problems," Hester says.

Diagnosed with depression at 16, she spent much of her 20s unsuccessfully battling to be referred to a psychiatrist.

And she constantly felt she was not reaching her true potential.

Hester was finally diagnosed with ADHD in 2015, aged 34, and only, she says, because her husband had discovered he had the condition, a year earlier.

His diagnosis took 12 months.

"At no point did anyone say to Chris, 'This sounds like anxiety,' or 'Have some tablets,'" Hester says. "He was taken seriously."

"Whereas with me, I was on the doctor's radar from the age of 16.

"Bluntly, it took so long for me to be diagnosed because I'm a woman."

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Source: BBC News, 26 October 2021