Steph Claire Smith has bravely opened up about her recent ADHD diagnosis along with the fears that held her back from seeking a diagnosis earlier. And it’s an important discussion to be had — especially during ADHD Awareness Month.
On the KICPOD podcast she co-hosts with business partner Laura Henshaw, Steph opened up about her process of being diagnosed with ADHD as a 30-year-old woman.
“I have a bit of a life update for everyone. And it’s really, it’s really, really fresh,” Steph began.
“It’s been something that’s been taking up a lot of my mental capacity and it feels almost inauthentic for me to be showing up online at the moment and not be talking about it, or at least mention that I’m going through it. So what that is, is that just the other week, I was diagnosed with ADHD combined.”
During the episode, Steph reveals that she was first inspired to look into ADHD after Em Rusciano spoke about her diagnosis when she was a guest on KICPOD and asked her if she was neurotypical.
“I had Em on, and she spoke about her later ADHD diagnosis, and during the conversation, there was just so much that I didn’t realise, but I was nodding along and agreeing with and relating to her story,” Steph shared.
“At one point, she said that I might be a little bit neuro-spicy, which at the time, I was like, I don’t know.”
From there, Steph explained the process she went through to determine whether she had ADHD and shared some of the fears she had during the diagnosis.
“I think one of the scariest parts of going into the process was like, what if I don’t get the diagnosis? And then I just feel more lost than ever, because there’s all of these things, there’s these traits that have frustrated the hell out of me in my lifetime,” she explained.
“I’ve never been able to change them or habits that I feel like I can’t shake or things that I feel are so much more challenging than anyone else around me seems to be finding them.”
Since discovering that she had ADHD, Steph says a lot of things have clicked into place.
“Now that I have the diagnosis, I’m excited to learn more about it and to find different tactics and ways that I can like help myself a little bit more. And also just be able to kind of talk about it with my loved ones and people around me so that they can better understand it too,” she said.
“It’s made me understand myself a little bit better as to why things have maybe been more challenging than maybe they should.”
In Australia, there has been a significant rise in adult women being diagnosed with ADHD over the last few years. But while the diagnoses have increased, the number of adults with ADHD hasn’t. Experts think it’s because many people — especially women — have fallen through the cracks since childhood as their symptoms didn’t match up with the preconceived notions of what ADHD looked like.
Part of this was due to gender bias and the widespread misunderstanding of how ADHD symptoms are presented in women and girls. There are three main types of ADHD — hyperactive-impulsive, inattentive and combination. These sub-categories have differing symptoms, but the dominant stereotype has been one of hyperactivity even though combination is most common.
The good news is, with more women like Steph, Em Rusciano and Abbie Chatfield speaking out and educating the public about ADHD, more and more neurodivergent women are finding a diagnosis that explains why they’ve been struggling for all these years.
Now that Steph has her diagnosis, she feels empowered to look into the condition and find tools that work for her — and share it with her audience too.
” I will share whatever I can and get experts on and stuff about how you can kind of help yourself be a little bit more organised because it’s something that I’ve always really struggled with,” she revealed.
“And I’ll share all that along the way.”
It’s never easy being blatantly honest and vulnerable let alone to an audience of over 1.5 million people. Kudos to Steph for sharing her journey this ADHD Awareness Month!!!
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