21/07/2025
You may have noticed that in my bio I say I work with women with ADHD.
I’ve wrestled a lot with this statement because inclusion is really important to me.So to write something that feels like it excludes people just felt so wrong.
I’ve had such an inner battle around who I should be working with through my services. But when I trained at university and got my degree in supporting children with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities), what really stood out to me was the difference in how neurodivergence shows up in girls and boys.
I even wrote a paper on it - on why girls are underdiagnosed and how their experience of being neurodivergent is often completely different from boys’.
I’ve had a real interest in this subject for a long time. And recently, through my work with children and teenagers, I’ve realised how the approaches I use vary depending on who I’m working with, and a significant difference to whether I’m working with girls or boys.
For me - and maybe it’s because of my own personal journey - I can really see the impact when you support a woman to fully unmask.
A woman who’s been told all her life that she was wrong, or who’s felt like she needed to be someone else just to fit in.
It’s well known that boys don’t mask to the same extent as girls. Boys don’t have that same deep internalised need to “fit in.” And we still don’t fully understand why - that’s something research is still exploring.
But what I do know is this: the work I want to do is with the women who have masked their entire lives. Who are maybe only just discovering, at 40, 50, 60, that they’re neurodivergent… and now don’t know how to get back to their authentic selves.
So, I’ve decided to put in my bio that I work with women. And I hope this doesn’t offend anyone… it’s absolutely not my intention.
But from my education, my work background, and my own lived experience, I know that the experiences of neurodivergent girls and boys are different. And I know that my work - my soul work - is to support women in coming home to themselves.
What are your thoughts? 💜