Climbing the Walls: ADHD, Women, and the Stories We’ve Missed with Danielle Elliot
Today I’m talking with Danielle Elliot, a health and science journalist, documentarian, and host of Climbing the Walls, an investigative podcast from Understood.org digging into the surge in ADHD diagnoses among women—especially since the pandemic. If that sounds familiar, it’s cause I did a number of ads for her show a few months back, and I just wanted to make sure that I mention that, since while I’m not getting paid for this episode, I have done work with Understood before and probably will be promoting more of their stuff in the future.
Anyway, in our conversation today, we cover a lot of ground, from debunking the idea that no one knew women could have ADHD until recently, to how social media has reshaped the conversation, to why research on hormones and ADHD is still way behind. We also get into the everyday realities of living with ADHD, the default mode network, and why we need far more research into how ADHD shows up in women. It’s a mix of science, lived experience, and the kind of practical reflection that can help you rethink how ADHD fits into your life.
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y835cnrk
Danielle Elliot: I'm curious, especially with you saying that the majority of your guests tend to be women because of that, you know, that's the population of who's late diagnosed. I've noticed this trend, and I didn't talk about it in the show, but I've noticed this trend of stories that kind of exclusively feature men who are diagnosed as kids who are now saying, in my 30s or 40s, I don't need the medication anymore. I don't think ADHD is what I was taught that it is. And to me, it's sort of a after 20 years of treatment, you might have a handle on your ADHD such that it doesn't feel the same. And I'm just curious, like, if you've seen any sort of trend like that.
William Curb: I just turned 40, like a month ago. And...
Danielle Elliot: Oh me too. When was your birthday?
William Curb: April 17.
Danielle Elliot: Oh, mine is April 22. And I just turned 40. So we're like, very close in age.
William Curb: Yeah, yeah, it's funny with ADHD is this developmental disorder. And by the time I'm 40, maybe I'm kind of done cooking on a lot of things. And either I'm setting my ways on things that will help me, or I'm really struggling with things that I've never going to change, or at least I need to put a lot more effort into changing. But it is one of those things where I like, whenever I get someone like send me something about ADHD being a superpower, I go, how many people on that list that calling it a superpower are white men? And it's like 90%.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, I've noticed that it's either it's white men or it's, because I would say like, I grew up in a house where it was very stigmatized and like the idea that a kid might have a neuro-developmental difference. I mean, that wasn't even terminology I really knew until a few years ago. And when I started using the term superpower to talk to my mom about it, she was so much more receptive. And she definitely is undiagnosed. There's no question. But when it was a you have this extra strength, not so I see it working with like, I see people who are using it if they typically grew up in a house with stigma about it. And it's like a way for them to say that stigma doesn't apply to me. But anyway.
William Curb: Yeah, I wasn't diagnosed till I was in my early 20s. But I was a kid, I was diagnosed with dyslexia. And so like my entire life I've been told like, Oh, you just have different brain wiring. And so like, that's kind of like stuck with me, even though I still have like, so much to unpack with ADHD. Yeah. It is definitely something where it's like, Oh, yeah, there are people that like, that label is really scary to them.
Danielle Elliot: It's really scary to them. Yeah. Yeah. And my parents didn't want to hear there's something wrong with their kids, you know, it gets my dad still calls it that ADHD stuff, you know, we don't even have conversations about it. But anyway.
William Curb: That's the conversation I often like having with people is like, how like when you view this as a superpower, is that something that's resonating with your life? I know a lot of women doesn't because they're on the unsupported side of things. Because when you have ADHD and you have supports, yeah, it can feel like, Oh, I can do anything I can get work done. And I don't, I'm not doing my laundry or I had a friend that was like, Oh, yeah, this is like, I don't worry about meals. My wife makes me lunch. I'm like, Yeah, that's a huge accommodation for you.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah. It's a huge accommodation. And I've, you know, in the show, we talk about that a lot in episode two. Like when we talk about gender roles, I'm also like, a thing we don't talk about is the number of accommodations that just naturally occur for a lot of men, not for all men, but for a lot of men in heterosexual relationships, there's a lot of accommodations that come with adult life that sort of aren't even necessarily noticed as accommodations. Women are almost like expected to be providing those accommodations. So for women with ADHD, it's compounding the issues.
William Curb: It is one of those things where it's like, Oh my God, if you like, I make most of the meals in my house and it's like, yeah, that is a lot of work to plan to go to the grocery store to make sure you have the food, then do the work of making the food. Like that's a lot of work and it's often discounted as like, I'm like, if I'm doing that and this and this and this, it's like, that's going to make ADHD so much harder.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, exactly. Especially if it's a thing you don't enjoy. Like if you enjoy cooking, it might not feel like it because, you know, any of us with ADHD, if there's something we enjoy, it doesn't feel like a chore, right?
William Curb: The real thing with cooking for me is then the like, clean up afterwards where I'm like, I gotta like, I'm like, that's the cooking. But then I'm like, Oh, I have all these pans now.
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. And I'm like, who's supposed to do this? And so even like growing up, my sister's a phenomenal cook. But I would complain almost every holiday because it was like, well, whoever cooked, the other person should clean. And I was like, but I never said I enjoy cleaning and she's cooking because she enjoys it. So like, there was always this little bit of a battle going on that has nothing to do with ADHD. But that was just me not wanting to cook or clean, you know,
William Curb: It's valid point too. And I think it's also like, when you have the undiagnosed people with ADHD dealing with this kind of stuff, it's like, why is this so hard?
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
William Curb: Even though it's like, yeah, it's just washing some dishes. It's like, yeah, but it's so boring.
Danielle Elliot: It's so tedious and so boring. Yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: I'm like, I have to have like a podcast I'm listening to and like, and it's one of those things where I've like, working on ADHD things, I started like, okay, how long does this actually take me to do and timing it? And then I'm being like, I spent more time finding a podcast to listen to than it took to unload the dishwasher.
Danielle Elliot: That's exactly it. So I live in an apartment that doesn't have a dishwasher. I did just buy a countertop dishwasher because I just decided it would be easier. But I tend to get the dishes done. If I have no time to do them, like it'll truly be like me thinking, what are the chances I can get them done in the 10 minutes before I really need to run out the door? Sometimes I end up making myself five minutes late running out the door because time blindness and all of that.
But yeah, pretty much. And the only other time I tend to do the dishes is right before I'm about to go to bed because I've read so many things that say, if you wake up in the morning and there's something that has to be done, like a sink full of dirty dishes, it sort of throws your day off because you're just like, oh, that's one more thing I have to do. Whereas if you wake up in a clean house, you're going to feel like I can start my day the way it should start. But it's almost always that deadline oriented thing where like, how fast can I get this done? Yeah.
William Curb: Yeah. Although sometimes I do the opposite where I'm like, I'll leave it for the next day. But to be like, this is where I'm like, I know this is going to be a day where I'm making chores. Like the dishes are such a straightforward chore that I can just be like, okay, put on the podcast, start putting the dishes in and go do some vacuuming. And I'll like, it gets the...
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, you're like, I'm going to get it done.
William Curb: Yeah. It's like the little task that I know I can do that can be that gets the ball rolling.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, that makes total sense to me.
William Curb: There'll be times where I'm like, oh, I should look this thing up on my street and I like, I'll like pop open my thing and I'm am I like making my screen like flash lights on me because I'm going from dark to light over and over again? And I'm like, I'm trying to pay attention, but I also just want to look at this one thing.
Danielle Elliot: But we're so good at doing multiple things at once, right? Or thinking we are.
William Curb: Yeah. I mean, I think that's the point too is that we think we are and then like, my kids do that all the time. We're like, I'm just listening and I'm like, no, we have to pause the TV while we're talking to you. You cannot do both. You think you can. Yeah. But we've been talking for five minutes.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, exactly. You're like, I'll always remember even growing up, my mom would always say that in college, her professors would get upset with her because she was knitting while listening to their lecture. And she had to keep saying to them, I actually listen, I'll actually understand what you're talking about more if I'm doing something like this with my hand. And I'm sitting here with a fidget thing in my hand as I'm talking about this. But yeah, I think it's such a common thing. I have no idea if it's true. I don't know if she retained things better. She graduated college year early because she didn't want to pay for a fourth year. So she must have been retaining a lot. But we all definitely have to come.
William Curb: Yeah. I mean, I do think the fidget aspect, it does help with concentration with like, oh, it gives me a little bit more stimulation while I'm doing whatever I'm doing, like listening or usually listening because it's but having that little extra stimulation and then I'm focused on that thing. It's, I think, related to the default mode network and how we like turn our brain doesn't really turn off that while we're trying to do tasks.
Danielle Elliot: I love that you just mentioned the default mode network because I love talking about it. And when I read about it, so many things clicked for me and I was like, task positive network, default mode network. But it's sort of a level of nuance in the science that a lot of conversations don't have the time or space for it, if that makes sense. Where it's sort of when I see people, for me, I first read about it in ADHD 2.0. And when I mentioned that, or when I start talking about the default mode network and the, you know, the DMN and the TPM, I see people start to glaze over and that's when I'm like, oh, I've gone into my science speak, I should stop now. But I thought all that stuff was brilliant.
William Curb: It's like the science isn't quite there yet because I mean, it's very hard to say how that interacts. But I'm like, when I read about it, I'm like, this is a key issue. Like, even for like, going to sleep, I'm like, oh, I don't have enough stimulation while I'm just lying there trying to fall asleep. And so that my brain is like, go in hyper mode and I can't fall asleep because it's doing that. I'm like, how can they like, make stimulation to go to sleep? I'm like, well, if weighted blanket does that, and, you know, people like listen to podcasts and so I can't quite listen to something to go to sleep. That's a little bit too much, but I'm still working on that one.
Danielle Elliot: I've really come to love, there's an app where there's things you can pay for on it, but the majority of it is free and it's called Insight Timer. And it's a meditation app, but they have such an incredible library of sleep. Some of them are sleep stories. And it's like, I've seen a lot of recommendations with ADHD to listen to music at a certain like beat per minute. In the same sense, like all of these sleep stories or sleep meditations are the cadence of the voice or the cadence of the music is specific to get to help you fall asleep.
And they work for me. It's like, I'm not, it's not interesting enough that I'm going to tune into that instead of falling asleep. But it's not boring enough that I'm recognizing that I'm bored. They're almost all free and or that it's like, you have the option to donate to people towards the end of them. Like if you want to after you've finished, which usually means when I wake up in the morning and the app is there, because I fell asleep during it, but highly recommend Insight Timer.
William Curb: Yeah. For my kids, I have the Moshi stories that they listen to go to sleep like every night. And it's been, I was like, oh, them having like this like weird sing songy story they listen to to go to sleep and it like just puts them right out. Like it's like just right level of stimulation for them. And...
Danielle Elliot: It's like hypnosis probably.
William Curb: And the kids are like, those are weird stories, but that's fine. It doesn't still need to make sense.
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. Yeah.
William Curb: They have one where like the mayor has outlawed sleep and so they have a sleep easy that they have to like go and like catch some Z's like it's a bootlegger sleep place. It's like...
Danielle Elliot: I love the creativity in that.
William Curb: Yeah. This is so strange.
Danielle Elliot: On the like DMN and default mode network and test positive network, I went a little bit deeper than what I had read in ADHD books and found there's a book that goes, I think it's from 2010 called Connectomes. And it's the scientist at MIT who doctors John Rady and Ned Hall well speak to when they're writing about DMN and TPN in ADHD 2.0. And it's an entire book, the science of connectomes. And it's interesting because it's kind of written by the guy who figured all of that out.
And it's fascinating to me that 15 years later when we have it, I'm pretty sure the books from 2010, I haven't seen much more on it. But I'm wondering when in the same sense that the first time someone really used the word neurodiversity was like 1998, but it wasn't until about 2010 that it was popularized. I'm sort of like, when's the moment, when are connectomes going to be what we all talk about? And it's like, he talks about connectomes being the neurological version of the genome. And he puts it into all these terms that makes so much sense to me. The book's written for a science audience, but also a lay person. So I highly recommend that book too.
William Curb: Yeah, I'll check that out. Because I think it's one of those areas that's like going to take off because it's-
Danielle Elliot: It's gotta.
William Curb: Like, oh, this explains so many aspects of ADHD. Like...
Danielle Elliot: So many aspects of it. And other potential neurodiversions is that we don't talk about yet. Or that we haven't even necessarily named yet. And we didn't talk about the genome until, I don't know what year we started the Human Genome Project, but in a similar vein, I think we'll see that happen with connectomes. It's just going to take time.
William Curb: Anyone that's been listening to my show has had a feed drop and some advertising from Understood, which was something. I was like, they're like, hey, we'll give you money to do this. And I'm like, really? Because I would love to do this anyway. This is a fantastic show. So I was like, this is a win-win for me. But so you have this show Climbing the Walls that's investigative style. I kind of sometimes describe it like people for more layman, kind of like a serial-like style podcast that's exploring a single-year question of why women have been kind of overlooked in the ADHD sphere.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah
William Curb: And I was really interested in the investigation where you're like, yeah, this is both true and not true. Because it's like, oh yeah, it's like the typical explanation is like, oh, we just didn't know women got ADHD, but you're like, yep, I met women in the 70s that got it.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, exactly. It's like a... Because I heard that and I honestly sort of accepted it for the first year. I was diagnosed in early 2022. And yeah, at first, I was reading New York Times articles. I was reading articles in The Guardian and like all of these really reputable media outlets that I really respect were reporting on how we haven't known. And then we haven't known how ADHD affects women. I should say that's the complete sentence there. And yeah, and then I in the fall of 2022, I was having dinner with a friend who was also a woman with late diagnosed ADHD. And she said, have you read that book? And it was funny because neither of us were talking about it because we were just out to dinner. Like we had met through mutual friends.
I had started doing enough research on ADHD that I was kind of noticing the cadence of our conversation was 100% to women with ADHD. And she was about to leave for about six months of traveling and just like kind of the way we both live our lives also. I finally came out and said it. I was like, do you have ADHD? Because I just found out a few months ago that I have it. And she's like, oh my God, I do. And then when we started talking about that, she said, have you read this book? You have to read this book. And the book was actually a workbook by Sarah Soldin and Michelle Frank. And it's called The Radical Guide to Women with ADHD. And as I started reading it, I was like, this is the first thing that's ever accurately captured.
I would say the emotional experience of ADHD that now knowing I had it, that I, it just helped me realize so many more aspects of ADHD. And I looked at when it was published. And it was published, Sarah Soldin's first books were published in the 90s. And I was, but I've been hearing for six or seven months that we just didn't understand how it affects girls. And when I was in elementary school in the 90s, no girls, I did not know of any girls being diagnosed. And I was sort of like, that was the first moment for me. When like you said, when I was like, wait a minute, this isn't, this like very commonly accepted answer is not true. We've known about it for 30 years. I just don't think we've listened to the women who were telling us what they knew.
William Curb: Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's like, because it's such an acceptable answer, it's like, sometimes I'll be like writing something and I'll be like, oh, I just need to cite this. And I'm like, there is nothing to cite. How is this accepted common wisdom?
Danielle Elliot: Right. And it's wild. Even with that narrative, there are now all of these almost, you could say, primary sources to cite. But I'm like, but what are they citing? And they're not citing anything. They're just talking about history as fact. And like, when it turns out that those aren't all the facts. It wasn't accepted by the medical schools. So it wasn't part of the medical conversation, but that doesn't mean it wasn't known. Yeah. So that's sort of the premise of where the podcast starts.
And then it's me saying, yeah, like why women, why now? So once you realize that we've known this, it's like, wait, but then why is this the moment? Why is this the moment out of knowing for the last 30 years? Why was 2020 when we finally started seeing a tremendous rise in the diagnosis of adult women? Sort of all at once. Because it's like this information's been there for someone to look at for 30 years, but now we're finally looking at it.
William Curb: Yeah. And then through the series of the podcast, you do like, hey, it's not also just, it's not one thing either. It's this groundswell of social media, like especially TikTok and because I know I was on TikTok a lot during the pandemic and I saw a ton of ADHD content. But also, yeah, I mean, as we started the show, what we were talking about with, you know, the role of women playing the support system and them like having their own support system knocked out from underneath them. Because now they're like, oh, no, I'm also homeschooling my kids and I'm yeah, they have so much other stuff to do that I cannot handle this anymore.
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. And it's like, there's been a general shift, generational shift or generational change for women, but the ADHD hasn't gone away. So it's like, it stays with us and however women are living their lives in whatever decade, we're realizing that it's going to affect you in different ways, but it's still there. Ultimately, there's this underlying ADHD.
And it continues on to, you kind of all happen at once, but it's like the spread of information through social media. It's also like the pandemic had a huge, huge role to play in it because the title of the podcast comes from something that a clinician said to me that she was receiving more emails during the pandemic than she had ever before. And these were emails for women who were seeking help with ADHD because they were quote, climbing the walls. And I think that's like, you could almost look at that in two ways. For some women with ADHD was because they were extremely bored in climbing the walls.
For other women with ADHD was because they were extremely overstimulated and all of the structures they had put in this for themselves were wiped out. I mean, they were all wiped out from under us and same for men, but it was like, everything we knew about how to live our lives was no longer really accessible. If you were a parent, you couldn't send your kids to school, you were trying to work at home while parenting at home all day. There were just so many things that were just like ripped out from under people. So yeah, I think everyone was climbing the walls in their own way. And I love that title because it's like open to interpretation.
William Curb: Yeah, I knew it was definitely something when I heard it, I was like, oh, yeah, I get that. Like this is both, yeah, the sensory aspect of like, oh, I need to get out. And the aspect of like, the lack of sensory, I need to get out.
Danielle Elliot: This can't be it. Yeah, exactly. One other thing with the podcast too is that so six episodes and at a certain point, I address questions that I hear over and over. And it's sort of like, I didn't get into how many times I've seen this historically. But when you look back at any even micro rise in the diagnosis of ADHD, you will find a debate over diagnosis, right? Like that comes up no matter what segment of the population is being diagnosed with ADHD, if diagnosis is on the rise, there is going to be a debate over over-diagnosis. And I get into that with this one. And then I sort of, I'm going to give away one of the episodes, but I sort of landed a place of, what does it matter? This is a tremendous number of people asking for help.
And it does matter in the sense of there's a massive shortage of medication available. So it matters because there are a lot of people who need the medication. And if there's over diagnosis, I understand that that is a huge issue. But ultimately, I think anyone who's seeking help and seeking a diagnosis for ADHD is struggling in some way. And if the approach to ADHD is what helps them, whether or not they have quote unquote, a true ADHD, it's like over diagnosis isn't necessarily the thing we should be arguing over. It's, what are we doing for people? How are we making life manageable and helping people hack their ADHD so that they can, I don't want to say, like, do get through life better. I'm like, so that they can enjoy all of the things and be their full self.
William Curb: Thrive without, get rid of the struggle part of living.
Danielle Elliot: You're rid of the struggle part. Exactly. Like not just being survival mode, I think, so that they can just actually live. I think is that, is the, yeah. Yeah.
William Curb: Yeah. Because one of the things I've tried to advocate for is like, if you are struggling, it's not because you are fundamentally broken as a person. You are just not getting the supports you need. You don't, there's something underlying that can be addressed to make it so that you don't have to struggle so much. And sometimes it's, you know, as easy as like, oh, I know I have ADHD and I need to approach things differently. Sometimes there's, you know, financial struggles and other things that, you know, there are, that take, there are a lot more complicated to fix. But if you can find that underlying factor of what's causing the struggle, it makes it a lot easier to deal with the struggle.
Danielle Elliot: It makes it so much easier to approach the struggle rather than kind of spinning on what is causing it. When you can move on to that question of what can I do about it, I think it's helpful.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, I know so many people that are like, were late diagnosed have just been like, oh, I'm just fundamentally broken as a person. That's why things are hard. Like it's, this isn't about ADHD. This is about the fact that I'm just lazy and I can't do anything. Right. And it's like, well, if you can get past that and be like, okay, this is ADHD. And I can do, there are things I can do, like there's medication approaches, and there's also like behavioral changes and all sorts of things that you can do. And it's like, okay, this is managing at least.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah. And I think that's something that's such a common feeling. Right. Like when I was first diagnosed, I'm a science journalist, I would like to think that I was diagnosed, I immediately understood that there would be ways to approach it and manage it. And instead, my reaction to being diagnosed was, that's why I've struggled in relationships and why I'll never be in a healthy one. And like it immediately, it was like, oh, and finding this out at 30s, I think I found out two months before I turned 37, it was like, well, it would have been nice to know or to learn sooner.
But you know, you go through and I'll say this because maybe it's relatable to other late diagnosed women, but I remember having this feeling of like, it would have been nice to know when I was at an age where dating was easier, but it's already hard enough to date your late 30s as a woman or as anyone. And now I'm learning this, I was like, cool, I'll just give up on that. And that's such a sad, like I had so sad in hindsight that I reacted that way, but it truly did take me about six or seven months to embrace the idea that I just had to, you know, learn to do things the way that works for my brain. And yes, it would have been nice to know in my 20s or early 30s, when there maybe are more dating options. But it was like, it was just one of those things where you're like, it doesn't mean I'm broken and it doesn't mean I'm fundamentally unattractive or undatable.
You know what I mean? Like it was sort of just like, okay, it means I had to learn. And I still had, I think actually the thing for me that really helped me decide to embrace figuring out what that what it means to have ADHD and how to hack it was that I knew I wanted to be a parent. And that timeline was sort of, I was approaching a deadline. So it was like, okay, you have to figure this out, and you have to figure out in a constructive way. And that was sort of helpful for me. But I can completely relate to anyone who has this feeling of I'm fundamentally broken.
And I guess I'm not going to be able to fix it because it's actually my brain, it's not just a circumstance. But podcasts like this and books like ADHD 2.0 and books that do, I think for me, it helped to hear some of the, to really think through the ways that ADHD, there's a moment in the podcast where I get into this, but I was at my sister's wedding and I sort of had a moment where I was like, wait, I don't think I want all the things that people traditionally want.
And I think I'm actually happy that I haven't wanted it because it's the reason why I've done a lot of the things I have done that don't make sense to other people. And it was sort of like a starting to appreciate my brain that helped put me on the path to, oh, I could parent differently. I don't have to try and figure this out so that I can fit in with all the other parents. But yeah, it took time and all of that is to just say, I can relate to that feeling. But I also hope that if people are feeling that at all, they continue to try to power through it and look for things that'll help them realize that they are not fundamentally broken or just all different.
William Curb: Yeah, I mean, it is important to have that knowledge that yeah, even with that diagnosis, there is a lot of people have this like sense of relief of like, oh, this explains so much because no one is going into their diagnosis being like, oh my god, I had no idea at all. I thought I was doing amazing. It's usually like, oh, I was struggling and that explains a lot. And I, all of my childhood makes sense now.
Danielle Elliot: I think and if they have a, I had no idea, it's in relation to, oh, that's ADHD. That's the thing that about, you know, it's like, they're very aware of the ways they've felt different and the ways that they've struggled. And but yeah, there's a, oh, that's what that was. Yeah, like it's, yeah.
William Curb: So they have that kind of like relief of like, oh, I know this makes sense. But then there's also this like, a lot of people have a lot of grief around who they could have been. They have a lot of anger about why they weren't diagnosed earlier, why they have to deal with this because it feels very unfair at times where I'm just like, I really wish I didn't have to deal with a lot of this.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, it would be so much easier to not have to deal with. Yeah.
William Curb: It's a lot of emotional processing to do and it's not going to happen real quick.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, exactly. It's, and it's like, you know, patience isn't always immediately available. Exactly. Exactly. It's like, you can read a million things and hear a million things that are like, be kind to yourself, be patient with yourself. And I'm like, can we just figure this out already? You know, like it's just, but it's a constant learning process.
William Curb: Yeah. And it like, I almost have two decades of diagnosis and there's still times where I'm just like, why am I like this? And I'm like, oh, it's the ADHD. Write that down. That's why I forgot to do this and my car is a mess and all these things. And I'm like, ADHD. Okay. You still need to remember that one.
Danielle Elliot: You still need to do it. I just can remember why. Yeah. Why I forgot to do it. Yeah. Even little things like I had a doctor's appointment this morning and I have really, really since the, I wouldn't say since the diagnosis, since deciding to embrace and like figure out what are the lifestyle things I need to figure out. Like at the doctor's office, I was scheduling a follow-up and it was like in my calendar, like the calendar invite was going in and the nurse kept, or the woman helped the receptionist kept saying, oh, don't worry, it'll be in the portal.
And I was like, nope, it's in my calendar right now. Because if I have to go to a portal to look up the date, I won't do that until after the date and then I will have missed my appointment. But I've just started to be much more vigilant about those things and tried to make them muscle memory that it's like, if someone's suggesting we do something, I'm talking to them with the calendar invite open and I'm typing it in as we say it because the chances of me going back to the other thing to look at what plan we made.
William Curb: Yeah. Or there isn't a, I'm not forgetting something else that's on my calendar there. They're like, oh, we should do this on Wednesday. And I'm like, yes, we should. And oh, I cannot.
Danielle Elliot: And I can exactly, it's like I freelance. So I have, it seems like in the last year and a half, every company I work with wants me to have an email address for that company. But then things will pop up and they're like, oh, I did send you a calendar invite. And I'm like, yeah, but every email address comes with its own calendar. There's like moments where I'm like, I just need tech support. I need personal tech support, like someone to make all the calendars show up on the same Google calendar so that it's just easy. And I think I've slowly figured it all out. But yeah, so even remembering calendar invites doesn't always.
William Curb: Yeah. I'm just managing my family calendar. Sometimes for just like, my wife is like, oh, yeah, well, this is all fine. And she's then I'm like, no, I have something on Saturday. She's like, oh, yours was just turned off for some reason. So I didn't.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, I can't even imagine.
William Curb: To also spoil the sixth episode, I think is a really good place to go from here is that like, we have all these changes, especially with women with hormones and which is from my perspective, I've like, why isn't this not being explored? And then I'm like, then like reading them like, oh, because scientists are dumb. Not dumb, but it's one of those things. Yeah, I have a friend that does biomathematics for figuring out medication dosages and stuff. And I'm like, one, you're much smarter than me. I don't have any idea how you can do that. But also like, it's really hard. And he's like, yeah, it's when we start adding in the hormone things, like it, I have hard, it's really more.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah. And for a long time, there wasn't a willingness to do a lot more, right? Like there was episode six was it was really interesting because I realized that in 20 years of reporting, it was the first time I was trying to report on the absence of research, as opposed to here's the new research that's worth paying attention to. And I ultimately did find people who are beginning to look at this. And I think some of the things that we don't talk about directly in the episode are like, like, why are female hormones and ADHD starting to be studied? Well, some of that has to do with the fact that we have finally created enough pathways for women to become the scientists conducting the research, right?
And it's like, for a long time, this research wasn't done for all sorts of reasons, women weren't the ones who were the scientists. And that was just like one element of it all that I love talking about. But yeah, the hormone aspect was tough. And this actually, I was at dinner with a few friends of friends in late December 2023. And someone at the party mentioned that she only recently realized she has ADHD, but she's like eight years younger than me. And I'm 40. There seems to be a cutoff women like, in their mid to younger 30s, seem to have had the access to diagnosis more so than women by exact age. And she had been diagnosed when she was eight, but thought that the doctor was dumb and refused to take any diagnosis seriously. And then she had gone on hormone based control when she was 16.
And around 32, she had gone off of it. And all of a sudden had all of these symptoms that she didn't understand, like she's having all these issues that made no sense to her. And she and her doctor narrowed it down and realized the only difference was she had gone off of birth control. And I sort of started, I became really fascinated with hormones and ADHD because of her sort of backwards recognition that when she went off of birth control, hormone based birth control, they recognized her ADHD for the first time since she had gone on hormone based birth control when she was 16. And her doctor said, I can't medically prove this, but I think the hormone based birth control was masking all of your ADHD symptoms. And talking to her, we were very close to, she was going to be interviewed for the show, but our schedules just didn't align.
But I think that's fascinating. And I think that's something that we're still, there's research being done in Sweden that's looking at different hormone based birth controls and what impact they have on women with ADHD. But it's going to be a very long time before we really know the answers because every woman's hormones are different. And you're not going to have time to test.
I mean, they'll eventually do the research, but the research is going to have to look at differences in hormone levels for different women at different points in their cycle and then different medication options. It's going to be a long time. But what we do know at this point, I think I'm willing to say that, yeah, hormone based birth control should be considered in the treatment of ADHD or not birth control. Hormone based treatments is what I'm trying to say, like nothing to do with that.
William Curb: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, the birth control is just, it's hormone based itself.
Danielle Elliot: So it's how women tend to access hormone based treatments. Yeah.
William Curb: But yeah, I can have some because, and it's like wild to think that we'd never consider hormones because it's like that has such a huge impact on how we process medications. Because I've heard from like many women that are like, yeah, I need to take more medication when I'm going through my cycle changes how they, their symptoms work and how their medication does affect it. I mean, this goes down well beyond just ADHD medication.
Danielle Elliot: That's like, oh, yeah. No, it affects how our brains work. Yeah. It's just completely, and some of the studies on whether you're looking at ADHD brains or not, the studies that they're now doing on differences in behavior and the data that we now have to put behind it, because this is all stuff that women have been anecdotally reporting, as long as women have existed. But it wasn't until the 90s that scientists even started including women in most scientific studies. And it was fun to get into some of that history in the last episode, because I think it's stuff I didn't know until I was doing a master's in science journalism. And then I try to throw some of that history into any story I can, because I don't think it's common knowledge that women just weren't included in scientific studies until the 90s. Like it still blows my mind when I say it out loud.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, is some of the like science that they do for women's stuff, I'm just like, that's not science. Like that's, he's like, Oh, yeah, we just extrapolated. I'm like, like that you can't do that.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah. And you can't just extrapolate. And it's, I mean, it's amazing too. Because when you look at what was done in the 90s, that's the, they looked at one of the first major studies conducted with women was on the long term effects of hormone based treatments post menopause. And women had been taking estrogen as a treatment post menopause since the 50s. And it wasn't until they studied it in the 90s that they discovered that it increases cancer risk if you continue that for five years post menopause.
So for more than 40 years, women had been doing this regularly. And until someone decided to study it, we didn't know that the cutoff should be five years. So I'm sort of like, yeah, we should be studying how hormones could be used in the treatment of ADHD and many other things. But we should also be studying the risks like that, because it could turn out if I personally think it's unlikely, but who am I to say, but it could turn out that the risks outweigh the rewards. I don't know. We don't know until someone bothers to study it and funds the studies.
William Curb: And for men who are listening are like, I don't care about this, you should, you also have hormones that are affected.
Danielle Elliot: So yeah, and also the world with women who are affected.
William Curb: Yeah, you live with women and they get, you want them to have a good life too. At least I do. And I expect most people do. My wife has been watching the handmaid's tale. So maybe not all men, but I expect most want to have women in living. I think so. Because I have had undiagnosed ADHD that was a terrible time. And I do not wish that on anyone.
Danielle Elliot: Yeah, how could you? It's like you have empathy in ADHD 2.0. They described one of the traits of ADHD as exquisite empathy. And I loved that description. So I'm like, I do think.
William Curb: But this is why I often have trouble with describing it as a superpower is I often go, well, this is tough. It is not fun to go through a lot of things with ADHD. And it is something where I feel like we don't give accommodations for superpowers. And we clearly need a lot of accommodations. I'm sure there's some very nerdy people like, what about Cyclops? He needs to wear glasses. I'm like, yeah, he's shooting force beams out of eyes. They're blowing things up. That's where that's not the level of superpower we're talking about here. But yeah, it is a disability. But it's not, I go back and forth. I'm like, yes, disability 100%. Not 100% bad, but.
Danielle Elliot: Right. Not 100% debilitating. Yeah.
William Curb: Anyone within the disability community would not describe any of their disabilities. They're like, no, this is, I just have to live differently and do things.
Danielle Elliot: And I think some of us might struggle with the, which is it, because ADHD comes with a lot of black and white thinking from everything I've read. And I'm sort of like, I try really hard to lean into the gray areas because I'm like, it can be both. There are aspects of my life in which ADHD feels like a strength. And there are many aspects in which it does not. And it feels like a weakness compared to the general population. I sort of landed in a middle place where I'm just like, this is just a way my brain works. I don't know.
William Curb: I think that's a great way to think about it. Because it is, yeah, it's just, it is what it is. And I have to live with it like that. And it's not like I can just genie my thing away and.
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. You're not just gonna, it's not going to.
William Curb: And even if I did, that wouldn't solve all the problems in my life with things I have to do.
Danielle Elliot: Exactly. Right.
William Curb: Boring texts, they're still going to be boring.
Danielle Elliot: They're still going to be boring. They're still going to be so boring. Yeah. Yeah. And I can try and gamify them or do whatever I want to do to them, but they're still, it's, it's some things are just boring. Yeah.
William Curb: So I was wondering if there are any final thoughts you wanted to leave the audience with.
Danielle Elliot: One of the best things that has helped me with my ADHD is I would have sort of always a, like some of my friends say, I'm an amazing yes woman. They're like, you just say, like, you'll always do it. You'll always see fit. And when I really started taking my ADHD seriously, I did what I called a life audit. And I figured I just started tracking how many nights in a row have I done something. And I live in Brooklyn, it's very easy to do something every night of the week. And there was a point when for 17 days straight, I had done one or two or three things every day beyond work and working out and all of the things that we should, you know, try and do on a daily basis. And I was completely burnt out.
And I tracked it. It took me four days to feel recovered enough to do stuff again. And then I started tracking, well, what if on, like the 10th day, I always mark off a day off. And I started figuring out exactly how many days I could do things before I would need three days to recover or two days or one day. And when I got it down to, okay, with one day by myself, I can go back to doing whatever I want. And I just started scheduling, I wouldn't call them off days, but I just started, and I think you see this all over ADHD advice, but it took that life audit for me to figure out when there is burnout happening.
And then how can I put calendar invites to myself to hang out with myself and actually take them seriously and not de-prioritise them just because it was only for myself. So I think that's my final thought is just figure that out for yourself. Like how, what is the time you need to recharge and take that as seriously as you take everything else?
William Curb: Intentionality of life.
Danielle Elliot: Intentionality of life, exactly. Yeah.
William Curb: And the podcast is Climbing the Walls. It can be found wherever people listen to podcasts, same app that you listen to this one on. And if people want to find out more beyond just climbing the walls, where should they go?
Danielle Elliot: Understood.org is that's where climbing the walls was made. And it just has a tremendous number of resources for all things ADHD, whether you're a person recently diagnosed with ADHD, you're parenting someone with ADHD, you have coworkers with ADHD, whatever your relationship to ADHD is, understood.org is what I would say.
William Curb: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I had a great time. I'm sure people will get a lot out of this, especially if they have questions about experiences of being ADHD and being a woman, which is despite everything that's been going on still needs a lot more representation.
Danielle Elliot: A lot more representation and a lot more funding. I guess that's the one other thing I would say. If you're in a position to fund research, who knows if you happen to be listening to the show. Yeah, I have like more research on women and ADHD. That's what we need. But thank you for having me on. I had a great time.
This Episode's Top Tips
1. Instead of guessing when you’ve overbooked yourself, start tracking it like an experiment. For a few weeks, note each day you have social, professional, or mentally demanding activities beyond your baseline, then try and figure out how many consecutive “on” days it takes before you feel fried.
2. Downtime doesn’t magically appear and needs to be scheduled on the calendar, or it often just gets eaten by other people’s needs or whatever’s loudest in the moment. If someone asks you to do something during that block, you can truthfully say you already have something scheduled. Treating self-care time as a legit appointment protects it from getting deprioritized just because it’s “only for you.”
3. A common ADHD trap is overestimating how awful or time-consuming a task will be, which makes it easier to avoid it. Try timing your tasks to give yourself actual data to challenge your brain’s “this will take forever” narrative and can turn a dreaded job into something you knock out in a couple of minutes.
4. Consider hormonal factors when tracking ADHD symptoms, as hormones have a big influence on your ADHD symptoms, yet are often overlooked. Hormonal changes can affect focus, energy, mood, and even how well ADHD medication works. Tracking your symptoms alongside your cycle or other hormonal shifts can help you spot patterns and adjust strategies accordingly.