Other pernicious myths around ADHD include the perception that adult women, including successful professionals, can’t have ADHD.
Just the opposite. When the structure of school and college make way for the anarchy of balancing work and maybe having children, keeping ADHD at bay becomes harder.
Littman works with, and has studied, the impact of ADHD on high-IQ men and women, many of whom spent years masking their symptoms with their high abilities. As she tries to target if ADHD is the issue, she asks whether they are “constantly in a state of being overwhelmed and frantic about coping with day-to-day basic things?” Most burst into tears. “These are the people least likely to be acknowledged and because of the shame of feeling smart, they don’t feel they are entitled to help.”