Sari Solden: Why ADHD is different for women [Top 10 Replay with Bonus Update]

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Welcome back to my special Top 10 Replay series, where I’m re-releasing 10 interviews that really stood out to me and have stayed with me in some particular way — either because of the topic, or the conversation, or the feedback I received from listeners. For various reasons, I’ve chosen 10 episodes that I feel deserve a replay — so maybe you missed this one the first time around you’ll get a chance to hear it, or if you listened to it when it originally aired, I hope you’ll enjoy listening to it again. 

This week I’m re-releasing my interview with Sari Solden, which originally aired as Episode 63 in December of 2021. Getting the chance to interview Sari was a dream come true for me, and I’m not at all surprised that it’s been one of my most listened to episodes to date. Her books have been so influential in my own life and the lives of so many women I’ve gotten the chance to meet and work with along the way. 

Bonus Update:

Make sure to stick around because, at the end of the episode, I get a chance to check back in with Sari to talk about the new re-release of her book, Journeys Through ADDulthood, and I get a chance to pick her brain some more and tell her in my awkward stumbling way how much her groundbreaking work has meant to me over the years!

Website: www.sarisolden.com

Instagram: @radicallyadhd

Enjoy!

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Sari Solden 0:00
So all the stuff you say to yourself about your ADHD is what moves us from pain to suffering. And that's what you know, radical acceptance is about is about, you know, just facing the reality of what you're dealing with and figuring it out what you need to do and then accepting the difficulties and then not being engulfed by it, and not avoiding it or disowning who you are or not running away from or fearing who you are. I mean, living with ADHD is tough enough, but it's not half as tough is as this feeling of just owning who you are and wanting to get rid of who you are and, and, and avoiding all of life because you don't think you're entitled to embrace it all because you have clutter difficulties all around you or you can't, you know, do domestic things very well. So it takes a lot of work to really accepted hold both sides of all sides of yourself.

Katy Weber 0:53
Hello, and welcome to the women and ADHD podcast. I'm your host, Katy Weber. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45. And it completely turned my world upside down. I've been looking back at so much of my life, school jobs, my relationships, all of it with this new lens and it has been nothing short of overwhelming. I quickly discovered I was not the only woman to have this experience. And now I interview other women who liked me discovered in adulthood they have ADHD and are finally feeling like they understand who they are and how to best lean into their strengths, both professionally and personally. Hello, and welcome back to my special top 10 Replace series. After reaching 150 episodes, I decided to rerelease 10 interviews that really have stood out to me over the years and have stayed with me in some particular way. Either it was the topic or the conversation or the feedback I received from listeners for whatever reason I've chosen these 10 episodes that I feel deserve a replay. So if you missed this one the first time around, I hope you'll get a chance to hear it now. If you already listened to it when it originally aired. I hope you will enjoy listening to it again. I feel it is only appropriate to kick off the month of October which is ADHD Awareness month with this particular episode. This week I'm re releasing my interview with Sara Lee sold it which originally aired as episode 63 in December of 2021. Getting the chance to interview Siri was a dream come true for me. And I'm not at all surprised that this interview has been one of my most listened to episodes to date Series books have been so influential in my own life and the lives of so many women I've gotten the chance to meet and work with along the way. Now make sure to stick around because at the end of this episode, I checked back in with Sarah to talk about the new rerelease of her book journeys through adulthood. And we talked about the current state of ADHD in women and I get to tell her in my awkward stumbling way how much her groundbreaking work has meant to me over the years. Okay, so here as part of my top 10 Replace series I give you episode 63 With seri Solden. Now if you had asked me when I first started this podcast who my dream guest would be I would have said today's guest she is the godmother of ADHD psychotherapist, author and researcher Sara Solden. When sereis old and wrote women and attention deficit disorder back in the mid 90s. She was the first researcher to look at how this neurodiversity appears differently in women than in men and why that is and now 30 years later, she continues to counsel adults with ADHD and specializes in the unique ways in which ADHD presents in women. In addition to her groundbreaking research and her books on ADHD. She also serves on the professional advisory board of adda the attention deficit disorder Association and was the recipient of their award for outstanding service by a helping professional. Her books include women with ADHD journeys through adulthood, and the workbook a radical guide for women with ADHD, which in my opinion should be required reading for all late diagnosis women. It was such an absolute pleasure and honor to chat with Sherry And we talk all about the connections she made 30 years ago when it comes to what ADHD looks like in women. Why ADHD is overlooked in girls and why women tend to get diagnosed much later in life. We discussed traits that are unique to women, as well as the current trendiness of an ADHD diagnosis. And Sara reveals how she might rename ADHD if she could. Without further ado, I cannot think of a better way to celebrate one year of this podcast than offering this conversation with Sara. Enjoy. Oh, this is such a treat to be able to interview you because like I said, your book was the first book I read after I was diagnosed. And I really listened to it and then I really listened to it again recently in preparation for this interview. beer with this like year of behind me, and it was really interesting to sort of have that different perspective of, you know, when I first read it, it was just like I was going through that feeling of like, you know, like the like the book says, You mean I'm not crazy, and I'm not lazy, and I'm not stupid. And and this is not just feel like there's so much of I think what is so profound about your book is that, you know, there is a lot of shame in these private experiences that, you know, self care and hygiene and sort of a lot of these things that I was realizing for the first time was a shared experience among women with ADHD. And now a year later, I'm like, Yeah, but I still have ADHD. Right. So now it's like, just meaning that, like, there's a lot of things that are still a struggle, you know, like, even even with the diagnosis behind you, like you still are living with this and sort of what does that mean? Well, that's

Sari Solden 5:58
well, yeah, no, that's a really important point to explore. Because our last book, and if you read radical guide for women, you know, I mean, that is the point of it is that you have to, this is a chronic condition, you know, your brain and all the stuff you're going to do for a medication, all that strategies, tips, tools, whatever, that's your brain, that's not you, and you have to sort of untangle those two things and come to terms with this is chronic, there's nothing to enter in, you don't want to approach it, like you want to get over it, because that's who you are. And you just want to get help for your brain difficulties and accept them because they're chronic, and then the rest of is getting on with your life like you are and you know, and accepting and valuing yourself. So that is important. Yeah. So you know, you sometimes it's framed, like, okay, take this medication or get a diagnosis, and you'll get over this, and that's not true, you know, and you don't want to get fixed, you know, right. Absolutely. Yeah. Furniture get fixed.

Katy Weber 6:53
Yes. And I sort of feel like there is so much literature out there that that revolves around that idea of like, we'll cure it, you know, and get out, you know, master your ADHD, and a lot of that can be really problematic.

Sari Solden 7:05
It is that is the most problematic. So that's why we wrote that other book, which is really helping a lot of women right now. Because, you know, I wrote the first book and 95 Originally it was published. And so then this is, years later, the radical guide is, is to disavow women of that what you just said, right? What is the goal? Yeah, the goal is not to get over who you are, you know, so.

Katy Weber 7:27
So I did want to ask you, because I know you wrote your first book 30, almost 30 years ago, which blows me

Sari Solden 7:33
away edition. Yeah. Revised Edition was in 2005.

Katy Weber 7:38
Which is what I'm assuming I listened to because I listened to your you read the audiobook. So that would have been the Revised Edition.

Sari Solden 7:45
Oh, that was even much later. That was when I put out the audio book. So yeah.

Katy Weber 7:50
But what I do like, you know, what I have been asking throughout this throughout my interviews with women, and even though I know you're sort of on as, as an expert, I am curious about your personal experience with your diagnosis, like how old were you and what was happening in your life that led you to sort of make these connections when practically nobody was making these connections? I mean, when we say you are a pioneer and women and ADHD, you're really the first one off the boat.

Sari Solden 8:16
Yeah, exactly. I feel like, No, that's a really interesting question. Because, yeah, it was in the very early 90s. And yeah, I didn't your question was what made you think you had ADHD? I didn't think about that. There wasn't anything that we were talking about about ADHD without hyperactivity at that point. But a lot of great things came together at the same time. I had been really, but I had been trying to solve this mystery of what I've been struggling with, for it was about age 40, for 40 years, massive disorganization, you know, severe and chronic disorganization. Shai, not talking at all, not being able to organize my thoughts, you know, but very smart and hard working. I just was struggling, you know, and I was very smart, as called twice exceptional, we call that now for that term is for people who are twice exceptional, like, they're both ends of the bell curve, like you're really smart, but you have all these severe challenges. And that sort of even a harder thing to understand. So it didn't matter how much I was achieving, I would just create more stuff that I couldn't control. And I was very frustrated. And so but I wound up at a counseling agency for and they had a special program for adults with learning disabilities, but it was in a counseling agency. So I always was looking at adults with differences like this in the context of who they are and their self and their relationship and their self concept. So it was just a lucky place that I ended up. I was majoring in Minority Mental Health and just through that program, I got connected to this other program. And to work at this program. I had to take a test, a learning disability test and was the first time I ever had incredible difficulty that was discovered, you know, they gave me some crazy memory tests that I imagined other people could pass. And they gave me sort of nonsensical looking Mershon looking people and told me their names and then they'd go back to it. And I couldn't remember a thing. And so it was the first time I saw wow, I have a severe problem with memory that I've been trying to compensate for all my life I had no idea about then in my spare time in between clients, I was surrounded by books about learning disabilities, and I was looking through to find an answer to what the severe and chronic disorganization was all about. And you know, they discussed it in terms of learning disabilities, at least I saw something identified there. And then a couple books started coming out into my office, one was driven to distraction, which was great, but it was the first time we understood that adults had difficulties even though they might have lost their hyperactivity, but it was still mostly about men and people who used to be hyperactive. And it was until a little bit later that we started talking about that people could have these difficulties without having ever had having hyperactivity. And that's when we started understanding women also had something like this. So I did read that book, lazy, you mean, I'm not lazy, stupid or crazy. And that was the first time I saw adults in general, described in a way that made me think, wow, I think that's me. I went to a conference cross country, the first ADHD conference in Ann Arbor. And it was what hundreds of adults for the first time gathered together. And it was the first time I described that my book, how I saw that adults pass for normal outside, and that I was too and that this is the first time people were just like, women wearing this, like going through their purses and throwing all this stuff around and like interrupting and you know, writing on their hands when they want to remember something, it was like the first time that everybody was with their tribe, and I understood this was a real thing. And then I did take a had a diagnostic evaluation at that point, you know, complete neuro psych evaluation, I saw this huge split between my performance, which was really low, and my verbal, which is extremely high. And, you know, showed some of the difficulties with working memory and, and all these other organizational issues. But basically, and I couldn't stay awake, I had sort of like this borderline narcolepsy Vera, my whole life, I couldn't stay awake, very sleepy brain. I couldn't, women's stuff, I couldn't go shopping, I couldn't go grocery store, I was so overwhelmed all the time, by all the sensory input, I couldn't filter out. You know, even at that point in the agency, I couldn't imagine people were sitting at the staff table writing notes and talking to each other, or like, going from one room to another, and it just demands for notes and noise from outside. I was just like, it was a nightmare. You know, for me, I didn't know what was going on. And then I really had a dramatic response to the, to even a small amount of medication at that time. And I started talking, I started speaking up in groups, I started organizing my thoughts, I stayed awake, and it really just a little bit of medication really helped, you know, change my life. And but I had clients at the time. So I started studying them and looking at them and tracking the differences between women and men. And that's where, you know, even if they have the same differences, the shame that the women felt about these difficulties, in our really so apparent that I started really focusing on it.

Katy Weber 13:10
Yeah, that's a topic that we discuss a lot in my interviews with women, which is, you know, that the domestic pressures and kind of, you know, how so much of the self doubt when it comes to like, Is this even ADHD? Or am I just fill in the blank, right? Am I just lazy? Am I just disorganized? I think, you know, like, I feel like a lot of the time I'm like, maybe I'm not maybe this isn't ADHD, maybe I'm just a feminist. Living in this misogynist country, I feel like so many of these specific issues that women are facing, come down to our role, you know, our domestic role or role as wives our role as mothers and the expectations, the domestic expectation that

Sari Solden 14:00
that's what my book really focused on. I think that's why it was so popular besides people identifying themselves and understanding shame, it was about that. What happens when women feel they can't meet these cultural roles. So it wasn't just this arrow is all the way back with cultural roles that they've learned to idealize and internalize and even if intellectually, they don't believe it anymore, deep down, they still compare themselves ruthlessly to other women and and these domestic sick areas that conflict so much with their executive function difficulties. That's where the shame and the hiding and the embarrassment and the disparities in power and their relationships often come because women still feels like the 1950s in my office, really, no matter who these women are, what they've achieved deep down when they can't do those domestic things very well. They feel such shame and like I had someone write to me the other day, I said, you know, who would think that like argument about the pots and pans was, you know, made me think about many ways that I could die. You know, something so poignant because, you know, there's still this shame Am I or how successful you are about like, you didn't do the pots and pans? Or why are the dishes in the sink for three days? Or why didn't you follow the laundry, you know, even if the men are helping with tasks, it's there's still these deep gender role, it feelings of failure when women can't do these things is the same way or easily. And so it's really hard for people to understand you as woman and people you live with,

Katy Weber 15:21
right? And I think so much so many of us come to this diagnosis through recognizing that emotional toll of being undiagnosed, right, and living this life kind of undiagnosed and not understanding what is actually going on. And so you're beating yourself up, and, and so but then at the same time, the DSM has nothing about emotions. And so again, it's like, I feel like it, you were going in circles in terms of like, how hard it is how hard it must be to educate women as to what this actually is.

Sari Solden 15:56
Yeah, and is, like you say, it's so much better now. Because when I, you know, finally wrote this book, and luckily, it was at a time where internet was just beginning to be used, believe it or not. And so that allowed women to start talking to each other, and define their own experiences for themselves to go to conferences and gather together. Because I didn't know I was really confronted by a huge amount of resistance from the male dominated field, you know, academics were really used to controlling this field and telling parents about their kids. But all of a sudden, adults, men and women were coming into the field. And they were, and they were taken over and, and they changed the whole field and women and drove the whole change by going to their doctors and saying, No, this is real, this is who I am. So women really by talking to each other, like you said, really changed the face of this. And it's hard to imagine, I know for you guys that we didn't talk to each other before that. There wasn't the internet. And so when people were even more and more isolated, they had no way to find these things out. And so once that happened, this is just built and built and built where women are talking to each other all around the world now.

Katy Weber 17:04
Yeah, it is mind blowing. I mean that I think that's the the one most common reaction I get from refer reviews of the podcast, which is like I finally I feel less alone. And I feel like I'm you know that there's nothing wrong with me that I'm listening to other women who are bright and accomplished, who are experiencing the same kind of secret things that I've been going through this whole my whole life,

Sari Solden 17:26
I think that's the most therapeutic thing, I think for women is to, because when they hear other women who are successful, and you know, really wonderful women, and then they are described the same struggle. So they have, they're forced to sort of shift their own self image, you know, it's it's a cognitive shift, because they say, Well, you know, I can see their strengths, I can see who they are. And so they start to internalize a new self narrative.

Katy Weber 17:51
Right? Yeah. And I and I feel like I've, I've said this before, in the podcast, which is like, I feel like half the quote, unquote, treatment of Dyk of ADHD is that self realization, and that shifted narrative and just understanding and the research that comes with, like, you know, realizing where your behaviors are coming from? Well, I mean,

Sari Solden 18:16
it's, it's tricky. And, you know, therapists have a long way to go with helping women with ADHD, because this is, again, there's your brain, there's, you know, and your behaviors and your difficulties. But if they don't do it, but if they don't come from a non pathologizing point of view, or see yourself over your symptoms, and help you really heal, not cure, heal, which means like, see yourself as whole. And hold on to both these sides of yourself, you have strengths, your weaknesses, you have challenges, like everybody, and then you also have who you are as a person, your core traits, and it's much more complex than just controlling, you know, the way you pay attention. And there's layers and layers of ADHD, not just because it's different, because of the hyperactivity, it's because of the late diagnosis, like you said, and because then you have layers and layers of shame, and layers and layers of not understanding your experience and filling in the blanks and all sorts of distorted ways. And that's what therapy for ADHD is really about, you know, you can have coaching and all these other things. But often women who weren't diagnosed too late, have many layers of shamans and distorted self narratives and hiding and withdrawing and it just snowballs. So that's why therapy for ADHD for women, you know, has to be more prominent.

Katy Weber 19:36
Again, like once once women start to understand what is actually happening, then they're able to kind of move forward and advocate and ask for the accommodations that they need. One of the major combinations being therapy video, like I just noticed, and like even in the smallest details in my life, like going to a doctor's office and saying like you're throwing a lot of information at me, I'm going to need you to write this down or can you send me an email or you know, or

Sari Solden 20:00
exactly, no. I mean, that's like, one of the main things we do in therapy, you know, is like this communication skill, which I think many young women are much better able to do than older women, you know, I find that snoo generation of women whose value diversity now aren't so embarrassed by it are more willing to advocate for themselves. And that's what really changes thing, when you can say things like that, that is a really hard thing to say, you feel such shame in a doctor's office or any place where information is coming at you and to be able to say, I to describe, you know, I have difficulty with, you know, remembering this, I need you to write this down, or can you give it to me in the way I need it? That's a huge thing. And that's, you know, really what women struggle with, because they feel like, they're embarrassed. So they feel like revealing those difficulties means something terrible about themselves.

Katy Weber 20:47
Mm hmm. Yeah. And, you know, and even with my relationship with my husband, I think one of the biggest realizations I had was how I was valuing so much what he brought to the table, I wasn't paying any attention to what I brought to the table. And I think that that's another thing too, that comes with that understanding, which is like being able to realize what you what gifts you do have, as opposed to focusing, and I don't know, if that's like, again, if that's like a dopamine thing, where we were, I know, Halliwell and maybe talk a bit about the, you know, the, the devil on the shoulder. And that idea that, like, we tend to kind of focus on the negative, you know, as a result, but that idea of like, how we undermine the things that we do bring to the table, because we're focusing so much on what we're not doing, right, we're

Sari Solden 21:32
focusing on the negative, it's, and it's often in that role, that's the most difficult for us when we're at home or with our husbands that executive function. So we already are very easy, you know, to blame ourselves, often the spouse isn't even bringing that much negativity, it's often what's coming from you, yourself. And you're exactly right, women don't value these things that they're good at, because they're invisible, maybe they don't value the all the invisible, caring, emotional, you know, taking care of people and all the invisible things that that they do, or visible, but not so dramatic is the dishes in the sink. So women automatically, you know, compare themselves and, and lose power in the relationship because they don't. And then they don't see that their partners also struggle most of the time with some everybody struggles. So they're only saying, oh, ADHD is like the worst thing in the world. They can be married to anybody who's got their own struggles, but they only see that ADHD is like the worst thing in the world. So women do this to themselves, because they didn't have a very self soothing voice growing up, they didn't have anybody helping them understand. You know, that's not you, that's your challenges. And that's, you know, this is who you are as a person, no advocacy. And so, part of therapy is helping them develop or groups, helping them develop that internal valuing voice.

Katy Weber 22:47
And also understanding that the voice you hear in your head is not always necessarily the truth. I think that was something I learned from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. And, and I think a lot of women I have interviewed came to DBT, intuitively through, you know, because so many of us were diagnosed with other mood disorders. So you know, we've, we've, so many of us have found value in something like DBT and CBT. As you know, even before we understood what ADHD was,

Sari Solden 23:15
yeah, and then those kinds of skills, I guess, about radical acceptance, I mean, that's the same kind of idea that there's that originally came from DBT you know, that I do you know, that you use pain, we all have pain about things we can't control or we don't have any say over there's, we have to face the painful, often frustrating, difficult reality sometimes of living with a unruly brain. But we don't want to add to it, we don't want to add from payment. All I had suffering suffering comes from, oh, this isn't fair, what's wrong with me? Or why can't I do this, or I'm such a loser, I'm just gonna, I gotta get over this, I can't let myself do anything else to like, get over this, this is terrible. So all the stuff you say to yourself about your ADHD is what moves us from pain to suffering. And that's what you know, radical acceptance is about is about, you know, just facing the reality of what you're dealing with and figuring it out what you need to do and then accepting the difficulties and then not being engulfed by it, and not avoiding it or disowning who you are or not running away from or fearing who you are. I mean, living with ADHD is tough enough but it's not half as tough is as this feeling of just owning who you are and wanting to get rid of who you are and, and and avoiding all of life because you don't think you're entitled to embrace it all because you have clutter difficulties all around you or you can't you know, do domestic things very well. So it takes a lot of work to really accepted hold both sides of all sides of yourself.

Katy Weber 24:43
That was so well said and I think you've talked about that a lot in your book. The difference between radical acceptance and just you know, not being open to improvement or what's the word I'm looking for, like just feeling resignation

Sari Solden 24:56
almost. Oh, yeah. That acceptance people are afraid of that word they think it means resignation or just settling for something less or passivity. And acceptance is like the most active, hardest thing you'll ever do. And it's ongoing and it's constant, whether it's ADHD or other kinds of adversity. So acceptance is a very active process. It's not what people think. And you can do whatever you want you, you might not be able to do it in the same way that other people do, which might lead you to a very unique kind of experience, because you have to work around in a different way. But it certainly doesn't mean that you're, you know, you're gonna have to be held back, you're held back by by pushing away who you are, and hiding who you are. That's what holds you back. I think there

Katy Weber 25:35
is a lot of confusion too, in terms of how we talk about ADHD, because I often, you know, I get very confused because sometimes I will refer we'll talk about ADHD as though it's a genetic brain function. And this is something you need to learn to live with. But then there's also the ADHD, which is your behaviors and the traits that you know, you need to manage and tree and master and, you know, the way you know, I think that idea of like, getting over some of the problematic behaviors like forgetfulness, or no distraction, and, and it can be sort of difficult to think about, what exactly are we talking about with ADHD? Is it?

Sari Solden 26:13
Is it well, it's not one thing, that's why it's confusing, and I don't like the term ADHD, I don't really use it anymore, you know, because, first of all, it changed over the years, so many of us were stuck way back in the Add thing, you know, and the H really threw a lot of us for many years, you know, it just changes all the time. And I prefer, you know, when describing it to describe the actual difficulty. So I'd much rather say, women with executive function difficulties, which is, you know, management of certain kinds of functions that, that make coordinating logistics difficult. So executive function, I always use neurodiversity. Now, instead of, you know, ADHD, because it's not, you know, it's not blaming, and it's non pathologizing. And it's actually valuing diversity. And we're, everybody's brain is different. And so, because there's not one ADHD brain, it's just misleading. And, you know, yeah, eventually I like to say, like a dopamine imbalance or something, and eventually, it'd be just like thyroid or something where, you know, it's not a big deal. You just needed to correct the, you know, some work with imbalances and, and manage your lifestyle, like with any chronic, you know, condition. But yeah, I'm not a big fan of the word ADHD.

Katy Weber 27:21
Yeah, that's, that's a question I'll save for later. But yeah, I asked everybody in my class, because it was so problematic, and I think really keeps a lot of women from from pursuing a diagnosis, or at least researching what exactly it is. Because it's such a confusing acronym.

Sari Solden 27:38
I know, I've been answering some of your questions as we go. That's fine. We

Katy Weber 27:41
this is the beauty of ADHD is it's all over the place. Yeah. You were to something about neuro diversity. And

Sari Solden 27:48
you asked me well, in your questions like, What do I prefer to call it? So that's why I answered that.

Katy Weber 27:55
Well, yeah, so if you if you could rename it today, what would you do? Would you call it,

Sari Solden 28:00
I just, I'd always just describe it as is women with a neuro, you know, I describe it more, you know, women with executive function problems. Now, that could be due to many different things, but I mean, they get more captures the actual struggle, no, I don't think it's important to label everything specifically, you know, because with ADHD is a syndrome and it's chronic, it's not constant, it's variable, depending on where your environment is, or sometimes you will, you'll be focusing great sometimes you'll do things even better than other people. So it's just a broad base broad brush kind of approach, and it's why it's difficult for women out and it's become like a, you know, Joe Klein ADHD is not, it's not taken very seriously, it's become, you know, just stereotypical and, and it doesn't help women understand that, you know, that they have something they're coping with, it isn't what you traditionally think of as ADHD prevents them from often from still from getting diagnosed, even though that's, you know, improved a lot.

Katy Weber 29:00
Yeah, I think, you know, it was really surprising to me when I was diagnosed because I wanted to shout it from the rooftops as as many women who I think when they are diagnosed, realize, you know, this is such a revelation. And the general reaction when I said I was diagnosed with ADHD was, Oh, I'm so sorry, as though

Sari Solden 29:21
illness, right? Yeah, no, and that's what I say. Either it becomes something that you like, you excite excise, like, you know, like a mole or like a cancer or something. Like that's how it is thought of, you know, and it's, you know, great that you had that impulse to tell people because most older men are in the old days where they're, you know, most women are hiding that like, and so because of the reaction that often people have from the media or from just other stereotypes, ADHD is this crippling terrible thing? And it's just who you are. I mean, it's how your brain functions. You little as you see things in a fresh perspective, it causes some crazy things in your life. But it also makes, you know, other things possible that other people wouldn't pursue.

Katy Weber 30:08
So now since the pandemic, there has been quite a increase in ADHD diagnoses, and also all across, you know, in ASD diagnoses and self diagnoses. So we've got the rise of Tik Tok and social media and just this, you know, the these relatable memes that I think a lot of people are seeing, having a lot more time to scroll through social media seeing themselves in these videos in these memes, feeling like Oh, my goodness, like I feel seen in a way that I have never felt seen before. And, and, you know, so I feel like there's been this incredible rise in that in diagnoses. But then at the same time, there's also been this rise in the backlash of like, Oh, it's just trendy, oh, it's probably not ADHD, it's probably something else, you know, seek a medical diagnosis, which I think you should but, you know, I think that there, there's sort of hand in hand with this increase has been this backlash, like, Oh, everybody doesn't have ADHD. That's not possible. It's got to be something else. Right.

Sari Solden 31:10
That's since the beginning. Now, that kind of backlash has been there. From the beginning, though, it just takes different forms. And it wasn't on social media yet. But yeah, nobody believed that, that add was real at all, you know, and nobody. So there's always been backlash of conservative groups. I remember, I Scientology had a big thing about it. You know, Ritalin was a big deal. And, you know, when I first went to get medication, you know, the pharmacist wouldn't tell me at all, what kind of medication they had, because I thought we were casing the joint, you know, they were all drug addicts. And, you know, it was very shame based from the beginning. So there's always been a backlash. I think that a pandemic. Yeah, I think just being on Zoom now, and being able to seek mental health treatment, much more easily has helped. And I think that a lot of women, you know, they just have were forced to stop, they were overwhelmed, like you were saying, by kids and everything right in front of them, and all these pulls on their attention. But there's also more easily access to information and to connection. But I think it also, maybe it was a tipping point for a lot of women like, okay, they, they sort of were holding it together, and then then they were able to see, okay, I can't escape this anymore. This is what happens in you know, real time in real life. And so I think that just became much more prominent, as well as more evident, as well as this rise in connectivity, internationally, and just the whole field exploding. You know, my 95 Nobody ever heard of it, basically, when with ADHD. And so it's just been dramatic. And, you know, Europe was always behind us. And now, you know, internationally, everybody is understanding this now. So just the volumes of people and ways to connect have grown so much.

Katy Weber 32:53
Do you think it's, it's much more than 10%? of the population?

Sari Solden 32:58
Women? Yeah, but women are?

Katy Weber 33:01
Or do you think it's much more than, you know, you hear that 10% of the population

Sari Solden 33:06
that is more, I haven't heard 10%, because it was more like, 5% When I was coming up, so

Katy Weber 33:13
that'd be I'm, I'm rounding up. Right?

Sari Solden 33:16
I just haven't been so connected to what they're saying. Now, at first, they thought that, you know, women were just a very teeny percent, though, you know, and so then it got equal. And so I don't I don't know, the latest estimates. But I'd be interested if you find that somewhere.

Katy Weber 33:33
Yeah, maybe I'm just thinking about it. You know, I when I explain ADHD, to my children, I have a daughter who's in high school, and then I have a son who is in fifth grade. And so, you know, once I was diagnosed, of course, I was, I've been looking at everything they do, and with a fine tooth comb and everything my parents did, and and so I, you know, explain it to them, like being left handed, you know, where I say, you know, imagine my daughter's left handed and that so about 10% of the population is left handed. So I'm always like, you know, imagine if, when I was a kid and actually when I was a kid, I'm old enough that my kindergarten teacher forced me to become right handed right. And so I was originally left handed I was forced to become right handed and then when I looked back at my report cards after my diagnosis, it was just like criticism about how my handwriting was terrible and and how messy it was and how I had to focus on being neater and I was like, I was like, come on guys. But I was saying you know, like, imagine not having scissors that were for lefties and and then everybody said, Why can't you cut you know, are not having a left handed desk. And so that seemed to be like the analogy that works best when I when I talked to my kids about, you know, the idea of accommodations and how you know, instead of saying, Well, I guess you just can't cut saying what do you need to be great at cutting and I think that was something that a big a big shift for me just in terms of, you know, I was also In the gifted program growing up, and so my parents always would talk to me about the fact that like, you know, you have this really high IQ, but your grades are terrible. And they wanted me to feel good about myself. And so they would say things like, well, not everybody can get good grades, it's fine. You don't have to go to university, you don't have you know, you have street smarts instead of book smarts. They used to say, right. And I, you know, I think they were meaning well, but now looking back, I realized how What a blow that was, to my sense of self, right and

Sari Solden 35:30
impossible for you to really get an accurate view of who you are and what your actual abilities were. And so I was saying, it's so important to be able to see that whole picture that just say, Oh, you're smart, or no, you're not capable, but to be able to say, and, you know, yes, and is a really important concept that these are all both true. And everything can be many things can be true at the same time. And so I think that's when, like you said, when you're smart, well, for girls, that's why they don't get diagnosed, whether they're often there, they're not stereotypical. There's, if they're smart, and they have a structure around their house or at school, or they have support, or they're compensating or internalizing and being overworking, perfectionistic, you know, that's very hard for people to get an accurate picture of them, they're people pleasers off and they're not bothering you, they're not hyperactive acting out little boys. And then often, you know, eventually they become depressed or anxious, when they're women, and then that's seen and treated or not, but often that's secondary to the ADHD and when that's understood and treated, then the depression anxiety, often you know, are much better go away. Imagine coping with all this stuff without knowing it, of course, you're going to be depressed and anxious. But at some point, women or girls, they don't hit a wall usually till later if they are smart and and in inattentive, because, but when they go to college, sometimes or, or even, you know, after college, when they get married, or have careers or children at some point, they're not able to do manage, like other people, maybe they were able to be like earlier, and then they hit a wall and then they don't know why. Why just hit you know, even though it's been, we've been controlling it or compensating it their whole life. At some point. They they hit a wall, and then they get diagnosed if they're lucky. Yeah, you

Katy Weber 37:18
know, I, I'm the youngest and only have older brothers. But I'm amazed at how many women I have interviewed so far, who had siblings who were diagnosed with ADHD and showed more stereotypical, you know, hyperactivity, disruptive traits. And they were labeled as like the good kid, right? So they were the ones who the parents were grateful, they're just like, Oh, you're easy. You're not a lot of work. Thank you. And they and they held you know, and and then they sort of developed so much anxiety and like you said, that people pleasing and like the pressure to be the good kid who held it all together. And then you know, at some point all exploded, right?

Sari Solden 37:58
Yeah, I don't want to you know, is my job not to bother, you know, my parents are all already have their hands full. They say yeah, that's very common. And, and so they just keep it inside and in the boy gets treated, and everybody understands what's going on. And they are just takes many more years for anybody to understand, just get lost or hide and, and nobody understands the difficulty that they're dealing with. A common thing for girls, and then women, I mean, their biggest coping mechanism is often hiding, even once they're diagnosed sounds like you and maybe your generation, you know, and the women you talk to are more out there, once they get diagnosed, and they know what's going on, or they are on medication that they're not as even if they have some embarrassment or shame, it sounds like you guys are more forthcoming with this is, you know, this is like real. And this is what I need and like advocacy for yourself. Instead of hiding so much. I don't know. Is that that you find? Yeah,

Katy Weber 38:57
I mean, I think the I do see a lot of advocacy, I think when you're diagnosed in adulthood, just because I, we have so much empathy for you know, like, I feel like, if I can save one woman from going through what I went through in terms of a misdiagnosis and just, you know, always feeling like, you know, I've been diagnosed with depression and anxiety, I was diagnosed with PPD and PPA, and I was on, you know, various cocktails of medications. And always felt like it wasn't working, but also felt like well, if it's this bad on the medication, imagine how bad it will be off the medication and so you know, always sort of upping the dose and feeling like why am I depressed? I have a good life. So there was that confusion too, which was like where's this depression even coming from? So, you know, just the putting, you know, connecting the dots and putting this puzzle together. It's just feels like yeah, immediately you're like, if I could save somebody who's worth it.

Sari Solden 39:54
Yeah, but I mean, yeah, also the how do you but willingness to advocate and open to other Leave about what you need as what you know, for yourself.

Katy Weber 40:05
Yeah, although I think I think we do have a gift for just blurting things out and being an open book, I've never really been very good at, like, keeping things to myself. So I feel like that is an accidental ADHD gift for sure. Which is like if I can help somebody else by by blabbing on. And I always used to call myself Sofia from the Golden Girls where I was like, I don't know if I had a stroke, but like, I just say, I have no self censor. So I've used it to my advantage.

Sari Solden 40:34
Ya know, like, that's how I answered your question. But like, what are some of the advantages and I always say, you know, ADHD saved me from the life of artificiality and superficiality and mediocrity that I wanted, like, I wanted to conform, I wanted to fit in, and I couldn't, you know, I tried, and I couldn't. So it just kept pushing me to fight and I had to be really, really interested in something. So I had to keep things interesting, I had to keep moving on to find things that were really a value to me, and really meaningful. And even though it was much harder for me to, to write, or to organize my thoughts, I had to keep digging deeper, until I found some, you know, really pearls at the bottom of my piles kind of, but I had to keep going. And so I couldn't just like, oh, okay, I had a I had kept pushing me and so. So that was, that's a good thing about ADHD that, you know, you're gonna want to, you know, find something that's really, you know, compelling for you. Like, that's the key actually, to find something compelling to help move you, you know, just like stead of this discipline is like a parading yourself and, and punishing yourself. It's like discipleship on the same word, as disciple to follow with love. And, you know, that's the key with ADHD to find something compelling, that draws your attention to move toward, not just a negative kind of, you know, way to control yourself or fix yourself, wait until you're all better kind of until women say, oh, gotta wait till I'm all organized before I let myself feel entitled to have a life, you know, and like, that doesn't work. So, you know, finding something that's really exciting and out and getting support that you need, because you're going to need support to fill in some of your gaps here with executive functioning, and to keep moving towards an exciting future for yourself that's meaningful to you.

Katy Weber 42:14
I think that's another thing we talk about a lot, that comes up in conversation a lot is how problematic the term superpower can be. For many people, because, you know, there is a lot of grief, there is a lot of regret in an adult diagnosis, there is a lot of that, like, what could have been, how did nobody see the signs, you know, how could my life have been different and, and so what I love about your approach with the radical acceptance to is that idea that like, in, you know, once you see yourself, and you can start to, you know, once you understand what is actually happening, you can start to lean into your strengths, and you can start to, you know, see your gifts, and then it's like you're, you do radically transform in terms of who you are, and you can kind of look at it as a superpower. It's gonna appreciate it for so many gifts. Yeah,

Sari Solden 43:03
but it's also really important to point out like, you know, it's not like, Oh, it's a great gift. You know, it's, it's not just a great gift, it's, you know, you don't want to underestimate or undermine, you know, or non validate the really high level of difficulty it is to get to that gift. So that's why I said really has to be all. Yes, and it can't just be oh, this is great, because it's difficult. And so you got to really, you know, that's part of the superpower to to say, Okay, well, what do I need to make this engine go, you know, I need the fuel, I need the support. I can't go on this journey all by myself, kind of So, yeah, to to not, you know, if you're getting help you want somebody who can help you see your gifts and your strengths and help you move toward that. But you don't want to underestimate you know, the difficulty level.

Katy Weber 43:48
I love that. My last question is, you know, what are what do you love most about your ADHD? Well, that so sorry, what

Sari Solden 43:55
I said before, I was like, I answer the question that advance. I mean, what I have loved about it is like it yeah, it made me have to keep going to find a unique way to live, you know, that I couldn't just settle for ordinary life. Because I couldn't I tried, and I couldn't do I couldn't, you know, I graduated college a long time ago and went home tried to become a housewife, which is a joke that I think I would have, you know, like, you know, I was trying to do all that for about like, three months, you know, I got married and I tried to like play that role. And it was like a nightmare. And so I couldn't do that, luckily. And you know, as many more years before I understood why. It was very difficult, but like I said, it propelled me to keep trying to search and I would hit a barrier and then I'd go another way and I keep me keep going. I didn't know what else to do. You know, I said like I'm like Monday said I, I only do two things well, you know, paint and garden, you know, but sometimes you have very narrow skills, but they're good and I it took me a while to find out exactly where it was. It's a good fit for me, you know, and so I think you just have to keep going with ADHD and, and not settle for something that doesn't fit you because that won't work and that's the good thing about ADHD just won't work and, and so you have to keep going until you find something that's that works for you. And really well like Halliwell says, you know, marry the right person?

Katy Weber 45:22
Oh my goodness, yes. Intuition is something I think that is such as a muscle to build when it comes to following your gut and kind of going with, like you said, like what you're compelled to do. And I think, you know, intuition is something that when you have lived your life undiagnosed, you really kind of stop listening to yourself, you're, you're told that you're doing things wrong, that by your teachers and, you know, by society, and so many different ways that I think we tend to lose, lose touch with our intuition. I think that's such an important thing to rebuild as of

Sari Solden 45:58
right, right, and usually have really good intuition. You know, once once it's released, you know, but I think it's mostly also because you're just coping so hard, I'm used just takes all your energy that when you're undiagnosed or untreated, and you don't know, he's like going through some jungle, and you don't really know what's going on or the way out. And so it just takes tremendous amount of energy. So you just don't even have the luxury of, of, oh, let me stop and see what I want or where I want to go. You just keep going. And so I think that's what happens when you find the right person to help you or the right medication or the right group of people, then you can sort of see the light and then you can sort of find your way through it. What's your intuition?

Katy Weber 46:36
Hmm. Well, it's incredible in for me, this has been such an incredible journey. And I look forward to learning more sometimes I feel like the more I learned, the less I know about ADHD.

Sari Solden 46:49
Because it's so limiting in that name. What you're saying is you just have more you learning about human beings. I mean, really, when it comes down to it, these are just, we're all human beings, we all have differences, we all have things we do well, things we are challenged. And so I think the bigger broader lens, as you get into this longer longer is like, Okay, here's a diverse human being, like all of us, and what works for you and and what do you need to become more of who you are more easily

Katy Weber 47:12
Beautiful. Now with the with the workbook, the or the radical guide for women with ADHD, it feels like it's a book club, you know, women have book clubs around this radical guide, you have an official outline that you offer,

Sari Solden 47:27
I don't, you know, we thought we would do that right away. A lot of people just started doing it. So like adda, who's the National Association for adults with learning with it, add add add.org, they, they have a book club there that someone leads based on our book, a lot of people use it for I use it in my groups, I don't use it as a strict workbook, I use a lot of the, you know, I pare it down a little bit. So to make it more easy to use, but yeah, it can be used in a lot of different ways. And people do use it all over the place. And yeah, we never got around to like licensing that or whatever. And I would hope if people use it, you know, have people buy the book. But people are using it. And I think it is a great guy, but because we like it because it's not just about ADHD, it's about you as a woman. And a lot of it's these gender issues for women not claiming space for themselves not taking a center stage, and they're sort of not using their voice and you're all women have these issues. And for women with ADHD, it's even more important to claim that space even though you're still disorganized or struggling. So that's sort of the key don't wait until you're over your ADHD is my final thought, you know, because I see people in their 70s 80s they've waited their whole life spent seven hours a day trying to figure out how to cook dinner, you know, or how to do this or do that. And you know, they waited and now, you know, you don't want to wait because that's not going to help you, you know, have any extra energy or any more excitement or doesn't help stimulate your brain to just focus on everything that you're not good at all day.

Katy Weber 48:57
Right? Yeah, I feel like I you know, that's one lesson I need to learn more, which is like you don't have to be at your wit's end to ask for help. I think that's something that we bring out a lot as women too, that I feel like I have to do all of this by myself until I am literally at my breaking point. Yeah,

Sari Solden 49:14
no, no, you don't want to do that. Yeah, go for help is a huge issue for women with ADHD and maybe for all women but with ADHD they feel like that is like a reveal about themselves that they don't want other people to see. And so even with kids is idea of you know, fostering interdependence and saying I'm not very good at this so I'm good at this and how about you go do this with your aunt and I'll do this for them and just you know, how can we all help each other and we all can value diversity and we all have difficulties we all struggle so moms don't have to hide this terrible secret from their kids and they always say I don't want the kids to be like me, but you know, if they do have same, you know, traits or tendencies, you don't want them to feel like you're saying shame or something shaming or about them either. So see is what I do to help myself. This is how I value differences in difficulties. And so we're all in this together kind of you know, would be the ideal,

Katy Weber 50:04
that's beautiful. Like I said, I feel like with every diagnosis, your book should be the prescription required reading.

Sari Solden 50:13
therapists have used it for many years. I mean, that's sort of what helped get it like launch. And I do want to put a plug for my other book too, which is sort of lost in the shuffle a lot of journeys through adulthood, which I've just got the rights back to now and I've just put out on audio tape. So I'm promoting that now because it's hard to find in the hardcover and in the print cover now, but it's just been put out in audio. And so that's a great book. I wrote that in the middle there about it's for men and women and mental health professionals about you know, what happens after you understand your brain then what about that search for meaning and identity and, and then what happens when you get successful with that crisis of success? About then how do you control things, you know, that double edged sword about? Okay, now I'm doing well, but now I'm just creating more things to, you know, control. And so that's a really good book, too. So those three books that I think they're on audio and on Kindle,

Katy Weber 51:03
awesome. Yeah, I almost exclusively listened to my books, but I that's good to know. So I will put a link to that in the Episode Notes as well. Thank you so much for sitting down with me. And now it's

Sari Solden 51:12
really amazing. I used to spend a year I mean, obviously, look like you're just owning the whole field here. I mean, like you've learned so much, and you've helped so many people even in one year. It's amazing.

Katy Weber 51:22
Well, yeah, that's I read. I'm like, this is hyper focus at its best.

Sari Solden 51:29
Thank you so much, Katie.

Katy Weber 51:31
Yeah, thank you. It's been a real pleasure. And now almost two years later, let's check in with Siri salted.

Unknown Speaker 51:41
Hi. Okay. Hi, Siri. So

Katy Weber 51:43
good. How are you? Hi. All right. So congratulations on the rerelease. So basically, you got the rights to the book to publish it and under your own imprint, correct?

Sari Solden 51:58
That's correct. So this is the new book. And it's important for me to hold it up because or for you to know that. There's so many versions out there on Amazon. This is the new ones. It's got my name and red, which the roof differentiates and add friendly wise, from the old one, which had it in green. Or basically, you know, I wrote that book in 2002. And yeah, I didn't have the rights. And it went out of print, even though it's still on Kindle from the other publisher. And I've been able to update it and put it on audio. But there was so much demand for my other two books. I said, wow. Yeah, I realized I have this other great book that everybody loved and it's for men and women and mental health professionals. And so I'm gonna see about you know, cleaning it up, really not a new edition, but cleaning it up updating it, you know, making it more readable. It was just needed a lot of there's so many old terms now when you go back to look at something, and things to just Natick in existence, it cleaning up the language and cleaning up the format and references. So yeah, so I'm excited. I just rereleased it. And I'm doing a series of free webinars for people to come to, you know, to know it again, because it was a great guide. And it was really has a through line from my later work with radical dad I see now there's definitely threads of what developed into radical guide were there at that time? Oh, absolutely.

Katy Weber 53:40
And I think there's so much I mean, really one of the one of the key points that is now all three of your books, that really resonates and stays with me. And so many of the women who have read your work, workbooks, and the books in general is just this idea that you can be an extraordinary human being and still struggle, like, you know, that you can still need support, but also be an incredible human being. And I think it's you know, in the journeys through adulthood, you talk about the fact that your weaknesses, don't cancel out your strengths, which is so simple and poignant. And why is that so novel?

Sari Solden 54:31
Exactly. Why is this such a radical idea how we wrote that other but but when you do grow up on diagnose, that's what happens you get and that's what I talk a lot about in journeys is distorted sense of self. So all you're really doing is narrowly focusing on what's wrong with you and if not only distortion of yourself. When you read the book, I realized it's a distortion of the whole journey. The point is not to get over who You are to get fixed. And that's really what's presented to a lot of women and men. You know, if they're diagnosed, you're not like, Okay, now, let's, you know, you gave your diagnosis now get over it, you know, and go on to push yourself and you know, and get over all your chronic executive function problems. And that's such a destructive message, but it really keeps you

Katy Weber 55:27
stuck. Right? Absolutely. And one of the things now I've listened to the audio book, which has a very has a different cover, right, so that entirely, Yeah, cuz

Sari Solden 55:38
every publisher, yeah, that I gave those rights to another publisher who, they couldn't use the same cover. So it's very confusing world out there. That is updated a little bit, but then that was even a few years ago. So this is even updated, you know, more cleanly.

Katy Weber 55:57
Okay. Are there examples that you have of what you updated other than the language? I mean, was there anything,

Sari Solden 56:03
but you know, it's more of the formatting, you know, in the in the present in the language, but, but the message is actually why I put it out when I reviewed it was a message was always the same basically, in that I've seen the same message since I started this work and 93. Ada really, but the reason I wanted to put it out the reason I originally wrote it was because just a retrospective for a second is that when I wrote that first book, everybody got diagnosed at the same time in the early 90s, when we realized that adults still had what we call a DD or ADHD, D without hyperactivity in those days. But by the time I had been seeing, you know, adults for about 10 more years, at some point, I realized, so people aren't all coming in at the same place anymore. therapists don't know what to treat people and how people don't know what to do. Now I've got diagnosed among get my gold plated new planner, and I've gotten medication, but then there was this blank. So then I said, I could start to see these shifts that clients were having when they came in, in all different places after the first year or two. And they were all focusing and needed to focus on different things like mostly, that journey to was about after diagnosing and understanding your brain. It's like, now it's about your identity and focusing on yourself. And that crisis, then that fixing that distorted, working on that distorted, expanding that distorted sense of self. And then the journeys three, even after that some people were okay, now I understand that, protect myself and who I am. But then how do I do that and be with other people? Or how do I be myself and then also interact with the world or contribute to the world. So that was that third journey, or now that I'm being successful? Now, I'm completely overwhelmed again, what's happening, you know, so because they never learned how to make choices and all these bits. So I'm sure you're experiencing that now. Now, way too many things are happening now. You're overloaded, overwhelmed, you know, but it's like, you know, having the lottery, you know, being, you know, freaking out about money versus like, not me any money. So it's different, but it still feels scary, like, Oh, why am I still overwhelmed? So learning how to make choices and have a criteria for how to live your life than it is what the journey three is about? Look like you're identify?

Katy Weber 58:55
Yes, that absolutely resonated with me. Absolutely. Because there is that sort of excitability element of wanting to do all the things and having a really difficult time saying no, because I just really wish I could clone myself, you know, and then the the inevitable burnout that comes with that. So having those sort of self care boundaries are so important.

Sari Solden 59:20
Exactly. And that's where that's really third journey is so important about because you never usually when you were before you get diagnosed, to have these successes, you know, anything great comes your way. Great. I'll take it, you know, and you don't have a criteria. I don't know it feels scary to say no, like, you know, not gonna get anything back again. It's like, and so it takes a long time to get used to being successful and and being able to say no to things So protect yourself and choose much more carefully.

Katy Weber 59:55
Yeah, absolutely. And what are the things I also love about the app Going through the journeys was exploring just how very, very small subtle life changes can have such a large effect, right? Even just changing, you know, wearing red socks to.

Sari Solden 1:00:16
Well, that was such a great story about Dan, there's a picture in there about this, you know, he's an insurance salesman, he's dreaming about being a poet. And what I like about it is like, the, it's very shows the complexity of these journeys. It's not like, okay, just change jobs, for instance, with Don that character. You know, he didn't need to change jobs, but he needed to, he couldn't change jobs. But he needed to start letting people see more about who he was. First, he went to an add conference, and he started to be more himself made, people knew eventually, instead of being all straight laced, that didn't reflect to us, he started showing up with Red Sox, you know, a little bit here a little bit there, then he was started to go to poetry readings, and he started to have a whole big expanded life didn't have to just start all about shifting and changing big careers always, you know,

Katy Weber 1:01:10
right. And I think that that might even be a tendency with ADHD, to make those like, you know, life bombs go off, right, especially when I, you know, especially I work with so many women who are in really unhealthy marriages. Right, and working through some of the messages and some of the conversations, and some of the, you know, just the patterns that have happened in marriages, and the tendency is to be like, girl, you need to lead that person. But obviously, that's, you know, not the option for so many of us and, you know, nor should it be, but, you know, really, that idea of like how very, very small, incremental changes can make such a big difference, I think is such an important message.

Sari Solden 1:02:01
Exactly. That's why I liked about the character development in the book. It wasn't like all or nothing was very slow and even at a bath character, but you know, even if she got diagnosed look pretty cool. Look like, Okay, I'll make a schedule and Okay, I'll go back to school and stuff. And then even then, it was like, oh, no, that didn't work out either. It was like pseudo acceptance. Okay, now I'll get it all together, and I'll get the medication. Now, again, it's great schedule, you know, which lasted about two days, you know, it was though these false expectations about really where you're supposed to be going. And you know, really what, this idea of wholeness and figuring out who I am in all these beautiful kind of facets, and this sort of the idea about neurodiversity? All the ways where human beings build human beings.

Katy Weber 1:02:53
Yeah, it's really fantastic. I'm so excited for it to be back out in the world and the loved all all three books, but I loved the Oh, my goodness, I mean, I'm just so excited to have a chance to get to see you again. And thank you for the influence you've not only had on me and on so many of us, I mean, I can't I have no idea if they're ever going to come out with the numbers of how many women have been diagnosed over the last few years. But it's, it's got to be insane.

Sari Solden 1:03:31
really changed a lot during during the pandemic.

Katy Weber 1:03:37
Many right what do you make, uh, what do you make of these numbers?

Sari Solden 1:03:41
I don't know. I'm just starting to get back to myself kind of go on tick tock today and check it out, you know, because I resisted it. And you know, obviously, it that seems to be what's changed a lot of things. I don't really know too much about it, but from what I hear and where people are coming from the gatekeepers sort of left, you know, people are talking to each other not understanding is this sort of what happened in my years, when then it was just the internet. And women started talking to each other and we started defining for ourselves, what was happening, we pushed our way into these organizations and into conferences. And I think that's so the new iteration of it now is tic tac and people just, you know, defining they have to then go after that and you know, find out you know, really what is going on something might not be ad, it might be something else, but you know, at least it introduces and it D stigmatizes and it makes you feel connected. So whatever is out there, it's a good thing, I think,

Katy Weber 1:04:48
right? Any anything that leads us to this belief that I am not the problem, I am not fundamentally the problem that you know, it's really it's this As information for us, this is this is leaving us to sort of believe, Oh, there's another way of looking at this, I think is so profound.

Sari Solden 1:05:09
Yeah, the path pologize thing, you know, I think that is finally, you know, being broken by all these, you know, more non hierarchical ways of looking at ourselves and these issues before, you know, when I was starting out, so I curious the hierarchy of academia, and will tell you, who you are, and what the truth is about your experience. And that's what I think is being, you know, changed. Luckily, hopefully.

Katy Weber 1:05:43
Yeah, be interesting to see where this goes over the next few years.

Sari Solden 1:05:49
Well, I mean, I really am happy that people are talking about neuro divergence, see, you know, more than it I don't like, ADHD anymore was so limiting. And it was such a little box, and you know, women and people have just different kinds of brains and understand how you work and, you know, for all the myriad of reasons, you know, some good thing

Katy Weber 1:06:11
I know, I've started calling ADHD, the gateway diagnosis to, to nerve and the idea of a neuro divergent brain. And a, you know, exploring all of that. Well, thank you for your time. Again, it's been so I'm just so grateful for what you put out into this world and just, you know, grateful for this opportunity to thank you again. And, yeah.

Sari Solden 1:06:40
I'm so happy to reconnect with you. And I'm happy for your generation of women to be taking up the mantle and then carrying on.

Katy Weber 1:06:50
All right, yeah, I love that quote from Jane Fonda who said, you know, I used to think life was a sprint. And then as I got older, I realized it was a marathon. And now I realize it's a relay. And I hadn't heard that one. I love that quote, so much, especially as I think of like my 16 year old daughter getting all fired up about politics and the environment. And I'm like, I am entering my no longer angry face.

Sari Solden 1:07:28
I love that. I'm gonna remember that. But that's so true, you know. So thank you for doing that. All right, what do you keep in touch, and I'm anxious to follow your journey.

Katy Weber 1:07:41
Oh, absolutely. Thanks again.

There you have it. Thank you for listening. And I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the women and ADHD podcast. If you'd like to find out more about me and my coaching programs, head over to women and adhd.com. If you're a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD, and you'd like to apply to be a guest on this podcast, visit women and adhd.com/podcast guest and you can find that link in the episode show notes. Also, you know, we ADHD ears crave feedback. And I would really appreciate hearing from you the listener, please take a moment to leave me a review on Apple podcasts or audible. And if that feels like too much, and I totally get it. Please just take a few seconds right now to give me a five star rating. Or share this episode on your own social media to help reach more women who maybe have yet to discover and lean into this gift of nerd of urgency, and they may be struggling and they don't even know why. I'll see you next week when I interview another amazing woman who discovered she's not lazy or crazy or broken. But she has ADHD and she's now on the path to understanding her neurodivergent mind and finally using this gift to her advantage. Take care till then