21/06/2026
Today I attended an ADHD conference and had the opportunity to hear from Rebecca Folitzpatrick Masters Psychology
One of the things she and other speakers spoke about stayed with me long after I left.
It wasn't ADHD itself. It was the high-functioning women.
The women who have spent their entire lives compensating.
- Working harder.
- Trying harder.
- Overachieving.
- Creating systems.
- Double checking everything.
- Holding themselves to impossibly high standards.
The women who look like they have it all together because from the outside they often do.
They are successful. Capable. Reliable.
The are the women everyone else depends on.
Yet underneath that can be a lifetime of feeling like they are somehow falling short.
- Not organised enough.
- Not disciplined enough.
- Not focused enough.
- Not good enough.
As I listened today, I found myself thinking about the women I work with.
How many have spent years believing they are the problem.
How many learnt as children that they needed to try harder, do better and work more just to keep up.
How many turned behaviours into identity.
"I forgot something."
Becomes... "I'm hopeless."
"I got distracted."
Becomes... "I'm lazy."
"I struggle to keep up."
Becomes... "I'm not enough."
What struck me most was that many of these women don't look like they are struggling.
Becausw they are functioning.
Achieving.
Leading.
Parenting.
Building businesses.
Holding everything together.
And that's exactly why they so often go unseen.
Today's conference was a beautiful reminder that sometimes what looks like disorganisation, procrastination or inconsistency is so much more complex than that.
Perhaps women have spent years carrying stories about themselves that were never true in the first place.
I'd love to know...
Did you grow up feeling like you had to work harder than everyone else just to feel like you were enough?
