Welcome back to another ADHD Girl Guide! This time we're talking diagnosis, one of the biggest and most misunderstood parts of the ADHD conversation.

We went through two completely different routes to get here: NHS Right to Choose and a private assessment, and we're breaking down what each one actually looks like, the waitlists, the costs, and the workarounds nobody tells you about.

We dig into the self-diagnosis debate (spoiler: it's valid, but it's a first step, not a final answer), why "over-diagnosis" isn't the problem people think it is, and how other conditions can overlap with and mask ADHD symptoms.

Plus, our top 10 tips for anyone starting the process - from picking the right assessor to what we wish we'd known before walking in — and the advice we'd give our younger selves if we'd been diagnosed sooner.

If you've ever sat there thinking "maybe I have ADHD, but what if I'm not X enough for it to count" — this one's for you. You deserve the answers.

Disclaimer: we are not medical professionals. This episode is based on personal experience, not clinical advice.

This week we're diving deep into attachment theory — anxious, avoidant, disorganised, and everything in between — and how ADHD makes it all so much more intense.

We get brutally honest about our own most "unhinged" moments in relationships (hello, retroactive jealousy 👀), the fear of rejection that shapes how we love, and why chasing "secure" love can feel scarier than the chaos we're used to.

We talk childhood roots, why your attachment style isn't a life sentence, and the one relationship that matters more than any romantic one: the one with yourself.

If you've ever wondered "why do I do this in relationships?" — this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• Anxious vs. avoidant vs. disorganised attachment
• Our most unhinged relationship moments (we're not proud, but we're honest)
• How ADHD intensifies attachment wounds
• Retroactive jealousy and where it comes from
• Learning to accept secure love when you're not used to it
• Why healing starts with your relationship with yourself

Grab a glass of wine and settle in — this one's a vulnerable one.

trigger warning: this one's a bit heavier than usual. We're talking eating disorders, body image and how they show up differently when you've got ADHD.

we get into binge eating (and why it's so under-diagnosed, especially in women), the shame spiral that follows it, growing up in the Tumblr pro-ana era, and why rejection sensitive dysphoria makes body comments stick for life. we also go there on the Ozempic conversation; the accessibility of it, the trend of it, and why beauty standards always seem to circle back to whatever's hardest for "normal" people to get.

plus: masking as a hidden driver of disordered eating, ARFID and sensory sensitivity in neurodivergent people, why scales are lying to you, and the stories behind our own body image baggage (boat parties, boob jobs, and the bikini we avoided for years).

we're not experts, just two adhd women talking honestly about something that doesn't get talked about enough. if you're struggling, please reach out to BEAT or your GP.

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If you've ever eaten the same meal every single day for three weeks and genuinely loved every bite, and then suddenly couldn't look at it ever again, this episode is for you.

This week we are getting into something that doesn't get talked about enough in ADHD spaces: food. Not in a diet culture way, not in a wellness way, in a why have I ordered the exact same thing from this restaurant fourteen times and felt zero shame about it kind of way.

Because the ADHD relationship with food is its own thing entirely. The hyperfixations that take over your entire personality for a month. The safe foods you return to when your brain has nothing left. The forgetting to eat until your blood sugar crashes and suddenly every emotion you own arrives at once. The specific paralysis of standing in front of a full fridge and genuinely being unable to decide what to eat. The way a favourite food can go from the only thing you want to completely repulsive overnight with absolutely no warning.

It's chaotic. It's neurological. And it turns out it makes a lot more sense when you understand how the ADHD brain actually works.

In this episode:

• What food hyperfixations actually are and why the ADHD brain keeps returning to the same things
• The safe food list — what yours says about you and why the grief when a safe food stops working is completely real
• Forgetting to eat and then eating everything — the blood sugar crash spiral and why it keeps happening
• Decision fatigue and food — why a full fridge can feel more overwhelming than an empty one
• The dopamine hit of food and why ADHD brains are especially wired to seek it
• Beige food, sensory sensitivity and why certain textures and foods feel genuinely unbearable
• The restaurant order thing — why so many ADHDers find one thing they love on a menu and never order anything else ever again
• ADHD medication and appetite — what actually happens and how to work around it
• The chaos of food shopping with ADHD — buying seventeen ingredients for a recipe and then ordering a takeaway anyway

This is not a nutrition episode. We are not here to tell you what to eat. We are just two women with ADHD comparing notes on the most unhinged food habits we have and figuring out why our brains work this way.

Chaotic, honest, and very relatable — especially if your current hyperfixation meal is getting slightly out of hand.

New episodes every week. If this one made you feel less alone, please leave us a review — it genuinely helps more people find the show.

#ADHD #ADHDFood #FoodHyperfixation #ADHDWomen #ADHDPodcast #NeurodivergentFood #ADHDEating #SafeFoods #ADHDLife #NeurodivergentLife #ADHDTips #WomenWithADHD #ADHDCommunity #FoodAndADHD #ADHDBrain

Is ADHD actually a disorder — or is it a brain that evolved for a completely different world?

In our first ever guest episode, we sit down with Dr. Alex Curmi — psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and host of The Thinking Mind podcast — for one of the most eye-opening conversations we've ever had on this show.

We get into evolutionary psychology, why the ADHD brain may have been an extraordinary advantage in hunter-gatherer times, and why modern life — think open-plan offices, smartphones, TikTok, and 9-5 schedules — is essentially kryptonite for the way our brains are wired.

But this episode goes way beyond the theory. Dr. Alex gets into the stuff that actually affects our day-to-day lives: why so many women aren't diagnosed until their thirties or forties, why medication alone isn't enough, and the specific, practical interventions that can genuinely help with the ADHD symptoms that nobody talks about enough — impulsive spending, emotional dysregulation, and rejection sensitive dysphoria.

In this episode:

• What evolutionary psychology actually is and why it changes how you see your ADHD brain
• The hunter-gatherer theory — why ADHD traits that feel like problems today may have been survival superpowers
• Why smartphones and social media actively make ADHD symptoms worse (neurologically, not just in a "phones bad" way)
• The real reason so many women are diagnosed late — and what gets missed
• Why ADHD is a spectrum and what severe ADHD actually looks like day-to-day
• The overdiagnosis vs. underdiagnosis debate — Dr. Alex's honest, nuanced take
• Why medication is just one piece of the puzzle and what else needs to happen
• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) techniques for emotional regulation and RSD — explained simply and actually usefully
• The journaling technique Dr. Alex uses with patients to rewire impulsive spending habits
• How to structure your life and career around your ADHD strengths rather than constantly fighting your weaknesses
• Where to start if you're struggling and don't know what to do next

Dr. Alex's take-home message: You don't have to stay stuck. Start with the simple stuff — sleep, exercise, cutting back on overstimulating tech. Try the strategies. And if you've tried a lot by yourself and you still need more support, reach out to a professional. But don't let your problems just simmer.

We are not medical professionals — we are just two women with ADHD having the conversations we wish someone had with us sooner. Dr. Alex is the expert in the room and this one is genuinely worth listening to twice.

Find Dr. Alex Curmi:🎙️ The Thinking Mind Podcast — available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube📱 Alex Curmi Therapy

New episodes every week. If this one helped you feel less alone or gave you something useful, please leave us a review — it genuinely helps more people find the show.

#ADHD #ADHDWomen #EvolutionaryPsychology #ADHDDiagnosis #ADHDPodcast #MentalHealth #DBT #RejectionSensitiveDysphoria #EmotionalDysregulation #ADHDTips #NeurodivergentWomen #ADHDInWomen #LateADHDDiagnosis #ADHDLife #Psychiatry #ADHDBrain

We just got back from six nights at Kala Festival in Albania, and we are feeling it. When you have ADHD, that kind of exhaustion hits ten times harder than it does for anyone else — and honestly, it felt like the perfect time to record this episode.

This is our ADHD Girls Guide to Making Life Easier — and we want to be really clear about what this is not. It's not a self-improvement episode. We're not going to tell you to colour-code your kitchen cupboards, batch cook on a Sunday, or buy a beautiful planner you'll use for three days and then feel terrible about. We've all tried that. We know how it ends.

Instead, we're sharing the real, honest, sometimes completely unhinged strategies that have actually made our lives more manageable — the hacks that might look lazy or silly from the outside, but are genuinely clever adaptations for a neurodivergent brain. We're calling this a permission slip, because that's exactly what it is.

In this episode we cover ten practical tips including: why frozen and pre-cut veg is a game changer for reducing decision fatigue around cooking, how meal kit boxes like Gusto and HelloFresh remove the overwhelming mental load of planning and shopping, our "chuck-it bucket" method for tidying without the paralysis of having to put everything in exactly the right place, the in-your-shoe trick and visual cues for never forgetting things again, why uniform dressing and a capsule wardrobe can save your entire morning before it even goes wrong, the two-minute rule and how doing tiny tasks immediately stops them piling up into unbearable background noise, phone charging habits and screen time boundaries that actually protect your sleep and your focus the next day, body doubling for life admin — not just work and studying, how to automate your bills, groceries, prescriptions and more so you're making fewer exhausting decisions every single day, and why you need to stop apologising for the workarounds that make your life work.

We also get really honest about the shame that comes with having ADHD in a world that wasn't built for us — the guilt of forgetting the washing, losing your keys, leaving your laptop on a plane during a layover in Hong Kong, spending £200 in Tesco when you only went in for one thing — and why getting a diagnosis changed everything for both of us when it comes to finally understanding our brains.

If you have ADHD, suspect you might have ADHD, or just feel like the typical organisation advice has never once worked for you, this episode is for you. We hope it makes you feel a little less alone, a little less broken, and a lot more equipped to figure out what actually works for your brain.

New episodes every week — make sure you follow us so you never miss one.

Are you ADHD, or are you just a mess? (We're both, apparently.) This week we're getting into one of the most important conversations in the ADHD space right now — why social media has made it so hard to know what's real, what's accurate, and what's just the algorithm doing its thing.

We talk about the actual clinical difference between ADHD traits and ADHD impairment, why women are so often missed or misdiagnosed, the very real problem of ADHD baiting on TikTok, why 75% of social media ADHD content isn't clinically accurate, and the uncomfortable truth about when ADHD becomes an excuse rather than an explanation.

Whether you're diagnosed, questioning, or just doom-scrolling content that makes you feel seen — this one's for you.

In this episode:

• What actually separates ADHD from just being a bit forgetful or chaotic
• Why women are diagnosed so much later — and how hormones and masking play into it
• ADHD baiting: what it is and why it's more harmful than you think
• How to consume ADHD content on TikTok without self-diagnosing off a 30-second reel
• The difference between ADHD as an explanation vs. ADHD as an excuse
• Why not replying to that text for a week isn't always just your ADHD

Hold On, What Was I Saying? is the podcast for women with ADHD — honest, unfiltered, and never taking itself too seriously.

Welcome back to ADHD Girls' Guide! This week we're throwing open the doors on something we know every ADHD girlie has — the Shame Shed. Whether it's an actual box on top of your wardrobe or a loft full of bamboo straws from a business that never quite launched, we're talking about all the hobbies, projects and hyperfixations we started with absolute fire... and quietly abandoned.

From DJ decks and crochet to Bob Ross oil painting, Duolingo guilt-trips and failed lockdown gardens, we're getting into why the ADHD brain is wired for novelty-seeking, what the shame around "not finishing things" is really about, and how to actually make peace with it.

We also talk about body doubling, breaking the honeymoon phase, and why not everything needs to be monetised — sometimes a hobby is just allowed to be a hobby.

In this episode:

• Our most chaotic "shame shed" confessions
• Why ADHD brains hyperfocus, then drop things — and what's actually going on
• The lockdown hobby spiral we all went through
• How to tell the difference between a hyperfixation and something worth sticking to
• Building structure to survive past the honeymoon phase
• Why starting things is actually really brave

Honest, chaotic and (hopefully) a little healing. You are not lazy. You are not inconsistent. You just have a very enthusiastic brain.