Nuerodivergent women
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[00:00:00] Hey friends. Welcome back today. We are going to be talking about neuro-diversity in girls and women. The reason why is because there is a huge gap between neuro diversity with male and female counterparts or identifying as female. So with girls and women, we are more likely to go undiagnosed. And so there are a lot of women out there that are not diagnosed or maybe are misdiagnosed.
And so I want to talk about some of the experience that a neurodivergent women and girls may be having. So if you are an adult neuro divergent. Woman. You might have experienced the feeling of being an invalidated and misunderstood. Growing up. You might have this false sense to conform, to be [00:01:00] normal. So in other words, you're highly masking. But you've figured out different ways to cope and kind of white knuckle through get through.
And you've definitely. Come to a place where you study patterns in society and you study patterns in groups or with people, whether it's at school or with friends or in the family, or. Wherever it is, you study those patterns and you figured out how to camouflage into those groups. But what will also end up happening is you analyze. Your social interactions, whether you're analyzing it while you're going through it. Or you think about how the social interactions are going to happen before you even begin the social interaction. Or you very much analyze. [00:02:00] After the fact. And you try and come up with different things that you could have said different ways that you could have handled it.
Different reactions that you could have had to. Really fit in more or make yourself. Feel better or be better in some way. You also can be hyper aware, right? So if you are neuro divergent and you either a you're not diagnosed or B you are diagnosed. There is this sense that you are. Super aware of the people around you, their face expressions, their body expressions.
Maybe they have these microexpressions on their face or you are so empathetic or psychic that you can actually feel their vibrations. You can feel their feelings coming off of them. And you are so hyper aware of the people around you. It's almost [00:03:00] overwhelming. On the flip side of that, you can also be in a place where. It's harder to read other people around you and you might miss some social cues or you might see things that's going on, but you're really not sure what to do with it.
You're not sure what you should do next, or how you need to handle. You can see that people are uncomfortable, but you don't know why. And you don't know how to manage it, or you know that someone is frustrated with you, but you don't know what caused it. So you might have missed some social cues. There's another other really funny aspect of. You have a tendency to tell too much? So you. You want to bond with someone or you want to speak with someone, but you just tell them too much.
And. That to them might be misperceived [00:04:00] of what you're feeling inside. So you might be. Feeling one way, but the other person is perceiving you. A totally different way. And then you. Analyze that and want to backtrack and.
Almost changed their perception of what you think they think you are or what you're doing.
I hope this makes sense. Okay. So another thing that can be very common with being neurodivergent. As a woman or a girl is having this very strong sense of justice and wanting things to be fair and right. So that can look like you want things, to be honest, you want people, to be honest, you just want people to tell you. Transparency.
Like for me, I will tell you, I, the friendships and people that I have in my life, where I don't have to guess [00:05:00] what they're thinking and feeling. Those are the ones that I value the most simply because it's so hard for me to try and guess. What people are about. And sometimes I figure it out too late.
But also things that are happening in the world that you find that are just unjust. It's very unsettling. To the point where you can get stress and anxiety. Over things that you feel are not right. You want things to be fair? There's this other part where. Because you want to be fair.
Or you, maybe you say too much You also can be hypervigilant. And this is where if you're coming. Into a relationship or you're at work. They can speak about you as a force to be reckoned with. Some unkind words is, you're a, B I T C H, or you're too [00:06:00] opinionated,
so that's annoying because really what you're trying to do is Get things. To be. In order and also be spoken accurately. But it's perceived by other people, maybe a little bit different than how you're intending it to be. You also might have the strong urge or need to tell the truth.
A lot of time in the society, especially for speaking of neurotypicals, they don't always want to hear the truth.
. So that can cause some anxiety, right? Of. Really genuinely trying to connect and also speak your truth and have other people not want to hear it.
. . It also can bother you if. The truth is a skewed in any way. Meaning. Okay, this is [00:07:00] what happens, but it's not exactly what happened there could be the sense that you have, that you want to explain the whole truth. So nothing is misperceived and that could stem from. Being young and having a lot of misconceptions or misunderstandings
so what can happen as you grow up as a neurodivergent woman, you can be hypervigilant. You can be depleted. You can have some shame and you want. You're perceived as very smart. But because you're masking and camouflaging, you also are hiding your flaws or what you perceive to be flaws, which let me tell you friends, it's exhausting. The other thing is with neurodivergent women, we are just resilient. [00:08:00] It's just like we will fall and pick ourselves back up and fall and pick ourselves back up and fall and pick ourselves back up.
Be completely exhausted. Maybe have some bruises, some scrapes, and we'll pick our breath self back up and we'll do it again. We definitely have this mentality that if we fail, we will just come back and try harder and try harder. We also have this thought that we can go at it alone. What does this do?
This causes a lot of stress, anxiety, overwhelm frustration, and it can be very exhausting.
What does that do? If this stuff is left unchecked, it can cause health problems. Burnout low cortisol. Adrenal fatigue and you can learn to cope. By escaping and overdoing things. For instance, instead of having one glass of wine [00:09:00] at night after work, maybe you have a bottle. You instead of having one piece of chocolate, maybe you eat the whole bar. Instead of a serving a chips, the whole bag gets eaten. Or one show will turn into a binge Fest, right?
Going with that. Because you're almost hyper-aware hypervigilant. Trying to analyze things, trying to fit in getting exhausted. You might have days where you just feel blah. And those blah days, you want to seek comfort. So you want to stay in jammies. You. Maybe you want to stay in bed or lounge around the house and just rest and relax. To recharge your batteries. So what is happening?
We are living in a society where we are at a disadvantage. We have to begin with a cognitive variation, right? So that is happening in our brain. [00:10:00] In addition, we have a lot of thought work that's going on Those thoughts might be causing a lot of discomfort. It might be causing a lot of struggle.
It might be causing a lot of suffering in our lives. We're already at a disadvantage. Then when you speak about women and girls, women, and girls, more often than not are not diagnosed or late diagnosis. So maybe some of you out there are watching this and you suspect you might be, but you don't know for sure.
And if, what I'm saying sounds like something that is rhyming true for you. Please. Don't hesitate to reach out to me. No number one, I do not treat, diagnose and cure. I am a life and business coach. So I do have programs. You have a place where you belong. I've got business programs. I have a membership. All of the things. Feel free to reach out. But [00:11:00] going back into, see, this is what I'm talking about.
Good. The ADHD. Talk about one thing, got to bring it up around, back to the first subject. So we are living in a society where we are at a disadvantage. Now let's speak about the women and girls situation. As far as neuro-diversity goes throughout history, it's been. Studied by boys and men. There's also a spotlight on boys and men.
And neuro-diversity, I will give you a clear example. Albert Einstein, Steve jobs, mark Twain, mark Zuckerman. These are some neurodivergent men that have really been game changers throughout history. And our very much recognized. But why do we not talk about women? And the women that are really out there that are changing the world for the better, like why do people not talk about Emily [00:12:00] Dickinson?
Why do people not talk about world-class surgeons that are out there? Because our brain works differently. We can literally see things differently. So there's just not enough. I guess publicity or Research on girls and women that are really out there changing the world for the better. And I feel like that really genuine. Lee needs to change. There's also a lot of issues with women in the workplace. Number one, whether you're neurodivergent or not, neurodivergent you're already paid less than men.
Number two. If you're a neuro divergent, you're usually paid less. In fact, I found some studies on psychology today that said because neuro divergent women are. More empathic and psychic. We have this. Innate ability to be able to connect with others. Therefore quite [00:13:00] often we will work 200 hours off the clock. Extra in addition. Every year compared to our male counterparts. Not only are we paid less, we're also working more. Interesting right. Let's not get into what happens when we get home. But this is another thing is a lot of time we will be, our experience will be invalidated. Whether you're talking about a girl in school. And what she is experiencing in school, or we're talking about a woman that is at work, or maybe a woman that owns a business and is struggling with her.
Neuro-diversity a lot of time we will be told that is just in our mind, or we just need to hire this or just use this planner or whatever it is. And it's not really validated the fact that we [00:14:00] genuinely are. In, at a disadvantage, living in a neuro-typical world. And so therefore we don't have more access to the things that we are needing to be able to help give our supports that we need to really tap into our strengths as much as men are. In addition. More women are treated harsher and have harsh criticism at work. Then their male counterparts, you're going to have two people that have the same exact diagnosis. Yet it is more accepted with the men than it is. With the women in the workplace. The other thing that's really interesting is neurodivergent women more often than not will lend their ear. To help other people out.
And so not only are they exhausted, [00:15:00] stressed out having anxiety, they might feel overwhelmed, frustrated, exhausted, but they're also taking on. Other people's because they have that compassionate component. And I'm not saying that is wrong, that people go to them to have their ear. I'm just saying that it's more likely to have a neurodivergent woman. Be the one that is comforting you, whether it's at home or a friend or a family members or at the workplace.
So all of those kind of things are happening in the neuro divergent. Women's. World. So what do we really do with this? And one of the things that I really wanted to do was the previous episodes that I have put really are. Foundation that I'm laying out for you. So [00:16:00] you can start tackling some of your struggles.
So episode number two and number three, have to do with processing your feelings. Including, if you are taking on other people's feelings, release, what is yours that is ready to release or release? What is not yours? . I would really like to encourage everybody to listen to episode number two and number three. To really process and learn to implement how to process your process, your feelings every day and throughout the day. Because that is really. What's going to help take the pressure off. The other thing is we really can get stuck in ruminating thoughts and cycles of over-analyzing or overthinking. And being able to really dive into the bots, which I've referred to several times.
If you need to go [00:17:00] back, it's the blue hair, the belief systems. Opinions. Thoughts and stories that we tell ourselves. This being aware of our bots and really being able to pick them apart can help you reduce the time that you are ruminating and thoughts, or that you're overthinking the things or you're over strategizing or you're over-analyzing maybe a social event or a conversation that you had.
The other thing that this really does is it helps you learn to trust yourself and listen to yourself. It helps you learn how to take better care of yourself. You also begin to accept yourself and who you are and all of your neurodiversity. All of the good, bad, beautiful, ugly. All of the things, the whole self. It [00:18:00] also helps you be able to start the process of unmasking. Another thing that's really powerful is learning your boundaries, figuring out what is okay with you and what is not okay with you and what are you going to do if something is happening that is not okay with you. Now as we continue to go, you guys will notice that I'm going to be rolling out some boundaries stuff, rolling out.
How do we unmask? What does it look like? All of the good and juicy things I am. So looking forward to having all of you, join us and continue to join us. Please do like comment and share. If you feel like you found something useful here and you want to share with a friend or a family member. Okay.
I love you all. Take care. Bye-bye.
