Content warning: this article contains references to self-harm, suicide attempts and sexual assault, addiction.

I have had one hell of a life. Once a homeless little gutter punk who hopped from one addiction to another, here I am writing for the Canary. This is the story of how medical misogyny ignored my ‘textbook’ ADHD for over 20 years, driving me into self-medicating and leading me to a life on the streets. And now my hormones are crashing and my male GP nearly fucked my life all over again.

Medical misogyny — a childhood ruined

I was the weird kid in a private school I didn’t want to be in. My dad was in the military and it was common to stick army kids in boarding schools to give them a more ‘stable’ life.

I’m laughing, because mine was anything but.

Trapped in a place where I was bullied relentlessly, 13-year-old me hid in the woods to smoke weed pretty much every night. I was chasing a dopamine hit I didn’t understand. In the classrooms nearby, four lads had been diagnosed with ADHD and given the support they needed to thrive. I was simply labelled ‘disruptive’ and told I wasn’t applying myself. That I should shut up in class.

This disparity is a statistical fact.

Boys are referred for ADHD assessments three times more often than girls. And this happened in the early 2000’s, when diagnosis rates were even lower. ADHD simply wasn’t identified in girls back then. Now, boys are diagnosed on average by age seven. Women, on the other hand, are left to spiral until their late fucking 30s.

When I was caught self harming at age 12, a male therapist dismissed my cuts and anguish as puberty. He did fuck all for me. Girls with undiagnosed ADHD are four to five timess more likely to self-harm than neurotypicals.

The system of medical misogyny didn’t see a kid in crisis. They saw a ‘typical’ teenage girl. But behind the scenes I was broken, desperate to know why I wasn’t like everyone else.

Why I felt broken.

A dopamine-seeking spiral

By the time I left school, the lack of structure was a death sentence for an unmedicated teen. I traded college life for smoking weed in a graveyard. I was kicked out of there and moved into what was basically a drug den at the age of 17. Speed gave me the focus the system denied me. Ecstasy made the depression disappear. And weed quieted the constant screaming of my anxiety.

Adults with untreated ADHD are twice as likely to struggle with substance abuse.

And fuck, did I struggle.

I didn’t know it, but at the time I was self-medicating in a world I didn’t quite fit into. I was chasing the dopamine that my brain couldn’t give me.

It was a male doctor who stuck me with the Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis. Approximately 40%–50% of women with ADHD are first slapped with this diagnosis. Or Bipolar.

A male doctor openly called me ‘attention-seeking’ whilst prescribing me another SSRI that didn’t fucking work. My arms and legs were shredded, tendons hit and sewn back up as I cut deep enough to sever them.

My life descended into total chaos. I ended up hooked on ketamine, sleeping on the streets and friends’ sofas.

Ketamine was a wonder drug to me. It left me catatonic, in a state where literally nothing mattered. My risky behaviours ended in two abortions and a severe sexual assault. A&E kept releasing me back to the streets, despite several suicide attempts. Zero aftercare. Just another addict who was craving attention in their eyes. I look back at who I was and I want to cry.

Even now, medical misogyny still ruins my life

The turning point only came when I took matters into my own hands. Friends literally dragged me off the drugs and alcohol, kicking and screaming. Literally poured my whisky down the sink and escorted me everywhere for months. It was only then, with a clear head, that I realised I had ADHD. My first GP dismissed it so I went out and researched the shit out of it. I came back with assessment criteria and demanded a female GP. She instantly put me on the waiting list which was six fucking years.

So I saved and paid for it myself. The verdict was immediate: I was a ‘textbook’ case of female ADHD. And I cried as she called the wasted decades of my life disgusting. As she told me I had been failed by an NHS which literally fails all women with the condition.

And I found around seven years of peace. I thought the battle was over. But then the perimenopause hit. And it hits women with ADHD so much harder. Estrogen acts like the scaffolding for dopamine in the brain. When that estrogen drops, symptoms are fucking wild. Studies show women with ADHD are 87% more likely to report extreme psychological symptoms during perimenopause. And it hits us waaaayy earlier.

Despite this, my MALE GP ordered blood tests six fucking times. Because they came back ‘normal’, he told me it couldn’t be the menopause. This is a dangerous fallacy. [The British Menopause Society](http://the/ British Menopause Society states that blood tests are often ‘misleading’ because hormone level fluctuate wildly.) states that blood tests are often ‘misleading’ because hormone level fluctuate wildly. I even told the guy we were doing them at the wrong times, that when I was getting tested I didn’t feel as bad.

My life was stolen, but now I’m reclaiming it

He ignored the dizzy spells which frequently have me collapsing. Ignored the hot flushes, sleepless nights, weird body hair and fucked up periods. After ten years of being clean, I found myself in the kitchen with a knife to my wrists. I knew it wasn’t right. One thing I pride myself on is staying on top of my mental health because I know if I don’t, I’m only one drink away from hurting myself and spiralling. Women experiencing menopause have the highest suicide rate of any female age group, a risk that triples for those with unmanaged ADHD.

It took months of dismissal before I demanded a female GP. She was fucking amazing. Recognising the symptoms instantly, she confirmed the blood tests were dog shit and I was suffering a textbook hormone crash.

I am finally on the right path, but the cost has been my life. I am finally settled. In a job I love, living a life I have had to fight tooth and nail to build. Now I face another hurdle that will take months to fix, all because a man refused to believe I know my own body.

The story of my life isn’t bad luck. This is what medical misogyny does to women. How many others are out there, in the same place I was, because they aren’t being heard? I tried to kill myself so many times. How many women have succeeded?

We are being gaslit by a profession that refuses to listen. And that shit needs to change. Now.

Featured image via Freepix

By Antifabot

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