ADHD looks different in women and poses unique health risks

ADHD looks different in women and poses unique health risks July 26, 20265:00 AM ET Maria Godoy Nicole Xu for NPR School used to be pretty easy for Kate Jarvis when she was a little girl, back in the 1980s. She was a straight-A student, creative, and so organized that she'd even prep her toothbrush with toothpaste each night before school. She says her mother used to call her "bright-eyed and bushy tailed." Life Kit: Health 4 myths about women's health Then puberty hit, and everything started to fall apart. She found it harder to focus in school, and her grades slipped. "It really hit my self-esteem badly. I felt pretty awful about myself," she says. In high school, she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. She struggled to fit in. She says it stung when teachers would write comments like, "Kate has so much potential, if only she'd apply herself." "So it felt like character flaws rather than what it really was, which was undiagnosed ADHD," says Jarvis, who didn't get a diagnosis until her late 30s. Kate Jarvis says that her diagnosis of ADHD in her 30s felt revolutionary. "Something I had been wrestling with for 25 years had a name, causes, symptoms and effects." However, the diagnosis came with challenges as well. "Just because you know what something is, doesn't mean you can immediately fix it. And that's what I felt - like I needed to fix myself." Jarvis family hide caption toggle caption Jarvis family Researchers say Jarvis' story is pretty common. For decades, ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, was considered a childhood disease that mostly affected boys – and boys were the focus of most research, says Julia Schechter, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Duke Center for Girls and Women with ADHD. But ADHD often manifests differently in girls. Sponsor Message "They're more likely to appear distracted, disorganized, kind of have their head in the clouds rather than show that overt, hyperactive or impulsive behavior that can disrupt...