{"id":381464,"date":"2026-04-15T22:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381464\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:53:10","slug":"late-adhd-diagnosis-in-women-signs-masking-and-why-diagnoses-are-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/381464\/","title":{"rendered":"Late ADHD diagnosis in women: Signs, masking and why diagnoses are delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women and girls tend to mask their ADHD, showing traits of inattention or hyperactivity in less obvious ways than males. That was the case with Poppy, who had also been diagnosed with dyslexia<\/a> when she was 8, and as a teenager developed an eating disorder – both of which have been linked to ADHD.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made me realise that no one really knew much about women and ADHD \u2013 and she didn\u2019t seem like someone who had ADHD,” she says of her daughter.<\/p>\n

Wheaton worked hard to get answers for her daughter, who had moved back to the UK, where the family is from, as a teenager and was diagnosed with ADHD there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a huge step to get her to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheaton recalls reading some children\u2019s books about ADHD that she had bought for her son, and recognising herself in their pages.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, that\u2019s me – and it\u2019s also my dad – and I realised the hereditary element. I went to the same psychiatrist that my son had seen and he diagnosed me.\u201d<\/p>\n

ADHD often runs in families – about 25% of children with ADHD will have a parent with ADHD, according to ADHD New Zealand.<\/p>\n

For Wheaton, the diagnosis process was straightforward, due to her son\u2019s previous diagnosis and her own history of anxiety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to pay for it, but at that point there weren\u2019t huge waiting lists. [But] I couldn\u2019t have gotten diagnosed if I didn\u2019t have the financial means to pay for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt [like] a bit of a fraud – I\u2019m an academic, I\u2019m a professor. I definitely didn\u2019t feel like I had a disability. But that\u2019s because I think I hadn\u2019t thought through all the things that are disabling for me. A few years on, I\u2019m much more in touch with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, Wheaton says she has learned the importance of \u201cself-understanding and self-forgiveness\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s something that happens overnight. But it helps you understand that the things you have done through your life were not necessarily choices and weren\u2019t just bad decisions, and you weren\u2019t just stupid.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"BelindaBelinda Wheaton, right, was diagnosed with ADHD at 54 after her daughter Poppy, left, was diagnosed at 17. <\/p>\n

Her ADHD diagnosis explained why she couldn\u2019t do certain tasks like fill in a tax return, and why she struggled at school as a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always felt stupid. I [grew up] in an era where if you couldn\u2019t structure your work properly, you spelled badly, you got no support – you just failed your English exam,\u201d Wheaton says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was totally discriminatory and I\u2019d constantly have teachers that would say I was doing really well, I\u2019d do great in class, and then I would fail the exam. Everything was exam-based and that really impacted me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a child, she was told she was \u201ctoo much\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really hard, because then you can\u2019t be [yourself]. I think I really suffered socially at school. I don\u2019t think I ever had good girlfriends and relationships, because I felt I was different the whole time in a way that didn\u2019t make sense to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

When she left school, she didn\u2019t go straight to university \u2013 which at the time made her feel like \u201can outcast\u201d. But when she did, she flourished. <\/p>\n

\u201cTo start with, I thought I was just a phony. I must be doing something wrong, I must be cheating – why am I getting good grades? I realised that once it stopped being about your brain remembering stuff and it was actually about your ability to understand and high-level thinking skills, I started to thrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing well because I deserved to, not because something weird was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

In midlife, her tendency towards people-pleasing and perfectionism meant she worked hard – to the point of burnout. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was lucky I was in a job I really liked, so it\u2019s not like I was having to do some boring, dull job. But I would take on too much, please people and then crash and not be able to cope. <\/p>\n

\u201cI never understood why.\u201d <\/p>\n

Counselling helped, but Wheaton believes this would have been more effective if she\u2019d known she had ADHD earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never slept. That\u2019s something that\u2019s been an issue through my whole life, and lack of sleep is just debilitating. You can\u2019t turn your brain off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting the diagnosis and starting medication was \u201clife-changing\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are certain things I can do so much more effectively and that just gives me a sense of calm and control, which is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n

So does exercise, and for Wheaton that means spending a lot of time in the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s having that place where I can get away from my thoughts. Exercise and movement is massive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Wheaton'sWheaton’s children Poppy, left, and Ollie. <\/p>\n

Since her diagnosis, she\u2019s also become a \u201cmuch better parent\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish I\u2019d known this stuff when my kids were young … their lives and our family life would have been so much easier if I\u2019d known earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many adults only get diagnosed with ADHD after their children have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand it\u2019s just who we are, so I don\u2019t feel guilty about passing it on [to my kids],\u201d Wheaton says, though it has made her reconsider some of her own early parenting choices. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum put a lot of structure in my life, and in hindsight that was so valuable to me because I learned a lot of coping strategies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think the way that I then imposed that on my children wasn\u2019t helpful, particularly for my son. He just disengaged, he didn\u2019t want to be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her children have taught her that no one\u2019s experience of ADHD is the same, even within families<\/a>. She and her daughter have co-authored an academic article published this year comparing their diagnosis journeys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see that in my family the neurodiversity is really different across us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wheaton hopes to help improve Kiwis\u2019 understanding of ADHD through her research. She\u2019s awaiting the results of an application for funding from the Health Research Council to look into ADHD inequities in New Zealand. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn New Zealand, all we do is give people drugs, and all the evidence shows internationally that multimodal is important \u2013 we need support and counselling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe research will look at the groups [with ADHD] that we think are most marginalised in Aotearoa.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says those overlooked when it comes to ADHD include M\u0101ori, Pasifika and women, who are all underdiagnosed. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the women I speak to, who I can see clearly have ADHD, have not gone for a diagnosis … there\u2019s something still holding them back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethany Reitsma is a lifestyle writer who has been with the NZ Herald since 2019. She specialises in all things health and wellbeing and is passionate about telling Kiwis\u2019 real-life stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women and girls tend to mask their ADHD, showing traits of inattention or hyperactivity in less obvious ways…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3867,95,192,198339,10669,797,29139,796,4522,134,162631,78,16099,4507,51078,111,139,69,5652,16124,5390,18324,198340,1316,4276,102,2248],"class_list":{"0":"post-381464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-adhd","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-are","11":"tag-belinda","12":"tag-delayed","13":"tag-diagnosed","14":"tag-diagnoses","15":"tag-diagnosis","16":"tag-feel","17":"tag-health","18":"tag-impostor","19":"tag-in","20":"tag-kind","21":"tag-late","22":"tag-masking","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-signs","27":"tag-surprised","28":"tag-syndrome","29":"tag-wasnt","30":"tag-wheaton","31":"tag-when","32":"tag-why","33":"tag-with","34":"tag-women"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}