The ADHD Channel for Women

Your partner has rehearsed this conversation 10 times. You’re walking in at one. No wonder it goes sideways.

Dani Burford doesn’t have ADHD, but her husband, Sean, does, along with OCD tendencies. Dani, who works in marketing at Understood.org, joins Cate for a casual, practical conversation about the systems that help them stay on the same team.

She explains how they use things like the “care meter,” a 1-to-10 rating that ends three-hour debates about paint colors, the mess monster, and who takes the blame for last night’s dishes. And why asking “What script did you write for me?” can calm a worst-case spiral. 

Dani and Cate explain the importance of talking about how you talk, the benefits of putting time limits on hard talks, and why alone time doesn’t mean “I don’t want to be with you.” They also discuss what to do when your way of getting things done doesn’t work for your partner’s brain — and why it’s rarely about you.

For more on this topic 

• Watch: The ADHD safety net hiding inside a kink power dynamic | Sorry, I Missed This
• Watch: When ADHD turns chores into conflict | Sorry, I Missed This
• Listen: Parentification: The hidden pattern in ADHD relationships

For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ever reached for food when you were stressed, bored, or overwhelmed, then felt ashamed afterward? For many people with ADHD, eating isn’t only about hunger. Impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, and low dopamine can shape how, when, and why we eat. For some people that becomes an eating disorder. If that’s you, you’re not alone.

Licensed psychologist Dr. J explains the difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating, and how binge eating disorder, bulimia nervosa, and anorexia nervosa can show up alongside ADHD. Executive dysfunction, trouble sensing hunger and fullness cues, and all-or-nothing thinking can make food feel like a coping tool — and shame can keep the cycle going. The overlap is common, though many people don’t know it.

Dr. J also shares steps you can take today: approaching yourself with self-compassion, asking for help finding care, recognizing your triggers, and building eating routines that work with your brain. For the long term, Dr. J explains why it matters to treat ADHD and the eating disorder together, with a care team trained in both conditions. This may include a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a therapist, and a dietician. Recovery is possible with the right support. You don’t have to figure it out alone.

For more on this topic 

• Watch: ADHD and eating 
• Listen: ADHD Aha! on eating disorders 
• Read: ADHD and eating disorders 

For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you mad at me? It’s a question “Hyperfocus” host Rae Jacobson has asked more times than she can count.

So when Rae saw a book with that exact title, she was a little unnerved. The book is by psychotherapist Meg Josephson, and it’s about the fawn response: a survival instinct that can look like people-pleasing.

In this conversation, Meg breaks down what fawning is and why it’s hard to spot — and even harder to stop doing

Meg explains how fawning overlaps with (but isn’t identical to) rejection sensitive dysphoria and why it shows up as masking for a lot of neurodivergent people. And she talks about the moment she realized that years of people-pleasing meant she really didn’t know herself at all.

In this episode of “Hyperfocus,” learn about a pattern a lot of us have been running on autopilot without realizing it. And learn subtle strategies for change.

For more on this topic

• Watch: Is ADHD a disability or just the shape of your brain?
• Listen: The brain is the last frontier of privacy. And you’re the target.

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Research shows that girls with ADHD are significantly more likely to experience intimate partner violence.

Dr. Emily Rothman, who recently published a study on dating violence in neurodivergent youth, joins Cate to talk about what the research actually shows.

They discuss why ADHD symptoms might make it harder to recognize abuse. They also cover how to tell ordinary relationship conflict from patterns of coercive control.

Cate and Emily talk openly about why leaving is rarely a single decision, and how to support a friend or family member who’s trying to get out. They also get into the uncomfortable fact that there are higher rates of ADHD among abuse perpetrators.

This episode discusses domestic violence, coercive control, and sexual abuse. If you or someone you know needs support:

National Domestic Violence Hotline (24/7): 1-800-799-7233

• RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
• Love Is Respect (dating abuse), call or text: 1-866-331-9474

For more on this topic 

• Watch: ADHD, toxic partners, and “losing your sparkle” (Reddit Reactions)
• Watch: ADHD gaslighting and chasing new relationship energy (Reddit Reactions) | Sorry, I Missed This
• Watch: ADHD impulsivity and saying yes to sex too fast| Sorry, I Missed This

For a transcript and more resources, visit Sorry, I Missed This on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Podcaster PJ Vogt has talked about his ADHD for years. Casually. Almost cheerfully. Then things changed. He decided to go off his ADHD medication, and he found the neuropsych report from when he was 13. It didn’t say what he thought.

On this episode of Hyperfocus, PJ, who’s spent his entire career making some of the most popular podcasts around – like Reply All and Search Engine — talks about his journey to understand his own brain. And how when he reread that old assessment, he found something messier than the story he’d been telling himself. 

Host Rae Jacobson follows him through that reckoning and the big question: What happens when the label that shaped your identity turns out to be blurrier than you imagined?

They talk through the trade-offs he’s still sorting out now that he’s stopped taking medication, and the advice he’d give younger people with a brain like his.

For more on this topic

• Search Engine: Why’d I take speed for twenty years? - Part 1
• Search Engine:  Why’d I take speed for twenty years? (Part 2)
• Watch: The brain is the last frontier of privacy. And you’re the target | Hyperfocus

For a transcript and more resources, visit Hyperfocus on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ever been called selfish or a narcissist when you were trying your best? Some ADHD behaviors can look like narcissism from the outside: Interrupting, forgetting an important date, missing social cues, or talking at length about something you’re hyperfocused on can make it seem like you don’t care. But the behavior and the intention don’t always match.

Licensed psychologist Dr. J explains what narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD, actually is, and why diagnosing it takes a full clinical evaluation, not an online checklist. Research suggests that for many adults with ADHD, the feeling of empathy is there, but executive function challenges can make it harder to show.

Dr. J also covers what to do if someone calls you a narcissist: how to pause, ask yourself honest questions, and take real feedback seriously without accepting a label that doesn’t fit. Intentions don’t erase impact, and accountability isn’t the same as shame.

For more on this topic 

• Listen: ADHD and autism: Do I have AuDHD?
• Watch: ADHD and avoidance: Why you resist things you actually want to do

For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kink isn’t required to get something real out of a power dynamic. And for ADHD brains, it might be more than you’d expect

Sex and relationship coach Amanda Dames — The Kink Consultant — joins the show to talk about power dynamics and what dominance and submission can actually offer neurodivergent relationships once the stigma gets stripped away. Amanda and Cate start with the basics: what a power dynamic is, why it’s a negotiated role-play and not a real transfer of power, and how submission can function as agency rather than its opposite. 

From there, the conversation moves into what this looks like day to day — including a partner who quietly set household rules that ended up calming years of ADHD-driven chaos. And then into harder territory: the difference between structure that helps and control that doesn’t, how to tell the two apart, and what aftercare (a kink community staple) can offer any couple, kinky or not, after a hard moment.

For more on this topic

• Watch: Kink, BDSM, and ADHD | Sorry, I Missed This
• Watch: Why neurodivergent women can’t stop reading smut and romantasy | Sorry, I Missed This
• Watch: Why good sex can make your ADHD brain spiral | Sorry, I Missed This

For a transcript and more resources, visit Sorry, I Missed This on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Some weeks you can handle anything. Then, seemingly overnight, everything feels impossible. Your mood. Your focus. Your patience with yourself. If that shift keeps landing the same week of your cycle, it might not just be PMS.

In this episode, Dr. J — a licensed psychologist who works with people with ADHD — breaks down premenstrual dysphoric disorder. PMDD, a diagnosis recognized in the DSM-5-TR, goes well beyond typical PMS and shows up disproportionately in women with ADHD. Research suggests that 31–46% of women with ADHD also meet criteria for PMDD. And the overlap isn’t a coincidence. Both ADHD and PMDD are tied to dopamine regulation and sensitivity to hormonal shifts.

Dr. J walks through what actually separates PMDD from PMS and why it so often goes undiagnosed. She also looks at what’s happening in the brain during the luteal phase — including why your ADHD symptoms, and even your medication, can feel different that week. And she offers practical, evidence-based strategies to make PMDD more manageable, like:

• Symptom tracking
• Adjusting diet and exercise
• Talking to your provider about medication timing
• Planning your schedule around your cycle

Plus building the kind of self-compassion that makes hard weeks survivable instead of shameful.

If you’ve ever felt like you lose yourself for a week every month, this one’s for you.

For more on this topic 

• Listen: ADHD and hormones 
• Read: A guide to hormones and ADHD 
• Watch: PMDD: Why women with ADHD are 4x more likely to struggle | Hyperfocus

For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, a complex conversation about ADHD, femininity, gender, and why talking about the hard stuff is important.

Cate sits down with Rae Jacobson, host of Understood.org’s Hyperfocus podcast, journalist, and a producer on this show. They talk about something they’ve both struggled to name: the collision between ADHD, femininity, and gender expression. They dig into what it felt like to watch other girls “get it.” The tidiness. The calm. The effortlessness. All things that executive dysfunction made feel out of reach. 

They talk about the pressure to be nurturing, organized, and endlessly available — and what happens when your brain doesn’t cooperate with any of it. And they look at the research on outcomes for women and girls with ADHD.

For more on this topic

• Watch: The “devastating” findings of a decades-long ADHD study
• Watch: Head, heart, hormones: Why women’s ADHD care should treat the whole person
   

For a transcript and more resources, visit Sorry, I Missed This on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you’ve been seeing AuDHD everywhere online and wondering if it might describe you, you’ve come to the right place. What does it actually mean to have both ADHD and autism? Dr. J breaks down where these two conditions overlap, where they diverge, and why so many people are recognizing themselves in this label for the first time. We cover shared traits, what AuDHD can feel like day to day, and how to know when it’s time to talk to a professional about diagnosis.

For more on this topic

• Read: What is AuDHD?
• Watch: ADHD and justice sensitivity: Why you can’t just “let it go”

For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at [email protected].

Getting your child the support they need at school shouldn’t feel like a fight. But for millions of families, it does. In Zero Reject, an investigative podcast from Understood.org, award-winning journalist Anya Kamenetz looks at how changing federal policies are reshaping special education — and what’s at stake for families trying to access the support their children are legally entitled to. Start listening now.

Understood is a nonprofit where millions of people who are navigating neurodivergence find clear guidance, practical tools, and people who get it. To help us continue this work, donate at u.org/give

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.