Influencer Jannike Nordström received her ADHD diagnosis in midlife. Before the diagnosis, parenting was tough – but professional help and a couple of life hacks have made life easier.
– My husband and I drive every two weeks, she tells Nyhetsmorgon.
ADHD is a diagnosis that affects the whole life. You can have problems with school and work, but it can also affect social relationships and even parenting.
– I had a constant self-hatred towards myself, that you always had a mask on. When you became a mother, this role became even heavier, says influencer Jannike Nordström in Nyhetsmorgon.
She received her ADHD diagnosis in mid-life, only when she was 37 years old, in connection with becoming a mother.
– I understood myself better and got the tools to understand what I was supposed to do.
Before the diagnosis, she experienced that she easily forgot things and after intense periods she had dips, where she was knocked out for several days. There was no room for rest, the pace never slowed down.
– Everyone else was so good at grasping life and I wasn’t. I felt so different, she says, adding:
– My life didn’t work out like other people’s lives.
The expert on why women are diagnosed later
Lotta Borg Skoglund, associate professor and senior physician in psychiatry, tells Nyhetsmorgon that her research group has been able to see that boys are diagnosed four years earlier than girls.
– At group level, boys’ ADHD is seen and heard better, she says, and sees Jannike’s story as a clear example of what girls’ ADHD looks like:
– You perform well but do not feel that you are functioning well. You have masked and suppressed your personality because you are ashamed. And girls get better at it early in life. It takes a lot of energy to constantly try to be someone else, she tells Jannike in Nyhetsmorgon.
Jannike says that it was a sadness for her to receive the diagnosis so late in life. What would her life have been like if she had received it earlier? The thought saddened her.
– There are so many girls and women who suffer in silence. It is important for them to understand that they can get help.
The tools that make everyday life easier
For Jannike, the tools that help her everyday life have been crucial in making life as a parent easier. To-do lists, clear communication with the spouse and a well-structured home are some of the things that help.
– When everything is organized, there is less stress in the brain.
But it can also help to think outside the box in how to divide responsibilities as parents. Jannike and her husband live together. But they have divided the main responsibility for the children.
– It’s the best there is: We run every two weeks. We live together, we live together and we love each other. But every other week it is his nights and mornings. Then I get to sleep in for a week.
Then you get a chance to gather strength for the following week.
– Then it’s my week. Leave for preschool, take the nights if someone wakes up and so on. It is so nice.
Getting time to prepare, to be able to handle the challenges ahead, is important to her:
– Otherwise there will be chaos in the brain.
Chief physician Lotta Borg Skoglund also emphasizes the importance of finding the tools that suit one’s life. ADHD can affect people in different ways and there is no one-size-fits-all life hack:
– You can get very far by understanding yourself.