Читать книгу Women With Attention Deficit Disorder: Embrace Your Differences and Transform Your Life - Sari Boone's Solden - Страница 12

Women with Attention Deficit Disorder includes A Pocket Guide to AD/HD, which lays out the basic concepts for those not familiar with AD/HD and serves as an easy reference throughout the book.

PART I, Surviving, starts out with my personal and professional AD/HD story, explaining the beliefs I have come to hold regarding living successfully with AD/HD as a woman. I then trace the development of a little girl in order to examine the effects of being undiagnosed at various stages of a girl’s life; this will help the reader understand the challenges and struggles she may face as an adult before diagnosis.

In PART II, Hiding, we go beyond the primary AD/HD symptoms and explore the collision between these symptoms and the cultural expectations placed on women. We will then begin to understand the emotional legacy of “shame” that often results from this life experience. We will also examine the complex and painful “secondary effects” an AD/HD woman may experience such as underachievement, depression, and relationship difficulties.

In PART III, Emerging, I present an overview of diagnosis and treatment issues especially for women. We’ll explore the ease with which women are over-pathologized and misdiagnosed. We will travel the variety of roads one might take on the way to understanding their AD/HD and/or disorganization, and we’ll discuss the tools they will need to start this journey such as moving through the AD/HD grief cycle. I will outline the MESST model of treatment I have devised, an acronym for Medication, Education, Strategies, Support and Therapy. I also include an AD/HD screening tool I designed especially for women.

Finally, PART IV, Embracing, focuses on the essential “three Rs” required for anyone to live successfully with AD/HD, but specifically for a woman. These include the following: restructuring her life, renegotiating her relationships, and redefining her self-image. Doing these things allows a woman at some point to embrace her AD/HD. She crosses a certain line where she is able to become proactive in order to access the help that she needs. This, in turn, leads to a new “cycle of success” in which she can begin to thrive instead of just survive.