The ADHD Channel for Women

Getting fired can feel like proof that you can’t keep up, can’t get it together, or can’t trust yourself. For many people with ADHD, though, it’s often a mismatch between your brain, your role, and your environment. It’s not a verdict on who you are.
Licensed psychologist Dr. J explains why people with ADHD are more likely to be fired. Executive function skills like time management, working memory, and emotional regulation are what most workplaces rely on every day. And sensory overload, informal verbal instructions, and lingering myths about ADHD can make those skills even harder to use. For many women with ADHD, years of masking, over-preparing, and over-apologizing can hide the struggle until it’s no longer sustainable.
Dr. J also explains why being fired can hit so hard, from emotional dysregulation to rejection sensitivity — all while you’re facing resumes, unemployment paperwork, and insurance on a stressed brain.
Then come steps for the first day or two after being let go, like holding off on emotional messages, documenting what happened, telling one safe person, and taking care of your body. Dr. J then covers the deeper work: a compassionate postmortem, spotting patterns without judging your character, separating accountability from shame, asking for what you need, and talking about being fired in interviews.
Getting fired is an event. It is not your identity, and it doesn’t have to be the end of a long, fulfilling career.
For more on this topic
Watch: “Hope is not a plan:” How to manage ADHD at work | Hyperfocus
Listen: Executive function and ADHD shame in women (Katy Weber’s story)
Read: 5 ways ADHD can affect you at work


For a transcript and more resources, visit The ADHD Channel for Women on Understood.org. You can also email us at podcast@understood.org.



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.

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 podcast@understood.org.



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 podcast@understood.org.



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 hyperfocus@understood.org.

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 hyperfocus@understood.org.



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.