Anne Gledhill Acupuncturist & Independent Midwife York

02/07/2025

It’s so interesting to understand why our energy can just disappear.

05/06/2025

How many times have you been told you're just burnt out?

You’re exhausted. You’re forgetful. You’re snappy. You can’t focus.
So the world offers a solution: take a break, light a candle, book a spa day.

But what if it’s not burnout in the traditional sense?
What if it’s the weight of years of masking, unmet needs, and constant self-correction?

For many neurodivergent women, what gets labelled as burnout is actually the long-term impact of:

Navigating a world that wasn't built for your brain

Playing roles that keep everyone comfortable but leave you depleted

Living in survival mode because no one saw the real you

This kind of burnout isn’t solved with rest.
It’s solved with recognition, realignment, and radical self-honesty.

You don’t need more resilience.
You need room to stop pretending.
You need support that sees the root, not just the surface.

If you’re tired and nothing seems to help, it might be time to stop asking, "What’s wrong with me?"
And start asking, "What have I been carrying that no one else could see?"

You’re not too much. You’re not broken. You’re just finally reaching the edge of what was never sustainable.

03/06/2025

You Don’t Need to “Earn” a Diagnosis
There’s a quiet pressure many neurodivergent women feel: the need to justify their struggles.

We downplay our symptoms.
We question whether we’re “neurodivergent enough.”
We convince ourselves that if we’ve managed this long, we must be fine.

But here’s the truth:
You don’t need to be falling apart to deserve support.
You don’t need to meet someone else’s idea of what autism or ADHD looks like.
You don’t need to hit a crisis point to explore whether your brain just works differently.

So many women were missed in childhood.
Because they masked.
Because they were compliant.
Because they were told their anxiety, exhaustion, or emotional sensitivity was “just hormones” or “just life.”

But survival is not the same as thriving.
And masking isn’t wellness—it’s self-protection.

If you’re wondering whether your challenges are valid enough to seek answers, they are.

Your experiences matter.
Your patterns matter.
You matter.

And you don’t have to wait for permission to start understanding yourself.

02/06/2025

"I Thought It Was Just Me" The Most Common Phrase I Hear from Neurodivergent Women

One of the most heartbreaking, yet comfortingly familiar, things I hear from women is:

“I thought it was just me.”

👉 I thought I was lazy.
👉 I thought I was too emotional.
👉 I thought I just wasn’t cut out for motherhood, or careers, or relationships.
👉 I thought I was broken.

What so many of us don’t realise, until much later is that we’re neurodivergent. And for years, sometimes decades, we’ve been mislabelled, misdiagnosed, or completely overlooked.

Especially if you're a woman.
Especially if you’re masking.
Especially if you've been busy supporting everyone else while ignoring your own needs.

Here’s what I want you to know today:
🌿 You’re not broken.
🌿 You were never lazy.
🌿 You weren’t imagining it.
🌿 There is a reason it’s always felt harder and now there’s a name for it.

You deserve answers. You deserve support. And you deserve to stop blaming yourself.

If this resonates, know you are not alone. Share this with someone who might still be whispering "I thought it was just me."

Let’s show them they’re not the only one anymore.

29/05/2025

Why “You’re Coping So Well” Can Be the Most Damaging Compliment
🧠 Let’s talk about a phrase many neurodivergent women hear far too often:

“But you seem fine.”
“You’re coping so well!”
“You’re holding it all together.”

These words might sound supportive but they often hide a deeper truth: we’re praised for our ability to mask our struggles, not for truly being okay.

Behind the smiles, the tidy homes, the full calendars there’s often:
🔹 Severe burnout
🔹 Anxiety masked as overachievement
🔹 Depression buried under responsibility
🔹 A lifetime of people-pleasing to avoid judgment

Many ND women have learned that their pain isn’t taken seriously unless they completely fall apart. So we hold it together. We over-function. We smile through the overwhelm.

But here's what needs to be said:
✨ Holding it all together doesn’t mean it’s not heavy.
✨ Functioning well doesn’t mean we’re not struggling.
✨ Being “fine” is sometimes just being really good at hiding it.

We don’t need praise for enduring we need space to be real, and support that doesn’t wait for us to break.

💬 Have you ever been told you were “coping well” when you were anything but?

18/05/2025

Something that has been discussed recently.

For the first time, ACOG has released official pain management guidelines for IUD insertions and other common GYN procedures.

It's honestly hard to understand how it’s taken this long. 😕

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/well/live/guidelines-iud-insertion-pain-management.html?smid=url-share

16/05/2025

Struggling to start tasks isn’t laziness, it’s executive dysfunction.

And yet, ND women are often told:
❌ "You just need to get more organized."
❌ "Everyone struggles to start things sometimes."
❌ "You’re just making excuses."

But executive dysfunction is different from procrastination—it’s a neurological roadblock. For ND women juggling work, parenting, and household responsibilities, this can become crippling. Society expects women to be naturally good at multitasking, planning, and staying on top of everything. When our brains don’t work that way, we’re met with shame and self-doubt.

🔹 Why can’t I just do it?
🔹 Why does my brain shut down when I have too much to do?
🔹 Why do I feel like I’m constantly falling behind?

The truth is, ND women aren’t failing- we’re functioning in a world that wasn’t built for our brains. That’s why we need strategies, not shame:

✔ Break big tasks into tiny step- instead of "clean the kitchen," try "put one dish in the sink."
✔ Use body doubling- having someone nearby (even virtually) can help ND brains focus.
✔ Give yourself permission to work with your energy levels instead of forcing productivity when your brain isn’t cooperating.

What’s one strategy that helps you with executive dysfunction?

15/05/2025

Neurodivergent women are consistently ignored, dismissed, and misdiagnosed in the medical system. Why? Because medical research on ADHD and autism has historically centered around men.

This leads to:
❌ Late or missed diagnoses
❌ Being misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, or even borderline personality disorder
❌ Lack of research on how ND traits change through life stages like pregnancy and menopause

For years, ND women have had to fight to be taken seriously. We’ve been told we’re "too emotional," "overreacting," or that we just need to "try harder." This has to stop.
Healthcare professionals must be better educated on how neurodivergence presents in women. We need better diagnostic criteria, better research, and, most importantly, better listening.

Have you faced medical dismissal as an ND woman? Let’s raise awareness and push for change.

12/05/2025

Mental Health Awareness Week: Let’s Talk About the Hidden Struggles of Neurodivergent Women

🧠 This Mental Health Awareness Week, I want to spotlight a group that often falls through the cracks, neurodivergent women.

Many of us go undiagnosed for decades, not because we’re coping well, but because we’re masking our struggles behind a lifetime of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and internalized shame.

We don’t “look” neurodivergent, so we’re misdiagnosed with anxiety or depression or worse, told we’re just too emotional, too dramatic, or simply not trying hard enough.

Here’s what people don’t see:
🔹 The exhaustion from masking all day
🔹 The guilt for struggling with basic tasks
🔹 The grief of a late diagnosis
🔹 The fear of not being believed by doctors, employers, even family

Mental health is deeply intertwined with neurodivergence, and the system often fails to recognize that. It’s not just about getting support once you’re diagnosed it’s about surviving the years before that moment.

💡 This week, let’s remember:
👉 You can be high-functioning and still deeply overwhelmed.
👉 You can smile and still be silently burning out.
👉 You don’t need a formal diagnosis to deserve support.

💬 If you’re a neurodivergent woman who has struggled with mental health especially in silence I see you. Drop a 💚 or share your experience below. Let’s use this week to raise real awareness, not just check a box.
❤️My DMs are also open to anyone who would like to connect relating to my posts about neurodivergence. I look forward to ‘meeting’ you!

09/05/2025

"You don’t look autistic."

"You’re too organized to have ADHD."

"But you’re social!"

If you’ve heard something like this, you’re not alone. Women, in particular, are masters of masking. From a young age, we’re conditioned to "fit in" by mimicking social norms, forcing eye contact, and pushing through exhaustion just to seem neurotypical.

But here’s the reality:

❌ Many women don’t get diagnosed until adulthood because they "hid it well."
❌ Masking can lead to anxiety, depression, and eventual burnout.
❌ Just because someone looks like they’re coping doesn’t mean they are.

The stereotype of what ND "should" look like is outdated and harmful. It keeps women from being diagnosed, supported, and understood.

Have you ever had to "prove" your neurodivergence to others?

08/05/2025

Let’s talk about something we rarely discuss: ADHD and financial struggles, especially for women.

Money management can feel impossible when your brain struggles with:
❌ Impulse spending and emotional shopping
❌ Forgetting to pay bills, leading to late fees
❌ Overwhelm when trying to budget or plan long-term
❌ Avoiding finances altogether due to shame and fear

For neurodivergent women, these challenges are even more complex. Many of us were never taught how to manage money in a way that works with our brains. Instead, we were told to "just be more responsible," as if willpower alone could fix executive dysfunction.

So, what can help?

✔ Automate everything, set up direct debits for bills, so they’re handled without effort.
✔ Use visual budgeting tools, ND brains process information differently, so charts and color-coded spending trackers can make things clearer.
✔ Have a financial "body double" someone to sit with you while you go through your finances to keep you accountable.
The most important thing? Drop the shame. Financial struggles aren’t a failure of characterthey’re a symptom of how our brains work.