Mental health is an evolving topic that many young people are beginning to be more open about. From developing mediation habits, calming anxiety down ,to checking signs of a certain illness at an early rate. There are many people attempting to find out more about mental health and get the support that they can need. But there are people still being underrepresented in certain mental health areas such as ADHD due to lack of early recognition.
Today, women are more likely to develop mental health issues from a young age due to social media, community expectations and family economic status in society. Women are allowed to have a career and family but it's not always manageable due to lack of opportunities, financial issues and not enough support to care for family.
There are some mental health issues that are seen in women widely such as anxiety, eating disorder, and body image. These mental health issues have been seen and heard for a long time but due to global markets they are much more prevalent than before. According to Everyday Health, there could also be gender differences due to some research of people with same mental health issues.
Women with ADHD
ADHD is a developmental disorder that affects both men and women at early age. There are two categories of ADHD: inattentiveness and hyperactivity. Women can develop one of these or a mix of both. Inattentiveness symptoms include making careless mistakes, difficulty sustaining attention and struggling to follow through with instructions. On the other hand, hyperactivity could be seen in women by talking excessively, fidgeting, needing to move around, acting impulsively and easily making friends but unable to sustain them.
Women with ADHD is a new category for health services due to lack of research. Men were the primary sector for doctors and families to see develop symptoms of ADHD such as hyperactivity and impulsiveness. Women are more likely to have symptoms of inattentiveness only and show no obvious signs of ADHD. This means that women could be undiagnosed until much later.
Furthermore the research of ADHD for women is years behind so there could be some errors and thus it is harder for women to get the support that they need to receive. However, there are now more online sites that encourage people to learn about women with ADHD and how to support them such as medically reviewed websites which gives the public knowledge about mental health.
How can we help?
Today we are in a global market industry where there would be many news which can impact young people's confidence and self - esteem. We can support them by educating them of certain mental health issues in school and thus allow them to navigate their own mental wellbeing. This could also aid girls in school to check with doctors and help break barriers with certain mental health such as ADHD. This would then allow them to get the support before college and university.