Adele Wimsett
Appearances
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I've never met an ADHD woman who doesn't know how to eat well and how to look after herself, but it's just too much. We don't have these hormones here to help us go, right, this is how I need to increase my capacity, my mental capacity right now, so I can actually do the stuff I know I should be doing for myself.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And we're just going, oh, just our pure estrogen. It's crazy to me, this system that we're operating in. So that was a perfect example. Thank you for sharing that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Yeah. And, you know, I love, there's so many things to speak to there. You know, this postnatal time is a massively vulnerable time for ADHD women. We know the Journal of Psychiatry in 2021 did a study that showed we're much more risk of PMDD. We're much more risk of postnatal depression. We have a much, we have a greater risk of having a harder perimenopause. You
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And quite often when I see women, they're like, I'm just the most awful person to my husband. I'm the worst mom in the world. I find myself behaving in a way that I would hate myself. And then that judgment comes in and they're mortified at what they've done because we're forgetting that these are the most powerful biochemicals in the body and your brain's covered in receptors for them.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
How can we expect the brain? We're already pushing up a rock, up a mountain. We've spent decades in this burnout boom cycle, overworking to overcompensate for the perception that we've seen. You know, like when you were talking about your experience growing up and being a high achiever, I was the same. I was immense as a kid.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
My IQ was through the roof, you know, and this expectation of me to achieve academically, I got a massive dopamine hit from it. I wasn't a naughty girl. I was a good girl, you know, until the lid came off in my teenage years. And then, you know, that all went a bit wrong. But these are really powerful points for us. You know, we get missed.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
These things get missed in us because we've masked our way through. We pick up, our nervous systems are so sensitive. And I believe our hormone systems are as well. And our nervous systems are so sensitive that we walk in a room and we've picked up who likes us, who doesn't like us, what the energy is. We are on all the time, right? Which is a blessing and a curse. But the impact on our adrenals
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
is huge particularly if we've got rejection sensitivity dysphoria running alongside this this terrifying fear of getting something wrong our adrenals are just go go go go go you know so no wonder we have a harder perimenopause because there's nothing in the tank to kind of keep these estrogen and progesterone production going for us so we don't crash Yeah, it's hard.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So when we step into this season, then it's like, oh, you know, we need to make sure we're getting really good sleep. I mean, if you're not sleeping, that's the worst advice you ever want to hear, isn't it? It's like, I know I want to sleep, you know, and being able to have the bandwidth to put in the practices that we know we should be doing.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I've never met an ADHD woman who doesn't know how to eat well and how to look after herself, but it's just too much. We don't have these hormones here to help us go, right, this is how I need to increase my capacity, my mental capacity right now. So I can actually do the stuff I know I should be doing for myself. So we go into this paralysis.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's like the overwhelm of thinking about everything that we need to do and then just paralyzes us. So you sit and eat the slices of cheese on the kitchen floor, you know, just like, I don't know what to do now. Oh,
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And that's what I love about this season. You know, with so many women who get diagnosed or whether it's self-diagnosed or whether it's done with a practitioner, there's this, for lots of women, there's this grief of going, oh my God, if only I had known this earlier, you know, kind of looking back how things could have been. I personally didn't have that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I was like, oh, thank goodness, there's nothing wrong with me. You know, I remember going through the diagnosis and I was like, if he tells me I don't have it, I look,
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
don't know why it's going on with me but this this season of our life in perimenopause the bs filter is off you know and it's a beautiful time to get rid of the masks right we're surrendering releasing what no longer serves us and to step into the truth of who we are and the empowerment that can come with that and as i said to you before we started recording
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I don't want to be in spaces where I can't be myself. If I have to mask and put this smile on my face when my face hurts, I don't want to go. I don't want to be there. And that is so empowering and liberating when without even realizing it, we've spent so many years trying to know what is expected of us so that we're not socially excluded.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
That's so important to our nervous systems as little girls. Be accepted, be included. That's how you survive. And to go through that reconditioning of going, actually, I don't need to do that. I don't need to do that. That's liberating to me. That's liberating and it's empowering. And you find your people.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, how many times have we abandoned our own needs? You know, that's so big for me in this season of my life. I refuse to abandon my own needs to make someone else feel comfortable. I don't have an intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable. But if my messaging or what I'm saying is triggering to you, I'm not responsible for that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I'm not responsible for how you receive the information that I'm sharing. You know, and talking about the pandemic and everything, you know, it taught me if there's a zombie apocalypse, I know who I want on my team. Exactly. It's like, where are my people?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And if people weren't out talking and speaking their truths around that, you'd never have had that sense of solidarity and community and shared beliefs that came from that time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's not. And this is interesting, particularly the women I work with who are closer to actual menopause. This is a theme. And I love that you've touched on this because there isn't the capacity to mask, you know, the social stimulation, that social battery that has never been fully charged really for us unless we've been self-medicating in some way.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, it's actually when we get into that season of our life, it's much easier. more pleasurable on so many levels to just not be in the spaces where that sensory stimulation is happening. But exactly as you've said, it can be very isolating. And we know loneliness is one of the biggest killers, right? So we have to be really careful not to allow ourselves to shut down.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Because I'm definitely one of those people, I could come in, shut the doors, close the curtains, and I'm done for the weekend. And I could feel that coming in more and more, the older I'm getting. So I think it's a really important point.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Exactly. Find the people you could be fully yourself around, I think is the clue there.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Yeah, so this is a really interesting one and probably one of my most asked questions from women who come to work with me is, what do you think about medication? And for me, I think it's a really personal journey. I think the kind of backstory is we have to acknowledge the gender bias in the research and understanding around ADHD.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Of course, most of our understanding around health, but it's really stark in ADHD because mostly everything we know about ADHD, diagnosis, assessment, support, intervention, treatment, is based on a male physiology. So we have all of these medications that have evolved being tested on males.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So we bring in this massive, effectively influx of women with a fluctuating, cyclical, different endocrine system, and we see a different effect of the medication.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So I would say very roughly in my community of women who choose medication, it either changes their lives or it's an absolute nightmare trying to get it right and they just end up giving up on it because it'll be like, oh, it kind of does this a bit and then it will work at certain times in the cycle because estrogen sensitizes it or it won't work at other times because progesterone stops it working.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So I would say in the last 18 months, there's much more of an acknowledgement of this of prescribers, but they don't know what to do about it. So what they're doing is like, well, we'll add a little bit in here in your luteal phase, we'll up your dose, we'll try an SSRI as well. There's kind of this practice on women of trying to...
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
optimized medication when the hormones are having more of a powerful effect on the effectiveness of those meds. So it's really hit and miss is what I tend to see. It can change women's lives or it can be quite a dance to try and get it right.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I think something for me as well, because obviously my bias is always going to be, let's deal with your hormones and see what you're left with. Because what I don't want to see in my women is that they're trying to use an ADHD medication to deal with a hormone imbalance and vice versa. And that for me is where, let's get the hormones right and then see what you're left with.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So you're trying to really deal with the ADHD with ADHD medication. rather than going, oh, actually, is this progesterone deficiency? Or is this happening here? So when women try and do it all at once, I don't suggest that. And obviously, my bias is going to be, let's sort your hormones and see what you're left with.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Because they might find that some body-identical HRT, particularly something like progesterone, that exactly as you said, you can take a really empowered approach. No, it's not this baseline dosing. It's like, actually, I'm noticing that X, Y, and Z is happening now. I need some more of this. I can use some cream until I'm starting to feel a bit better.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
That for me is really empowered to be able to do that. And also the meds are really good at masking a lot of the symptoms of hormonal imbalance. So if there's something going on with blood sugar regulation, for example, The meds are really good at disguising the ups and the downs of the crashes with the energy, with the cravings, this kind of thing, and the appetite.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So we know we're much more prone to type 2 diabetes. So if the meds are disguising what is happening inside that, that's still happening. You're just not connecting with it and feeling it. So that for me, through that lens, is I want women to take that into consideration before making those choices.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So I actually think it's much, you've probably got much more experience. It's only just coming over here. I would say it's kind of blown up in the last couple of months. So I haven't had the range to see it, but I'm excited for it. I'm excited to see it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, the only thing that makes me apprehensive is this kind of approach that we seem to have very conventionally here, like everyone just gets the same dose of everything. Yes. Like off you go. There's like not tailoring things to individual needs. But I mean, even yesterday, actually, you said it, one of my women in clinic who's the first woman I've had is coming. She's like, I feel amazing.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I'm like, this is really interesting because from my understanding of it, it's switching up the metabolism, right? And really helping on a whole system level. So that's really interesting to me to see where that goes.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Absolutely. And it's something, you know, it's natural, right? You know, if we're talking about body identical hormones, we're looking at these things that are coming into the market. Like why, if there's something that can be brought in that's going to improve something with a more natural kind of focus for me, then like, as you said, some of the medications, they're really strong.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Should women use them? I'd never say yes or no. You know, if it's something that improves their quality of life. But for me, I'm always want to go down a route and say, okay, but what else is there that my body's going to maybe want to work with? So I think it's a really interesting area to watch.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I think the noise is one of the biggest things, you know, to describe when someone says, you know, this narrative of, oh, well, everyone's got a bit of ADHD. You know, that is so jarring to hear when you actually have it and you have to manage the noise in your head.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's a great opportunity and time to talk about it with everything that's been happening. So glad to be here.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Like you say, we're on sensory perception where we are hearing everything, analyzing feelings, seeing everything around us, not consciously, we're just doing it. And I say it's like having a thousand TV screens in your head that are all speaking a different language while there's a theme tune playing in the background and you're consciously trying to focus on something and do something else.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's a lot, you know, and that's our norm. And I think when we then start hitting these phases, different life phases and different parts of the cycle where the hormones are switching up and changing, no wonder that gets louder and out of control. You know, what we've become used to, probably a neurotypical person couldn't cope with.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I do think I would love one day a neurotypical person to come inside my head. I think they'd just be like, what? What is this? What's going on? Like, oh, that was a calm day.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
and our brain can't switch off from it right it's going to be in that hyper loop of that hyper thought the whole time probably with one line of a song that we picked up somewhere in the day playing over and over and over and well you know with rsd and this kind of like rumination we can remember something we did 10 years ago and still have that visceral like oh no i can't believe i did that feeling and that likes to pop in as well
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And that is a great technique. And I talk to women about that as well. Just get up, turn the light on, write it down. Because in your brain, I think part of the reason we get stuck in a loop is because we've learned we're going to forget it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, and this is where I think some of the distraction comes in as well. Like I will think, oh, I need to go and have a shower. But on the way, I will say that the washing basket needs emptying. And I will find myself quite often in the kitchen, I'll lay the dishwasher naked thinking, why am I not in the shower?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, because it's like, we're worried we're going to forget to do the thing if we don't do it instantly. So it's like following the crumbs on a Hansel and Gretel trail where it just leads us into this. How have I got here? Because it's like, if we don't do it straight away, it will drop out. So writing, you know, these things down, put it down the brain and go, oh, it's okay.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I haven't, I'm not going to forget that because it's written down and it's there.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Yeah, so I'm a women's health practitioner, which doesn't really tell you much about what I do. But I help through the guidance and mentorship that I was blessed to have with Nicole Jardim, started working on supporting women with fixing their periods, addressing their hormonal imbalances. But within that, I got a diagnosis of ADHD.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And it's instant. It has gotten to where you think, what was I just thinking about?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And I think this is one of the things I speak to my women about is that we need to get rid of these shoulds. And again, perimenopause is a great time to do this, of surrendering these outdated beliefs that no longer serve us. We have to accept that we probably have homes that don't look like normal, like they should on Pinterest, right? You know, my...
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
My family members have got houses that look like high-end John Lewis show homes, right? Everything's perfect. My house can't look like that because if it's not in my line of vision, it doesn't exist, okay? So, and if the more steps there are involved in doing something, the less likely I am to do it. So I need my blender out ready to go. I need my food processor out ready to go.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Otherwise, I'm never going to get it out of the cupboard, piece all the bits together and use it. But that means my kitchen surface is full of all the things that I need to use. But that's how I need it. You know, if you're taking supplements, every ADHD woman I know has the cupboard full of supplements, right? And they're there and it's like, we're a marketer's dream.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
We're like, this is going to be the thing. I'm going to take it and then I'm going to take it for three days and I'm going to stick it in the cupboard. If it's not in our line of vision, it doesn't exist. So I'm like, have it where you sit and eat. Have them out on the table. Have it in that line of vision. Otherwise, don't bother getting them because consistency is not our friend generally.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
which I'd always kind of known, and I pushed back and said, oh, I don't need this. But actually, it became the most validating experience of my life, unexpectedly. So, of course, my go-to was to find the research and the science. Well, how are my hormones affecting this? You know, what impact is it having? And I was so angry. about the fact I couldn't find anything.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So don't waste it. It will become ADHD tax. If you're not going to get something and find a way that works for you, don't bother. Save your money.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
But we know that exercise is as effective as medication, right? So, you know, my husband is the same. He's neurodivergent AF, right? But he's out there. He's very physical with his job and he's moving his body. And that is his way of medicating and managing it for himself. There's a big difference. He doesn't know what to do with himself if he's not outside moving.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Yeah, and the right exercise for you, it doesn't have to be, there's no specific way. We have to do things. We're feel-good junkies, okay? Our brain is looking for that next day breathe bit. I'm lucky for me that for me, that's about health and wellness. Once I've got one thing in, I'm like, right, what's next? If that makes me feel that good, what's next? I want more.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, my husband's turning our teeny tiny garden into like this reset spa at the moment where I've got the infrared sauna and the cold bath. I'm so excited about it. It'll probably be other people's nightmare, but these are the things that keep me on track. I have to be really mindful about how I'm eating, how I'm regulating my blood sugar, how I'm optimizing my circadian rhythm.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I made it my mission to create a space for neurodivergent women to learn and understand the impact their hormones have on their traits. So I work with all women, but my specialism within that is looking at hormones and ADHD.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I have to do these things because otherwise my traits are out of control.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And that is so important. And this is one of the things that I love about neurodivergent women is we do not accept no as an answer. If someone says to us, oh, you know, this is it, you've got to accept it. Well, no, that's not acceptable to me. There will be a way to resolve this. There will be a solution. I think that's why we're addicted to the supplements because that might be the thing.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
But there's always this way. We don't give up. We're down the rabbit holes. What is the answer? And can you imagine what a massive contribution to the evolution of humanity our brains were? We were the out-of-the-box thinkers. We were the risk-takers. We made quick, sharp decisions. We heard the stick break two miles away. We sniffed the food that wasn't safe to eat. We knew this stuff.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
The problem is we live in a world that is on steroids. So for a sensitive nervous system and a body that is much more sensitive, I think that's a lot. You know, there's nothing wrong with us. We're just not designed to exist in this ecosystem the way that it is. I don't think anybody is. I think everyone's having a tough time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
But you see people with a more sensitive nervous system and sensory perception, it's a lot.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And I think something, just understanding that this is the kind of brain that you have gives you the opportunity to offer yourself so much compassion and kindness. That was the biggest thing I got from understanding. I'm like, oh, that's why I do that.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
that's why I do that and that's why I need to show up in this way because there's nothing wrong with me it's just that this is what I need and if you are in those situations where you know you're going from one sensory overload situation into another buffer it you know it might be that especially around times like Christmas or things like your birthdays or whatever's going on and it's busier just protect time either side it's okay to say I'm just going to go and lay
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Absolutely. And just have a lovely soft bedspread and just stare out the window. It's okay. We've been groomed by capitalist society that it's not okay to stop and rest. It's fundamental to everybody. But I think particularly for our kind of brains, we need that downtime. If that inner motor and that inner drive will let you.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And downtime doesn't look for us like sitting in a corner silently meditating. It might be moving your body, right? It might be plunging yourself into a cold face, your face into a cold basin. You know, it might be these things that look extreme to other people. But for us, it's like, oh, okay, you know, I'm back in my body. I'm regulating myself. It's so important.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
But look at all these things that just off the top of your head, you've listed off that you just did, right? So when I spoke to an ADHD psych, he said, think how much energy you use just showing up. And I'd never considered that because fatigue and low energy is something that comes with this.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And when you start to understand what it takes for us to keep ourselves regulated, particularly if we're showing up in a public space or showing up for people, we have to be on. We can't show up in this messy ADHD kind of thing. We've got to be on. So we have to invest a lot of energy in things that are just normal to us to do that neurotypical people aren't doing to get out the door.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It takes a lot of energy to be us. And by the end of the day, my decision-making ability is out. Even when we were talking about the time to do the podcast, it's like, where can we do this? Where are the time zones going to fit? And I can actually still string a sentence together. Because that dopamine bucket is finished because of all the things we've had to consider to get through the day.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Neotypical people aren't doing this. They're just getting up and doing their thing.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's too much. It's like scrambled egg for my brain. My brain tends to scramble eggs. So I'm like, I literally, a time zone. And I'm like, I'm a clever woman. I am a clever woman. And we have the internet.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I think it is a huge topic for women. And perimenopause for me, one of the biggest gifts is boundaries, the invitation to step into boundaries. I'm called the queen of boundaries. I feel so like, no, this is my boundary around where I refuse to abandon my needs anymore.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
in this, but we would, there's so much to receive this message as a woman, because we are taught quite literally that to be a good girl, we have to make sure everyone else is comfortable over our own needs. Okay. A lot of us learned that to mother was to abandon our own needs and just be in service to everybody else.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, a lot of us, we had a really toxic role models about what it meant to be good as a woman and putting a boundary and made you a bitch. Yeah.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
you know to say no so it's really like oh I didn't want to be that so I would rather just people please so that no one sees beneath the masking and everyone thinks I'm really nice you know and we don't talk about this difference between being nice and being kind you know I'm a really kind person but I wouldn't fit in the nice box probably
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Because of having those kind of boundaries and because of being, integrity means so much to me. You know, I can't morph myself into something anymore as I did when I was younger, which I didn't realize I was doing. But that was what, you know, that it wasn't conscious, but I was masking to survive. Like the thought of doing that now, it feels suffocating and so oppressive that it's just a no. Yes.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
I think one of our superpowers, but it's also a curse, is we feel so deeply. We can feel empathy so deeply. We can absorb everybody else's emotions around us. We understand situations and feel it so deeply. But if we don't protect that in ourselves to a degree, there would be nothing left of us.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, and I think a lot of ADHD women, when they first begin this journey, a common thing I hear is like, I don't even know who I am. I don't know what my boundaries are. What are my values? What are my experiences? Because I've been so absorbed, I've been absorbing so many other people's and trying to survive. I don't actually know who I am.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And again, this season of life, I think, provides this beautiful opportunity to explore that. I love it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So I'm harmonizeu with an S on Instagram or my website. I can just about get my head around that. Tech is not my friend. I can just about wing it on Instagram and a website and then I'm done. Yes. Good for you. I love it.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It's harmonizeu.com? Harmonizeu.co.uk.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
This is just something that I'm so passionate about because I've actually just completed a three-month study. All of my back, I'm not a biochemist. I was doing this for my curiosity to understand the clinical needs of my community better. And this really... threw up so many hypotheses for me to say, well, what's going on here?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Why is the perimenopause a season where so many women are now getting diagnosed? It really seems to be a time where, like you've explained so beautifully, we've spent our life masking, we've had the help of all our beautiful estrogen and progesterone, all our strategies are working, we're spinning all the plates, and then perimenopause hits, and we're like, what fresh hell is this?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
What is going on here? All my strategies that I had aren't working. Well, why? It's not just because we're accessing more information, there's more diagnosis. Something is happening, and we know there is a hormonal shift. So I wanted to understand what this was, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So what came to me is when we're looking at women in those earlier phases, those earlier years of premenopause, so like late 30s, early 40s, and I tend to see ADHD women going through this younger than neurotypical women, And what's happening here? Progesterone is dropping off, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So when we look at progesterone as being this magical molecule, which I know is so triggering for women who feel like, I hate progesterone, I'm feeling tolerant to it. Actually, I think it's something else that's going on. Progesterone is a mood stabilizer. Progesterone regulates the nervous system, right? It does so much more than just protects the lining of our uterus.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
It plays this huge role in supporting our emotional and mental health, how well we're sleeping. It plays this big role because it's sensitizing the GABA, the GABA receptors that help to calm us down.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So surely it makes absolute sense that as we shift into this season where we're becoming progesterone deficient and our adrenals are so tired as a generation of women, they're not kicking in to produce the progesterone that our foremothers had the privilege of, and we're just crash landing into this season.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
So also, as we know, the estrogen is usually still at a pretty good level at this point, right? It's the progesterone that is coming down. So we then step into what we look at as this estrogen dominant pattern, not because we're producing too much, but because that progesterone just isn't there.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
in sufficient ratios to help counterbalance the effect that estrogen can have on mood right so we've not got the supportive benefits of the progesterone we've got the impact of the estrogen dominating and then this is where it starts to get really interesting to me
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
is as I was looking, as I was going through the study, I started to notice this pattern of histamine-type symptoms in all of the women that I was working with. And we need so much more research on this, but we in the community are becoming more and more aware of this link with histamine and ADHD people, right?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
We don't know what to do with the receptors in the brain, but there is this definite link. So if I add another layer to this, so when we become estrogen dominant and we're losing that antihistamine type effect of the progesterone and this estrogen is feeding this histamine, histamine is so much more than hives and sneezy noses, right? It has a massive impact on inflammation and mood.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
Okay, so I'm like, okay, this is another layer that we're stepping into. If we've got this bubbling histamine issue all our lives and that protection of the progesterone goes and we're just looking at estrogen, it would make perfect sense that the histamine then steps up a notch and potentially plays a role. So this was really interesting to me.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And something else that I also thought that came through was the women that had happened to have testing done on their liver methylation pathways, how their body was processing the estrogen, also came up. Now, my study didn't have the capacity to then test all of those women. I'd have loved to. And there's actually a study going on in the Netherlands about this at the minute.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
But looking at how our body is processing these estrogens could just add further fuel to the fire. So to me, it was like perimenopause created this perfect storm of everything flaring up. So no wonder we literally feel like the lid has come off. So that's a bit of a whistle-stop tour of what I believe is happening and contributing to ADHD women really struggling during this time.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
That is the most perfect example you could have shared to highlight this. And you think that is you with all the knowledge you have, all the access to testing, your incredible experience and understanding of hormones. And it's still like, what's going on?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
You know, I know certainly in the UK, we have this kind of like conveyor belt, you know, come and get your HRT, we'll slap this patch on you, off you go. Okay, you imagine how many women are going, this is meant to help me and I feel horrific. And no one is making these connections. You know, they're being exacerbated.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
They're feeding this inner narrative that so many neurodivergent women tend to have already is that they're not good enough. There's something wrong. We gaslight ourselves. We think we're too much. We're too over the top. We're too dramatic. All these things. And so we sit with this stuff and think there's something wrong with us.
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
And it's just no one's informed enough to say, right, you know, you're a neurodivergent woman. If you're someone who chooses to go down the route of HRT, what considerations do we need to take into because you have ADHD?
The Dr. Tyna Show
ADHD, Hormones + Perimenopause Chaos: You’re Not Imagining It | Adele Wimsett
we know you're more likely to have this histamine reaction and methylation issue in relation to estrogen our current practice here is when a woman's on hrt and they don't feel good what do they say up your estrogen yeah it drives me nuts we've got women on dangerously high levels of eastern and they don't need estrogen they're not methylating it they're flaring up these histamine things they're getting awful periods and moods