Climbing the Walls
Danielle’s story: A breakup, an intense reaction, and ADHD diagnosis (from “ADHD Aha!”)
Wed, 21 May 2025
This week, we’re sharing an episode of ADHD Aha!, a show about that pivotal moment when someone realizes they have ADHD. Danielle recently visited the podcast to share more about her own diagnosis story.If you’re interested in personal stories that bring clarity and connection to the ADHD experience, you won’t want to miss this one. To get a transcript of this show and more resources, visit the episode page at Understood.org. Follow ADHD Aha! wherever you get your podcasts, or click here to listen. Understood.org is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. If you want to help us continue this work, donate at understood.org/give
Chapter 1: What is Danielle's ADHD diagnosis story?
Hey everyone, Danielle here. As you know, I shared a lot about my personal journey with ADHD throughout climbing the walls, but there was so much I didn't get to include. So I recently joined another podcast called ADHD Aha. It's all about people's ADHD stories and the moment they realized, oh, this is ADHD. I shared my own aha moment and talked a bit about the making of climbing the walls too.
I'm dropping that episode into the climbing the walls feed today. If you enjoy it, be sure to follow ADHD aha, wherever you get your podcasts or just click the link in the show notes.
This is ADHD AHA, a podcast where people share the moment when it finally clicked that they have ADHD. My name is Laura Key. I head up our editorial team here at understood.org. And as someone who's had my own ADHD AHA moment, I'll be your host. I am here today in person with documentarian and science journalist Danielle Elliott. Danielle, your work has been featured on
HBO, NBC, The New York Times, ESPN. I know there's a long list. I don't have my computer in front of me, so I can't go on and on and on. But so excited to have you here today. Danielle is also the host and the journalist behind Understood's brand new podcast called Climbing the Walls. We're very excited. We're going to talk about that. Welcome, Danielle. Thanks for being in person with me today.
Thank you. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Can I offer you a fidget? I'm like, oh, you're looking at them like, can I grab one?
It's like a tray of hors d'oeuvres that we have here on our fancy new ADHD aha set. All right, Danielle. So on climbing the walls, you talk a little bit about yourself. Today on ADHD AHA, we're going to talk about you. How does that make you feel?
Great. Yeah. No, I'm not convinced. The thing in my head right now is, yeah, how often I tend to overshare and how much I'm going to try not to do that.
That's all I do on the show. I overshare. So you're in good company.
Yeah. I feel like climbing the walls is a giant overshare. So we'll just keep going.
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Chapter 2: How did a breakup lead to ADHD realization?
It was the end of February of 2022. Pandemic diagnosis. Yeah.
What was happening? Why did you seek out an evaluation?
Chapter 3: What is rejection sensitivity and how does it relate to ADHD?
So I guess it was four or five months earlier. I had gone through a breakup and it was... The night of the breakup, I just had this really visceral reaction to a very normal conversation. And that surprised me. And I kept thinking about it for another, I guess, two months. I just felt like I had this very strong reaction. And I tried to figure out what it was.
And I finally narrowed in on rejection. And then I started searching extreme reactions to rejection. And something popped up about rejection sensitivity and rejection sensitive dysphoria. As I read it, I was like, oh, this is actually a thing. This is not just one really strong reaction.
And in that article that I was reading, there was a line about rejection sensitivity often being a part of ADHD. It was sort of like, wait a minute, is this like, do I have ADHD? And then I started looking more into ADHD. I talked to my therapist and it just went from there.
Yeah. And now here you are. Here I am. Tell me about the relationship and what was going on.
I would say for the last few months of the relationship, I think we were both, I think the nicest way to say it is like navigating our way out of it. Nice. I've been there. Yeah. That's probably the best way to put it. It was a conversation that I think we both knew was coming. I had been away on a work trip for a week. And during that week, I had been looking at other apartments.
I pointed out the apartment to him that I was like, I'm thinking about moving in there. And in my head, it was, we don't have to break up, but I could move into my own apartment, which is... And I apparently I know this now as we drove by it, his thought was like, oh, OK, good. I don't have to feel bad about the thing I'm about to say to her tonight. So then it was just like.
When we got home, I remember being completely exhausted and I wondered if this played into my reaction. But it was as we were starting to fall asleep that he initiated a conversation that was like, I've been thinking this week and I feel like I'm holding you back. He said it very nicely, but I just had this reaction that was like, just it felt out of character.
Like I kind of don't remember the specific details of everything that was said. My reaction was very much like, this is it. We're not going back from here. And I was taking frames off the walls. Like all of my stuff was packed. That same night? By like four o'clock in the morning. Oh, wow. Yeah.
And there wasn't like screaming, but it was just like the feeling in my body was even like, I feel like I was the meanest I've ever been. He tells me that I'm like, we're friends now. We've talked about it since. He's like, I think you're a little hard on yourself about how it went. But it was just such a visceral reaction. And the thing I finally came down to was like,
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Chapter 4: How does traveling help with ADHD symptoms?
Chapter 5: Why do breakups trigger intense emotional reactions?
Chapter 6: What does it mean to overshare in conversations?
Great. Yeah. No, I'm not convinced. The thing in my head right now is, yeah, how often I tend to overshare and how much I'm going to try not to do that.
That's all I do on the show. I overshare. So you're in good company.
Yeah. I feel like climbing the walls is a giant overshare. So we'll just keep going.
Let's talk about your diagnosis. When were you diagnosed with ADHD?
It was the end of February of 2022. Pandemic diagnosis. Yeah.
What was happening? Why did you seek out an evaluation?
So I guess it was four or five months earlier. I had gone through a breakup and it was... The night of the breakup, I just had this really visceral reaction to a very normal conversation. And that surprised me. And I kept thinking about it for another, I guess, two months. I just felt like I had this very strong reaction. And I tried to figure out what it was.
And I finally narrowed in on rejection. And then I started searching extreme reactions to rejection. And something popped up about rejection sensitivity and rejection sensitive dysphoria. As I read it, I was like, oh, this is actually a thing. This is not just one really strong reaction.
And in that article that I was reading, there was a line about rejection sensitivity often being a part of ADHD. It was sort of like, wait a minute, is this like, do I have ADHD? And then I started looking more into ADHD. I talked to my therapist and it just went from there.
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Chapter 7: How does Danielle's past affect her relationships?
Well, didn't have the experience with those situations because you'd been bouncing around. Yeah.
And I've been avoiding those situations my whole life.
Bouncing around and sounds like you travel a lot. And then I know from the show that you talked about that that was the first serious relationship you'd had or.
Yeah. I joke that it was the longest relationship I've had, but I've been in longer breakups. I get that. I've been in like situationships that lasted a lot longer. Situationships. Yeah. That's probably the best thing to call them. Yeah.
So tell me about the feeling that you get when you are on the go. Talk to me about this need to travel. It's something that you've mentioned a few times on Climbing the Walls. Tell me what that feels like and does it work out the way that you hope it will work out?
I think it always did work out a certain way. And then it shifted actually shortly after finding out I had ADHD. I remember I got the diagnosis and then I was sort of aware that I should be finding an apartment. But a friend of mine was going to Peru for a month. It's like, oh, great. Apartments in Peru are six hundred bucks a month and the flights two hundred.
My rent here would be three thousand a month. You know, I did the math and of course I'm going to Peru for a month. I don't have an apartment yet. I'll just do this first. I remember specifically not telling my therapist I was going because she would have a reaction because I had just gotten back from this like Mexico and Belize.
And then I like stayed home long enough to get diagnosed and then immediately went to Peru. And I think I had to go to Aspen for work for a week. So I went straight from Aspen to Peru. And when I did get there, I was on a telehealth appointment with my therapist. And she just was like, it's the first time I saw her seem completely just like exasperated with me.
And she was just like, Danielle, what are you running from? I was like, how dare you? And I thought about it. And then I was like, I mean, my immediate reaction was I don't think I'm running from anything. And then I thought about it a little more. And I was like, I feel like I'm running towards something.
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Chapter 8: What lessons has Danielle learned from her ADHD journey?
When this goes up, it will have gone out. Okay, sorry.
All right. So tell ADHD AHA listeners what is climbing the walls about.
Climbing the Walls is my attempt to understand the rise in diagnosis among women, primarily during the pandemic, but it's been ongoing since the pandemic. I guess you could say it's my attempt to go beyond the headlines and the quick summaries of why so many women are being diagnosed with ADHD now. And the quick summary being... Oh, we just didn't know how it affects women.
And that's just, you know, in episodes one and two, we debunk that right away. I think we've known for a long time. We just weren't necessarily willing to listen.
When we started talking about this, I was like, oh, this is going to be about the pandemic and the rise of TikTok. That's all this is going to be about. And it goes so much deeper.
than that it's really really stunning work and I'm so excited for for everybody to listen to it what made you want to do this I really I think like whenever I do something that's sort of this deeper dive it's this question that I'm asking and I think one of the things I love about having this job is that I would just ask that question for another 10 years without actually digging into it yeah by having this as a job there's a reason it comes back to motivation yeah I guess totally
I remember in the first conversation with my therapist, I was rejecting the diagnosis at first because I was like, I don't want to have this. Everything I read is that women who have this struggle in relationships forever. And I don't want to struggle in relationships forever. This is the thing I wanted to fix about myself, I guess.
I just remember saying to her, almost not expressing anger towards her individually, but towards kind of the entire field. But I was like, how did we miss this? Not just in me. I had been seeing her for four years. And when I said I had it or when I asked her about it, she sat forward so fast. I was like, yes, yes, I do. But I can't say that to you. So take the self-assessment.
And I was like, how did we miss this? Not just in me, but in an entire generation of women. This is not right.
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