Why So Many Women Are Now Being Diagnosed With Autism and ADHD

People say things like
“Everyone has ADHD now”
or
“How can all these women suddenly be autistic?”

So let’s clear this up.

Yes, autistic and ADHD men have also been missed.
Yes, some fathers raise their children, too.

But this conversation is about women,
because it is women who were overlooked, misread, and dismissed for generations.

And no, women did not suddenly become autistic.
Women did not suddenly develop ADHD.

Women suddenly ran out of places to hide it.

The Hidden Generation

For decades, autistic and ADHD women lived lives that shielded their traits from public view.

They became mothers.
They ran homes.
They built routines that fit their brains.
They created their own rhythm without needing to explain it.

They were still autistic.
They were still ADHD.
They simply lived in environments where they could quietly self-structure life in their own way.

Their “coping” wasn’t ease.
Their “quietness” wasn’t peace.
Their “strength” was often survival.

They just didn’t collapse in public where anyone could label them.

Then everything shifted

Government childcare from nine months old arrived.
It sounded supportive.
Modern. Equal.

But underneath sat a silent expectation:

“Your baby is cared for.
Now go back to work.
If you don’t, you will fall into poverty.”

Suddenly, women who wanted to raise their children themselves
were pushed into a second full-time role outside the home.

Not because they lacked ambition.
Not because they didn’t want careers.
But because the cost of living and policy left them no choice.

This blog is not about women who choose careers first.
It is not about women who choose not to have children.

This is about the women who wanted to be at home raising their children
and who, when forced into two simultaneous worlds, finally cracked under a lifetime of invisible effort.

Two Routines. One Nervous System.

At home, she once had control.
She could create routines that worked for her brain.

But now she must hold:

• workplace expectations
• social communication demands
• time pressure
• emotional labour
• school admin
• domestic duties
• parenting needs
• executive function for multiple people

Wake up early.
Get children ready.
School run.
Drive to work.
Mask emotions.
Hold eye contact.
Take in noise, lights, expectations.
Stay organised.
Remember everything.

Then collect children.
Cook.
Clean.
Support emotions.
Homework.
Sensory overwhelm.
Bedtime routine.
Life admin.
Collapse.
Repeat.

This isn’t laziness.
This is executive functioning overload on a brain already using extra energy just to “appear fine.”

Something breaks

And when demands outgrow capacity, something has to fall.

Maybe the job goes.
Maybe mental health breaks.
Maybe the house becomes chaos.
Maybe the relationship fractures.

And in heartbreaking cases, when stress reaches crisis and help arrives too late,
children can become involved with social services
not because they were unloved
but because a mother was drowning without support, diagnosis or understanding.

This is not maternal failure.
This is a system failure decades in the making.

So Why Do We See It Now?

Not because autism and ADHD suddenly “exploded.”
Not because women suddenly caught it like a trend.
Not because social media “convinced them.”

But because the scaffolding that once hid the struggle
was removed.

Women didn’t change.
Life demands did.

And when women were forced to operate in environments not built for autistic or ADHD brains,
their lifelong invisible effort finally showed.

This is not overdiagnosis.
It is overdue recognition.

A generation wasn’t broken.
A generation was missed.

And now they are being seen not because their brains changed,
but because society finally placed demands on them that revealed what was always true underneath.

Autistic and ADHD women are not collapsing.
The mask is.

They are not suddenly struggling.
They were struggling quietly all along.

They are not weak.
They were carrying two worlds with no support for one of them.

Women did not suddenly “develop” autism and ADHD.
The world simply stopped covering it up.

Final Word

This is not a story about “too many diagnoses.”
It is a story about a world that finally pushed women so hard
it cracked the shell that hid their truth.

These women are not failing.

They are finally visible.

And visibility is not a crisis.
It is clarity.

It is justice.

It is long overdue.