WOMEN& ADHD

RESEARCH ON WOMEN& ADHD 

The first part of my research looks into women with ADHD, the "disorder" itself and also all the problems it causes. When they first made diagnoses and collected data in the US only white boys were tested, those results are still used until this day. Apparently only one out of ten diagnoses are made on women. A study from East Germany shows that at least one out of three affected people are female. 

Even though this disorder affects women completely different, it's been treated the same way. The consequences are depression and low self-esteem. Often diagnoses come really late or never. 

One afflicted describes it as "writing to-do-lists all day long and in the end writing to-do-lists on to-do-lists". 

In Germany being diagnosed with ADHD means that you're disadvantaged, which automatically makes you "retarded".

My mother didn't want to leave this stamp on me to make life more difficult than it was anyways. Not being aware of being different I remember getting told off by everyone, always. 

This book (Der Struppelpeter)is about this really hyper and insane boy, written when ADHD didn't even exist. It was vital to me, giving me the feeling of not being the most annoying kid on earth. This feeling of being unpleasant left stamps, maybe even worse than being "sick". 

During my Research I collected a huge amount of film material so I've decided to make a little short film that represents Women& ADHD, displaced by female power and the ridiculous weapons of men to keep us down. 

The film symbolises rebellion, giving up on social hierarchies and norms. It almost seems like women and ADHD are two opposites, not accepted by society, constantly fighting against it.

As my customer is not really interested in Film or little videos I decided not to continue working with this medium. Though it really helped me to combine all my research and also challenged me quite a lot as I never created a film before. I will definitely continue using film as a source of research, this little film brought me to pre war gender-fluid Germany but also Rosemarie Trockel which will both be part of my research for the next weeks. 

After I finished this research I wanna make this topic more personal and find out more about this disorder within my family and also surrounding as I haven't done enough interviews yet.