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  • Diagnosed With ADHD at 54: Why Late-Diagnosed ADHD in Women Shows Up in Midlife

    I was diagnosed with ADHD at 54.

    Fifty. Four.

    By then I’d built two multi-million-dollar consulting practices at two different firms. Earned a PhD. Sold multi-million dollar deals. Worked in the intelligence community. Wrote speeches for Admirals, Generals, and rocket scientists. Was a behavioral-health counselor and taught cognitive psychology.

    Yes. I taught other people how the brain works while mine ran an entirely different operating system in the background.

    (Please – nobody tell those students.)

    So when people ask how it got missed for that long, here’s the candid answer:

    I was very good at masking it. And didn’t know to look for it.

    That’s the pattern for a lot of women with late-diagnosed ADHD. Especially high-performing, successful, Type A+ overachieving women. Symptoms so well covered nobody went looking, including us. Then we hit our 40s and 50s, hormones shift, and the mask stops working.

    It’s ADHD Awareness Month. Here’s what I wish someone had told me in my 30s instead of 54:

    • Why ADHD in women gets missed for decades
    • What masking actually looks like in a high performer
    • Why it so often falls apart in perimenopause
    • What to do when the coping strategies quit at work

    Why is ADHD diagnosed so late in women?

    Short answer: ADHD in women is often missed because it looks different than the hyperactive-boy picture the diagnosis was built on, and because capable women compensate. Good grades, big careers, and elaborate workarounds hide the struggle until something, often midlife hormone changes, pulls the workarounds out from under them.

    The research has been saying this for a while. Girls and women are underdiagnosed, more often show inattentive symptoms than disruptive ones, and are more likely to get treated for the anxiety or depression sitting on top of the ADHD instead of the ADHD itself (Hinshaw et al., 2022; Quinn & Madhoo, 2014).

    Translation: if you weren’t bouncing off the classroom walls, nobody checked.

    And if you were succeeding? Forget it.

    High performance is the best camouflage there is. Nobody refers the woman running the department for an evaluation. They give her more work!

    The takeaway: a late diagnosis doesn’t mean you didn’t have it. It means you were compensating so well that nobody, you included, thought to call “chronic stress” or “burnout” or “success” something else..

    What does ADHD masking look like in high-performing women?

    Short answer: ADHD masking is the set of workarounds you build to look like everything’s fine: over-preparing, perfectionism, panic-powered deadlines, backup systems for your backup systems. It works. That’s the trap. From the outside it looks like competence. From the inside it costs a fortune in energy.

    I call mine the duct tape.

    Here’s what it looked like:

    • Deadlines met at 2 a.m. on pure adrenaline…and kinda loving it (it was the dopamine chase)
    • Three backup systems for the one system that kept failing.
    • A Post-it stuck right in front of my face. Staring straight at it. Still forgot the meeting I scheduled.
    • Keys locked in the Jeep. (Once. Okay. More than once. Okay, stop counting.)

    Here’s the thing.

    It worked.

    For decades, it worked.

    Success held together by duct tape still looks like success from the outside. Nobody checks the duct tape. Including the woman holding the roll.

    In fact – you get called “quirky” or “eccentric” and people start to compensate for you.

    My doctoral research was on women leaders navigating chronic pain in gendered environments and found deliberate masking is a key tactic to survival and success. I found the exact thing I was doing. And still didn’t see it in my own mirror.

    Seriously people – that’s not a lack of intelligence. I’m smart. That’s a “yeah, but that’s not me.” Masking is designed to be invisible. If you could see it easily, it wouldn’t be a “mask”

    The takeaway: masking is armor. The problem isn’t that you have the armor…but that you wear it every day and it costs you.

    Why do ADHD symptoms get worse in perimenopause?

    Short answer: Estrogen helps regulate dopamine, the brain chemical ADHD already runs short on. In perimenopause, estrogen swings and drops even more than normal, and dopamine signaling swings with it. Sometimes radically. Focus, working memory, and follow-through get harder, and coping strategies that worked for decades can stop working fairly suddenly.

    But you don’t know why.

    Your OBGYN makes offhanded comments like “yeah that’s normal” – but that doesn’t really help. Guess what? OBGYN’s want to birth babies. They are (and yes this is a rant) regulated by insurance to 15 minutes per patient regardless of your issue, so having an educational conversation about your menopause brain and how the neurochemicals work 1) isn’t what they went to school for, 2) isn’t the conversation they want to have, 3) isn’t what insurance reimburses them for. So who makes the connection for you?

    Well Dr. Lisa Mosconi in her book The Menopause Brain – trust me. This neuroscientist is shaking things up and she’s showing what the female brain is all about!

    Heads up: that’s an Amazon affiliate link from my other platform 10PM Somewhere. If you buy through it, I earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra.

    Bottom line – Estrogen is freaking important for dopamine! Dopamine is freaking important for our executive function. Working memory, focus, attention, emotion regulation, finding words, prioritizing, holding a thought long enough to finish it. Without enough we feel foggy…

    I can’t tell you in perimenopause it isn’t dementia, but I can tell you if your in your 30s to 50s and you all of a sudden your brain feels “foggy” it could be hormone’s – not matter what your gaslighting medical professional may say. They may call you a WW (Whining Woman) off-the-record because that’s what they were trained to do (watch this video only if you want to be really pissed

    ADHD already involves dopamine trouble. Then perimenopause shows up, and estrogen doesn’t glide gently downhill. It swings. Hard. For years.

    Every drop takes a little dopamine with it.

    So all that masking machinery you spent a lifetime building – the perfectionism, the hyper-vigilance, the panic-powered deadlines – doesn’t fade out politely.

    It quits. All at once. Usually mid-quarter.

    Researchers have found that women with ADHD report more hormone-related mood symptoms, including heavier symptoms during the menopause transition (Dorani et al., 2021). Which tracks with every woman I’ve talked to who said some version of “my meds just stopped working.”

    They may not have stopped working. The ground under them moved.

    The takeaway: if your brain suddenly got harder to run in your late 30s, 40s or 50s, there’s likely a biological reason worth bringing to your doctor…and not just any doctor. Find a functional doctor that will work with you.

    Is it ADHD, perimenopause, or both?

    Short answer: It can be both, and the symptoms overlap heavily: brain fog, forgetfulness, trouble focusing, irritability, sleep problems. Only a clinician can sort out which is which. You don’t need to have the answer before asking for help. You need data to bring to the appointment.

    I’m doctor but not that kinda doctor. I’m an integrative psychological scientist, not a physician. I can’t tell you which one you’ve got.

    What I can tell you is this: you don’t have to pick one before you’re allowed to ask. Don’t diagnose yourself with dementia before you’ve talked with a trained professional who knows what they are doing.

    A lot of women get bounced between offices. Too smart for ADHD. Too young for perimenopause. Too stressed, have you tried yoga?

    Each specialist treats their slice. Nobody looks at the intersection, which is where you actually live.

    Find a functional practitioner – here’s a link to the

    Institute of Functional Medicine – Find a Practitioner Tool

    That’s why the next section matters.

    The takeaway: walk in with evidence, not just a feeling. Feelings are easy to dismiss. Patterns are not.

    What to do when your ADHD coping strategies stop working at work

    Short answer: Stop treating it as a willpower problem. Start tracking what’s actually happening: when focus shows up, when it doesn’t, how you slept, where you are in your cycle. A written pattern removes the guesswork, gives your doctor real data, and shows you where to put your limited energy at work.

    For most of my life, I had a name for my brain.

    “Chasing shiny things.”

    Said the way great-aunt Hilda says it at Thanksgiving.

    Turns out it was wiring. The same wiring that makes me see patterns other people miss.

    Not a superpower. And not a defect.

    Simply different wiring. And wiring I can work with, now that I see it.

    You may not feel it. But I know you can see it.

    What finally helped me wasn’t a new planner. (FYI: I own enough planners to wallpaper a Target.)

    It was writing it down where I couldn’t argue with it.

    • When focus showed up.
    • When it didn’t.
    • What happened the night before.

    Not to fix anything.

    Just to stop lying to myself.

    When you’ve lived in overdrive long enough, your internal gauge breaks. You honestly don’t feel how bad it is. But two weeks of notes on paper? That you can see. And then you can’t ignore the pattern of data.

    A feeling is easy to talk yourself out of. A pattern on paper is data..

    Here’s what the data gets you:

    • At the doctor: a log instead of “I just feel off” is much harder to wave away and ignore. (Remember – I’m a researcher!)
    • At work: you learn when your good hours actually are, and you stop scheduling the hardest thinking into the worst ones.
    • In your own head: the evidence that this is chemistry, not “character” which shuts up the voice saying you’re losing your edge, are lazy, or my personal favorite a “moron.” (such a nice word Shannan, such. a. nice word (sarcasm)

    The takeaway: energy is the finite resource, not time. Track your energy and capacity.

    And a book worth your bandwidth this ADHD Awareness Month

    If you want something to read in short bursts (and let’s be honest, short bursts is the name of the game (not this mammoth blog I wrote to appeal to SEO/AEO!)

    ADHD Field Guide by Cate Osborn, Erik Gude, and Rennie Dyball, with a foreword by KC Davis, LPC.

    Seriously! As someone who loves format, simple, soundbytes, real-talk, getting to the point. These folks do an amazing job.

    Heads up: that’s an Amazon affiliate link from my other platform 10PM Somewhere. If you buy through it, I earn a small commission. It costs you nothing extra.

    The bottom line

    Late-diagnosed ADHD in women isn’t a mystery. It’s been working. Then hormones changed, the duct tape let go, and it looked like we were falling apart.

    Not really, the workarounds ran out. But the wiring has been in tact the whole time, it’s just different type of wiring.

    So this month, don’t buy another planner. Don’t white-knuckle it.

    Write down what’s actually happening for two weeks. Take it to someone who’ll read it.

    Happy ADHD Awareness Month.

    Now…go find your keys.

    (Tip: check the freezer or the Jeep ignition.)

    Frequently asked questions

    Can you be diagnosed with ADHD in your 50s?

    Yes. ADHD is present from childhood, but many women aren’t diagnosed until their late 30s, 40s, 50s or even 60s, often when hormone changes make long-standing strategies stop working. I was diagnosed at 54.

    Why does ADHD get worse during perimenopause?

    Estrogen helps regulate dopamine, which affects focus, working memory, and follow-through. As estrogen fluctuates and declines in perimenopause, many women with ADHD notice symptoms getting harder to manage, sometimes suddenly.

    What is ADHD masking?

    ADHD masking is the set of strategies people use to hide ADHD symptoms and appear organized: over-preparing, perfectionism, adrenaline-fueled deadlines, and backup systems. It often works for years, which is one reason ADHD in women is diagnosed late.

    How do I know if it’s ADHD or perimenopause?

    The symptoms overlap, and it can be both. Only a clinician can tell them apart. Tracking focus, sleep, mood, and your cycle for a few weeks gives your doctor concrete data instead of a vague description.

    About the author

    Dr. Shannan Simms is an Integrative Psychological Scientist, a Professor of Business, Psychology of Gender and Cognitive Psychology and a Certified Stress Coach through the American Institute of Stress. She holds a PhD, built and ran two multi-million-dollar consulting practices without ever taking a business class, is a neurodivergent thinker and lives what she teaches, coaches, consults and speaks on.

    References

    Barth, C., Villringer, A., & Sacher, J. (2015). Sex hormones affect neurotransmitters and shape the adult female brain during hormonal transition periods. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 9, Article 37. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00037

    Dorani, F., Bijlenga, D., Beekman, A. T. F., van Someren, E. J. W., & Kooij, J. J. S. (2021). Prevalence of hormone-related mood disorder symptoms in women with ADHD. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 133, 10–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.12.005

    Hinshaw, S. P., Nguyen, P. T., O’Grady, S. M., & Rosenthal, E. A. (2022). Annual research review: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in girls and women: Underrepresentation, longitudinal processes, and key directions. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 63(4), 484–496. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13480

    Quinn, P. O., & Madhoo, M. (2014). A review of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in women and girls: Uncovering this hidden diagnosis. The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders, 16(3). https://doi.org/10.4088/PCC.13r01596

    <small>Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page are affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you buy through them, at no additional cost to you.</small>

    <small>Not medical advice. This article is for education and is based on my own experience and published research. It isn’t a substitute for diagnosis or treatment. Talk with a qualified clinician about your symptoms.</small>

  • How Menopause Rewires Your Brain and What You Can Do Right Now

    Why you can’t willpower your way out of a dopamine shortage, what the latest research proves, and one step to reclaim your sanity today..

    I went through menopause three times in my 30s. I had stage IV endometriosis, and the OBGYNs were only concerned with my “fertility.”

    I fired them all.

    I was concerned with chronic pain, being able to think, remember, walk, sleep, hold a conversation, find my car keys (oh, and keep my job, you know, the one I’d already killed myself to get promoted into). Yeah, that.

    Because why?

    Because I’m a Type A+ over-achieving perfectionist with just enough people-pleasing tendencies that I’ll run myself into the ground before disappointing someone I respect. (Okay, that’s the old me. Just add the word “recovering”.)

    I’d been promoted to the senior world and was at my first leadership retreat when I found myself in the ER. That started a wild ride of a diagnosis, deep fatigue, memory glitches, and heavy medication. Then I found a doctor who said, “We can try an off-label prostate cancer chemotherapy to suppress your estrogen and put you into chemical menopause. I think that could help you.”

    Wait! What?! Are you for-real?!

    The Hormone Roller Coaster

    I’m female, and I don’t have the biological parts of male anatomy. Like most females, my estrogen production used to swing wildly. During a normal monthly cycle, estradiol levels can shift by more than 1,000% in just a matter of days. Yep 1,000%.

    Stick with me, I swear I have a point to biology lesson.

    I want you to reflect on your wildest, and I mean wildest, PMS day.

    You know the one I’m talking about: the laugh then ugly cry, then sudden rage at everything moment, even though you just ate a whole pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food and watched a funny rom-com (or in my case, an action movie where they blow things up – don’t judge). Okay, that.

    Our culture and society have this expectation of linear, consistent performance. But week to week, our own biological blueprint is surging and crashing. And that PMS week – oh Nelly – it can be doozy depending on your biology.

    And when someone enters natural menopause, there is a time called perimenopause, which I always thought sound so “nice” and gentle. It’s the “before” stage. It sounds like it should be a little vacation, but it isn’t.

    Natural peri-menopause averages 4 to 8 years. It’s a long, chaotic, multi-year roller coaster where ovarian hormones vary wildly before dropping.

    In a normal timeline, the brain at least has years to slowly recalibrate to these changes. I mean, you visit Cuba personally and unexpectedly and have an internal summer in the middle of winter, but your brain eases into…and in hindsight having gone through what I went through I actually now think that’s the more important thing.

    Because when I said yes to that prostate cancer chemotherapy (a GnRH agonist called Lupron, which is used as an endometriosis treatment), I shut my estrogen production down overnight. I went into a massive chemical crash. It was a total kill-switch.

    The drug aggressively shut down the communication line between my ovaries and my brain. And when estrogen leaves, it takes your dopamine supply line right along with it.

    By the way – your brain desperately needs this for your executive functioning!

    The Brain Needs Fuel

    Estrogen isn’t just a reproductive hormone that runs the show downstairs and then politely retires.

    Oh no Janet.

    Do you know what I learned rapidly that no one told me?

    I learned that I couldn’t remember anything. And I mean anything.

    I could write a reminder on a post-it note, have that note right in front of me while staring directly at it, and it was still as if it never happened. My working memory simply wasn’t working.

    Estrogen is a massive player in your brain. One of its main jobs is helping to regulate dopamine. That’s the exact neurochemical your brain runs on for focus, working memory, motivation, follow-through, and the general ability to hold a thought long enough to finish it. (Don’t get me started on the fact that NOW I know I’ve lived with ADHD all my life so it was a double whammy to me…but I didn’t know that 17 years ago!)

    Now watch what happens in normal perimenopause. Estrogen doesn’t glide gently downhill. It swings erratically and steeply from month to month for years. Every single time it drops, your dopamine supply takes a little hit with it.

    For me, that drop happened within hours. That’s not just “getting scattered.” That’s an acute neurochemical shortage.

    + The keys you can’t find (or, ahem, left in the ignition of your locked Jeep).

    + The credit card you lost (again).

    + The meeting you forgot (and you scheduled it)

    + The name of the person who was just in the meeting (was it Bill…Trudy…the guy in the plaid that just kept talking)

    + The word that was right on the tip of your tongue and then suddenly wasn’t. (I’d like my coffee on the rocks please)

    + Your kid’s name, birthday, or soccer event (or the fact that you had a kid and were supposed to pick them up, feed them, or something).

    Those moments aren’t evidence about your competence, and they don’t mean you’re losing your edge or your mind. They’re the biological readout of a brain trying to run premium software on a suddenly unreliable power supply. That’s it

    The New Science of the Shift

    A brand-new study published in June 2026 by researchers Abigail Testo and Julie Dumas sheds some serious light on this. They looked at the brain scans of 151 women in different stages of perimenopause and menopause to see how the brain communicates.

    They discovered that menopause is, at its core, a true neurological transition.

    All females go through this neurological transition.

    I want you to sit with that for a second.

    Testo and Dumas (2026) found that women in post-menopause have lower functional connectivity in certain parts of the brain while at rest. The main area that changed was the supramarginal gyrus (okay, I had to go look this up).

    Guess what that specific area does? Critical for proper verbal working memory.

    When your BS meter gives out at the same time (because holding your tongue also runs on the exact executive function you’re now short on), you find yourself unable to sit politely while the Guy With The Too-Obvious Toupee confidently repeats your exact idea back to the room two minutes after you said it. And you don’t hold your tongue. Your tolerance didn’t get worse. Your neurochemical budget for pretending got cut.

    But the researchers found something incredibly empowering, too.

    Having lower brain connectivity at rest doesn’t mean your brain is broken!

    They explained that the postmenopausal brain might just require less connectivity at rest because resting takes very little cognitive energy.

    When it’s actually time to do a hard task, the brain powers up perfectly well to get the job done. Your brain is just optimizing its power settings.

    I like that a lot. I’m “optimizing”

    Stop Paying the Shame Tax

    You cannot willpower your way out of a chemistry problem. Please stop trying.

    I have had one too many conversations over the last six months with competent, capable women who are questioning their value, their worth, their competence, and their sanity.

    When the cracks start to show, the fear cycles.

    The fear doesn’t say, “My estrogen is low.”

    It says, “What is wrong with me?”

    It says other women seem totally fine.

    It says if you were really as sharp as people thought, you’d handle this.

    It says, “I used to be able to lose weight and now I can’t, even though I’m not doing anything different. I’m such a loser.”

    So you white-knuckle it. You cover. You try to add willpower to a system that is short on the exact neurochemical fuel that willpower requires. That’s like flooring the gas pedal to fix an empty gas tank.

    I know, because I ran this exact play in my 30s. And I lost that fight for years, believing that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, competent enough, or capable enough. Because I was getting signals from my environment that I internalized and I was comparing new self to my old self. My new brain to my old brain…but I didn’t know what was happening and no one was there to help see that I was fighting the wrong opponent

    Here is the one should hope you drop today: “If I were really good enough, I should be able to push through this.”

    If you feel brain-fog, forgetful, short-fused strain that isn’t proof that something is “wrong with you.” It’s the physical sound of a great brain running low on fuel.

    And you can’t willpower estrogen back.

    You can stop grading yourself on a rigged exam.

    Go get the real picture. There are actual clinical options out there that work. (I couldn’t take HRT due to my medical history, so I don’t know what all of those are; I’m not that kind of doctor, but I hear there are great doctors who can help.)

    But where I can help is to show you the science and the system so you stop paying the shame tax on a biological bill that isn’t yours to pay.

    Next Steps

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    References

    Dumas, J. A., & Testo, A. A. (2026). Differences in functional connectivity during midlife between menopause stages. Menopause https://doi.org/10.1097/GME.0000000000002836

    Mosconi, L. (2024). The menopause brain: New science for women to navigate midlife and optimize brain health for the rest of their lives. Avery.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    How does estrogen affect dopamine and working memory?

    Estrogen helps regulate dopamine, the key neurotransmitter responsible for focus, working memory, motivation, and executive function. When estrogen swings or drops abruptly during perimenopause, menopause, or chemical suppression, dopamine levels plunge as well. This neurochemical shortage makes it difficult to retain short-term information, track daily tasks, or retrieve words quickly.

    Why doesn’t willpower work to fix perimenopause brain fog?

    Willpower relies on executive function, which requires a stable supply of dopamine to run. Attempting to out-discipline hormonal brain fog is like pressing the gas pedal on an empty gas tank, you are attempting to fuel your focus using the exact neurochemical resource that is currently running low.

    Is perimenopause brain fog a sign of permanent cognitive decline?

    No. 2026 neuroimaging research by Testo and Dumas reveals that menopause is a natural neurological transition rather than permanent brain damage. While postmenopausal brains show lower functional connectivity at rest in areas like the supramarginal gyrus (which handles verbal working memory), the brain effectively ramps up connectivity when engaging in active, complex tasks.

  • The Tyranny of the “Should”

    A psychologist named it in 1950. And it’s still running your Tuesday.

    I started a newsletter on Substack…and it almost didn’t get a name.

    Not because I couldn’t think of one.

    Because I thought of plenty, and then I “should-ed” them out of existence.

    Every. Single. One.

    → It should be more professional.

    → It should signal the credentials.

    → It should be searchable, strategic, polished, defensible to a committee that exists only inside my own head and meets, apparently, around the clock…. (argh!)

    (I do this for a living, by the way.)

    I’m a behavioral scientist. I’ve spent (ahem) 20+ years explaining to very smart people why they keep doing the exact thing they swore they’d stop. (Sidebar: Did you know the internet says you “shouldn’t” lead with how many years of expertise you have if it’s over 15 because… ageism? Cool. So we’re breaking that one right out of the gate, too.)

    But back to the story about should…

    …There I was, narrating the play-by-play of my own stuck-ness in real time, completely unable to move.

    (Cool. Great. Very on brand!)

    So let me introduce the thing that almost ate me alive, because there’s a decent chance it’s been snacking on you too.

    Here’s the thing about a “should.”

    It doesn’t feel like an opinion. It feels like a fact.

    + I should answer that email tonight. (why?)

    + I should host Thanksgiving. (because of what?)

    + I should be further along by now. (according to who?)

    + I should want this promotion. (but do you?)

    The word shows up wearing the costume of obvious, neutral truth, and we obey it before we’ve had a chance to ask a single question. Like do “we” want it.

    A psychologist named Karen Horney clocked this back in 1950. She called it “the tyranny of the should”… the way a life quietly fills up with internal commands about who you’re supposed to be, none of which you remember agreeing to (Horney, 1950).

    Decades later, cognitive therapists put “should statements” on the official list of distorted thinking, right next to “catastrophizing” and “all-or-nothing” thinking (Burns, 1980)…(for the record, I’ve been known to do all three, sometimes in rapid-fire succession).

    You can want things. That isn’t bad. But the “should” is actually a standard you didn’t set. This standard was imposed on you, and then punishes you when you don’t meet the expectation.

    And that’s the part nobody mentions. The “should” comes with a tax.

    Two of them, actually: guilt and permission.

    There’s the guilt trip, on the inside.

    + The low hum or whisper that says you’re behind, you’re selfish, you’re not doing enough, you dropped a ball you never agreed to carry.

    And then there’s the permission slip, on the outside.

    + The sense that before you get to choose the thing you actually want, somebody has to sign off. A boss. A mother. Your neighbor’s best-friend’s Aunt Frida –

    + A culture, that decided a long time ago what a competent woman’s day is supposed to look like, a masculine man’s day is supposed to consist of, whether non-binary or transgender are even allowed to have a ‘day’

    So, a “should” is really two things at once. Something installed in you, and something still being broadcast at you, meeting in the exact second you decide what to do next.

    That’s why willpower doesn’t touch it. You can’t out-discipline an instruction you didn’t know you were following.

    To be fair, you can’t delete the reflex either. I’m not going to try to sell you that. The should is going to keep showing up, fast (so fast – like 200 miliseconds fast!) before you can think… that’s just our brain and how our brain works.

    But here’s where it gets interesting.

    You can’t stop the “should” from firing. But you can absolutely catch it after.

    That tiny gap, between the should landing and you obeying it, is the whole game. And the move in that gap is one question:

    Whose “should” is this? Is it mine or someone else’s?

    That’s it.

    That’s the verb.

    You look at the should sitting there, dressed up as obvious truth, and you ask whose is this? Sometimes it’s yours, and you keep it, eyes open, on purpose. Often it belongs to a room you walked out of years ago, and you get to hand it back.

    (No thank you sir, I respectfully reject this and hand this toxic nonsense back to you)

    That’s what I mean by “UNshould.”

    Not “stop having standards.”

    Not “quit caring.”

    Just… take the thing apart, find out whose it is, and choose from there. One should at a time. The first few are clumsy. Eventually, they get faster.

    So that’s what this is.

    UNshould is where I’ll bring you the science behind the default. It’s about getting yourself back onto your own priority list – you know, like that swanky nightclub in LA where you say, “I’m on the list,” and they usher you inside in front of everyone else. That kind of priority!

    We’re doing it without the guilt trip, and without waiting for anyone to sign a permission slip.

    Some weeks it’ll be burnout and boundaries. Some weeks I’ll wax poetic about neurodiversity. Some weeks it’ll be the strange thing your brain does in the meeting that matters. But it will always be the research, translated into something you can actually use by Tuesday.

    I’m going to sit next to you and whisper, “This is what’s happening,” with enough of the absurdity named out loud that we can both barely keep a straight face.

    The committee in my head still meets. I just stopped letting them run the place.

    Glad you’re here. Let’s go take some “shoulds” apart.

    Next Step

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    References

    Burns, D. D. (1980). Feeling good: The new mood therapy. William Morrow.

    Horney, K. (1950). Neurosis and human growth: The struggle toward self-realization. W. W. Norton.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is “the tyranny of the should” in psychology?

    Coined by psychoanalyst Karen Horney in 1950, “the tyranny of the should” describes the rigid, unwritten rules and expectations people impose on themselves. These internalized commands create an impossible standard of perfection, driving chronic guilt, anxiety, and self-criticism whenever you fail to live up to values you never consciously chose.

    How do you stop “shoulding” yourself?

    You can’t eliminate automatic “should” thoughts because the brain fires them in milliseconds, but you can change how you respond to them. The moment you catch yourself saying you “should” do something, ask one core question: “Whose ‘should’ is this—mine or someone else’s?” Pausing to trace the origin of the expectation gives you the choice to keep it or hand it back without the guilt tax.

    Why does willpower fail when trying to break unhelpful habits?

    Willpower fails because “should statements” act as automatic cognitive distortions rather than conscious decisions. Because your brain processes external expectations as objective facts rather than optional opinions, you cannot out-discipline an internal instruction you don’t realize you’re following. Sustainable behavioral change requires questioning the default reflex rather than forcing compliance.