Fighting for an Autism Diagnosis: What the System Still Gets Wrong About AuDHD Women with Dr Samantha Hiew

🌟 Kate's opening a small number of 1-2-1 sessions, a chance to bring whatever's on your mind and get some focused time together. Book your session here. This week's episode: When we finally receive a diagnosis, it can feel like the missing piece. But for so many AuDHD women, it's only the beginning of a much longer journey — one that takes us back through everything we thought we knew about ourselves. This week on The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast, I'm welcoming back Dr Samantha Hiew, AuDHDer, scientist, and founder of ADHD Girls. Diagnosed with ADHD at 40, Sam has since received a working autism diagnosis after a seven-month struggle with clinicians who focused on developmental delays and trauma, rather than listening to her experiences. Since we last spoke, Sam has launched a major lived experience survey, and the findings are both validating and hard to sit with. This is a rich and honest conversation about what it really means to be a neurodivergent woman navigating identity, relationships, midlife, and a healthcare system that still doesn't fully see us. In this episode, we explore:

Sam's seven-month fight for an autism diagnosis and what it reveals about how the system fails women

What a lived experience survey of 400+ AuDHD women found about masking, identity and emotional safety

Why AuDHD women are predisposed to abandon themselves and how masking becomes survival

Relational trauma, sexual trauma, and patterns of conditioning in neurodivergent women

Perimenopause, unmasking, and what the hormonal shift reveals

Rebuilding self-trust and building community after a lifetime of masking as an AuDHD woman

The seasons of womanhood framework and how perimenopause represents autumn

The neuroscience of RSD and the salience network in ADHD and autism

Why psychiatry prescribes without brain scans, genetic testing, or hormonal context and the harm this causes

Self-advocacy tool for ND women navigating healthcare systems

Sam's AuDHD women's advanced practitioner programme

Listen to our previous episodes with Samantha below: Episode 28: Advocating For Your Neurodiversity In The Workplace with Samantha Hiew Episode 108: The Intersection Between ADHD and Autism with Dr Samantha Hiew

Support and information on topics raised in today's episode: Refuge website and support link Women's Aid Website

The ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Event Recording is here! My first-ever ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live event sold out, and now the full experience is available to you wherever you are, whenever it feels right. Alongside three neuro-affirming experts, we spent four hours exploring the questions that matter most to late-diagnosed women. Get lifetime access here! Inside the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Live Recording, you'll find:

Kate Moryoussef on post-diagnosis growth and her gentle framework for what comes next

Dr Hannah Cullen on the neuroscience of ADHD and why your brain works the way it does

Hannah Miller on reconnecting with purpose through a neurodivergent lens

Adele Wimsett myth-busting on hormones, HRT, progesterone and perimenopause

Understand yourself more deeply, feel less alone, and finally access the expert knowledge you deserve because every woman with ADHD deserves access to the knowledge, expertise and understanding that for too long hasn't been available to us. To get lifetime access for £44, click here. Links and Resources:

Find my popular ADHD workshops and resources on my website [here].

Follow the podcast on Instagram: @adhd_womenswellbeing_pod

Visit Samantha's website (samanthahiew.com) or connect with Samantha on LinkedIn

Samantha's AuDHD women's advanced practitioner programme

Samantha's self-advocacy tool for ND women navigating healthcare systems

Master's Event: Transform Trauma Oxford

Kate Moryoussef is a women's ADHD lifestyle and wellbeing coach and EFT practitioner who helps overwhelmed and unfulfilled newly diagnosed ADHD women find more calm, balance, hope, health, compassion, creativity and clar