Dopamine Daughters

Dopamine Daughters is a women-focused platform built by and for neurodivergent women. The brand’s core belief is that every woman is a
daughter, and every daughter deserves understanding, support, and a voice.

I am Emma, I am a mother to 3 children, I am in my 40s and I am Neurodiverse. I have recently created and founded Dopamine Daughters.

Dopamine Daughters is a platform focused on women and girls who are diagnosed, undiagnosed or self-diagnosed as neurodiverse. It aims to identify vulnerabilities and issues that may impact us as a demographic. I really want to focus on educating women regarding the impacts of neurodiversity so that we feel empowered to drive change.

I was diagnosed via the NHS later in life with Autism and ADHD. For me it was like the missing puzzle piece in the jigsaw that is my life, this is not to say that I needed to be fixed or that I was a puzzle to be solved, It is simply that I had lived life for years without the information or awareness of why I was different, or why I found aspects of my life so challenging.

The feelings this late diagnosis brought up was initially grief and shock, as I re-evaluated everything that I had experienced in my life, the failures and health inequalities that I had faced as an undiagnosed neurodivergent female. I reflected on the sadness I felt for the younger version of myself and wondered how different life may have been for me if I had been aware of my Autism and ADHD.

In 2021 it became apparent that my youngest daughter was struggling in all aspects of life and this was the start of our journey together. Like she was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD and then more recently she was diagnosed with Dyslexia. This really got me asking more questions and wondering what I could have implemented to assist me at key points in my life, such as motherhood, if only I had been aware of my neurodiversity’s.

I also suddenly felt the need to explore what services were available and accessible. I educated myself about the vulnerability’s neurodiverse women face, and I realised that discussions and acknowledgement on these topics were needed.

We are educating women on how to come to terms with being neurodiverse, how to be their authentic selves by unmasking and proposing coping strategies to assist them in staying regulated which is hugely important, valuable and needed. What wasn’t and isn’t being discussed in so much depth are the gritty more uncomfortable topics and vulnerabilities that impact us as a demographic, such as the link between neurodiverse women and abuse, this can encompass physical; sexual; and emotional abuse from a partner or non-partner.

The association between neurodiversity and eating disorders is not often touched upon. There are so many topics I want to talk to my daughter about and that I wish I could have discussed with my younger self. I now look at life in a more informed way, better prepared to ask myself, how these issues are likely to impact us.

I reflected that if I wasn’t aware of the risks posed then how could I possibly educate and empower my daughter to be an advocate for herself? In fact, if we were not aware of all the risks or the possible health implications and conditions that may impact us, then maybe there were other women and daughters out there who needed access to this potentially lifesaving information in a safe, accessible platform.

Throughout my lifetime I had completed several degrees and a diploma in higher education that specialised in stress management, midwifery and health visiting. I already had a font of information, but I was unable to relate it to myself or improve my own experiences, so this has been the driver behind the concept. I don’t want other women or daughters to suffer, certainly not in silence. I want to promote discussion on topics that impact us, I want to raise awareness.

I want to use my previous experience in healthcare and offer support, strategies and awareness. Becoming a mother is such an important time in our lives, I want to ensure that we are discussing how our neurodiversity may impact us. Let us discuss postnatal depression, being neurodiverse puts us at a much greater risk of suffering from this, what can we do to mitigate this risk or reduce it? Why are we not having these discussions? There is so much work that needs to be done to reduce the health inequalities in neurodiverse women.

I want Dopamine Daughters to assist in reducing these inequalities for all daughters who think differently.

There are so many positive implications of having Autism and ADHD. I want to celebrate our differences, and I absolutely plan to do this but ultimately, I want to improve our story, I wish I could have done this for the younger version of myself, butI absolutely believe it is possible to do this for our daughters.

Emma