Women Deserve Better Answers About ADHD, PMDD & Reproductive Mental Health
The Issue
I am a psychiatric nurse today, but long before clinical language came into the picture, I was just a woman desperately trying to understand my own brain and body, constantly frustrated with myself, wondering why certain things seemed so much harder for me than they did for other people.
In my early twenties, I started noticing that my mood would change drastically in the week before my period. I would be more irritable, overwhelmed, and just not feel like myself. It was awful. I remember thinking, “hello, surely this can’t just be PMS!!” Then my period would start, and sometimes the relief felt almost immediate. I started tracking my symptoms every month, researching what I was experiencing, and eventually brought the pattern to a clinician. After continued tracking and evaluation, I was diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), a condition that can cause severe mood symptoms tied to the menstrual cycle.
ADHD took its own path. I wasn’t “hyper” in the way I had always thought ADHD was supposed to look, so I never would have seen that one coming either. I didn’t know ADHD could ALSO look like constantly forgetting things, struggling with organization, getting distracted easily, having a million thoughts going at once, impulsivity, or knowing exactly what I needed to do but still struggling to actually start it. Once I learned more about what ADHD can look like in adults, especially women, a lot of experiences I had struggled with my whole life finally started making sense. Eventually, I sought formal evaluation through both Psychiatry and Neurology, and twice I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Trying to figure out what this means for me going forward has been a journey, because research on how ADHD affects adult women, especially across hormonal life stages, is still limited!
I’m starting this petition because whenever I speak publicly about living with ADHD or PMDD, someone inevitably tells me some version of, “OMG, me too!”
Too many women are trying to piece together explanations for their health from social media, online communities, symptom trackers, and trial and error because the research still has so many gaps. There is so much we don’t understand about how our hormones may affect ADHD, and how they may influence the medications we do take.
Sometimes hearing another woman describe what she is experiencing is what finally pushes you to seek professional care, and that can be incredibly valuable. But anecdotal information can also be incomplete or misleading, and it cannot continue to substitute for science.
Women deserve better information about what may be happening in our own brains and bodies. We should not have to search through scattered studies, Reddit threads, TikToks, support groups, and other women’s experiences just to figure out whether the things we are noticing in ourselves are even worth bringing up to a clinician.
WHY SHOULD CLINICIANS CARE ABOUT THIS?
ADHD has historically been under-recognized in girls and women, and we know even less about the ways reproductive hormonal changes may interact with ADHD symptoms throughout different stages of life, including puberty and the menstrual years, pregnancy and postpartum, perimenopause, and menopause.
We should not have to rely on fragments of information.
Clinicians need better evidence about what to screen for, what questions to ask, how symptoms may change during different reproductive stages, and whether treatment response may change too.
We need stronger research examining how reproductive hormonal changes may interact with ADHD symptoms, PMDD, treatment response, mental-health outcomes, and suicide risk across the reproductive lifespan. Patients need stronger evidence to understand what may be happening in their bodies, and providers need research that can actually guide care.
WHAT IS THE RESEARCH SHOWING SO FAR?
A 2025 systematic review examining ADHD and sex hormones in females found only 11 eligible studies, and available evidence suggested an association between hormonal changes and ADHD symptoms, particularly during puberty and across the menstrual cycle. Researchers emphasized how limited the evidence still is, and they called for more research across a wider range of hormonal life stages, including menopause.
Another 2025 study involving 715 participants assigned female at birth found that 31.4% of participants who reported having been diagnosed with ADHD by a clinician screened positive for provisional PMDD, compared with 9.8% of the non-ADHD reference group. That does not mean one-third of women with ADHD definitively have PMDD, but these findings led the researchers to call for further investigation into the mechanisms connecting ADHD with hormone-sensitive conditions such as PMDD.
The stakes also extend beyond concentration and executive functioning. A 2026 systematic review of 18 studies representing approximately 2.6 million people found that PMDD was associated with increased suicidality, and the review identified no studies specifically evaluating treatments for suicidality in people with PMDD.
None of this proves that ADHD causes PMDD, that PMDD causes suicide, or that every woman with ADHD will be sensitive to reproductive hormonal changes. What it does show is that there are important clinical questions at the intersection of these conditions, and we still do not have enough answers.
WHERE DOES THE NIH COME IN?
NIH is already studying different pieces of this larger picture. Researchers within NIMH’s Behavioral Endocrinology Branch study how reproductive hormonal changes are involved in conditions including PMDD, postpartum depression, and perimenopausal depression. Their work includes trying to understand why reproductive hormonal changes can trigger severe mood symptoms in some women but not others.
NIH also acknowledges that research on hormonal influences in female ADHD remains limited. NIH women’s health research resources specifically note that more research is needed to understand how hormonal changes during life stages such as puberty, the menstrual cycle, and menopause may affect ADHD symptoms in women.
Separately, in September 2026, NIH launched a $21 million program focused on developing computer-based models of sex-specific hormonal biology to better understand things such as therapeutic effectiveness, dosing, treatment response, and toxicity.
This initiative shows that NIH is actively investing in better understanding sex-specific hormonal biology and how differences in hormone activity may affect health and treatment. NIMH is also already studying reproductive hormone-related mood disorders, while other researchers are beginning to examine hormonal influences on ADHD. These efforts are important, but they are addressing different pieces of a much larger question.
WHAT I AM ASKING FOR
I am asking the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), in coordination with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) and other relevant NIH partners, to advance and support coordinated research examining the intersection of ADHD, PMDD, reproductive hormonal changes, mental-health outcomes, treatment response, and suicide risk across women’s reproductive life stages.
We need research that can help answer questions such as why some women with ADHD may be particularly sensitive to reproductive hormonal changes, how ADHD symptoms and treatment response may change across reproductive stages, how ADHD and prospectively confirmed PMDD interact, whether certain groups may be at greater risk for adverse mental-health outcomes, and what interventions actually improve outcomes.
My goal with this petition is to demonstrate that enough of us are impacted by these unanswered questions, and we deserve better answers. Getting those answers requires research that actually investigates the intersection between these conditions instead of leaving women and their clinicians to piece everything together from separate bodies of research.
I want the next woman who notices that something changes every month, who knows she does not feel like herself but does not understand why, to have more than anecdotes and internet searches available to her. I want her to have answers backed by research.
I want clinicians to have stronger evidence informing the way they care for women with ADHD, PMDD, or both. I want researchers to have the support needed to investigate the places where these conditions and reproductive hormonal changes may overlap. Most importantly, I want women to have better information about our own brains and bodies than many of us had when we first started looking for answers.
If you believe ADHD, PMDD, and women’s reproductive mental health deserve stronger research investment, please sign and share this petition.
---
Sources, if you want to nerd out:
Osianlis E, Thomas EHX, Jenkins LM, Gurvich C. ADHD and Sex Hormones in Females: A Systematic Review. Journal of Attention Disorders. 2025.
ADHD and Sex Hormones in Females: A Systematic Review
Broughton T, Lambert E, Wertz J, Agnew-Blais J. Increased risk of provisional premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) among females with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): cross-sectional survey study. British Journal of Psychiatry. 2025.
ADHD and provisional PMDD study
Zhitnik E, Britt T, Bertone-Johnson E, Mackie TI, Hartmann-Boyce J. Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Treatments for Suicidality in People Living with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): A Systematic Review. 2026.
PMDD and suicidality systematic review
National Institute of Mental Health. Behavioral Endocrinology Branch.
NIMH Behavioral Endocrinology Branch
NIH Discover Women’s Health Research. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and NIH Women’s Health Research.
NIH Women’s Health ADHD Research Overview
National Institutes of Health. Computational Modeling of Hormone Homeostasis Initiative.
NIH Computational Modeling of Hormone Homeostasis Initiative
4
The Issue
I am a psychiatric nurse today, but long before clinical language came into the picture, I was just a woman desperately trying to understand my own brain and body, constantly frustrated with myself, wondering why certain things seemed so much harder for me than they did for other people.
In my early twenties, I started noticing that my mood would change drastically in the week before my period. I would be more irritable, overwhelmed, and just not feel like myself. It was awful. I remember thinking, “hello, surely this can’t just be PMS!!” Then my period would start, and sometimes the relief felt almost immediate. I started tracking my symptoms every month, researching what I was experiencing, and eventually brought the pattern to a clinician. After continued tracking and evaluation, I was diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), a condition that can cause severe mood symptoms tied to the menstrual cycle.
ADHD took its own path. I wasn’t “hyper” in the way I had always thought ADHD was supposed to look, so I never would have seen that one coming either. I didn’t know ADHD could ALSO look like constantly forgetting things, struggling with organization, getting distracted easily, having a million thoughts going at once, impulsivity, or knowing exactly what I needed to do but still struggling to actually start it. Once I learned more about what ADHD can look like in adults, especially women, a lot of experiences I had struggled with my whole life finally started making sense. Eventually, I sought formal evaluation through both Psychiatry and Neurology, and twice I was diagnosed with ADHD.
Trying to figure out what this means for me going forward has been a journey, because research on how ADHD affects adult women, especially across hormonal life stages, is still limited!
I’m starting this petition because whenever I speak publicly about living with ADHD or PMDD, someone inevitably tells me some version of, “OMG, me too!”
Too many women are trying to piece together explanations for their health from social media, online communities, symptom trackers, and trial and error because the research still has so many gaps. There is so much we don’t understand about how our hormones may affect ADHD, and how they may influence the medications we do take.
Sometimes hearing another woman describe what she is experiencing is what finally pushes you to seek professional care, and that can be incredibly valuable. But anecdotal information can also be incomplete or misleading, and it cannot continue to substitute for science.
Women deserve better information about what may be happening in our own brains and bodies. We should not have to search through scattered studies, Reddit threads, TikToks, support groups, and other women’s experiences just to figure out whether the things we are noticing in ourselves are even worth bringing up to a clinician.
WHY SHOULD CLINICIANS CARE ABOUT THIS?
ADHD has historically been under-recognized in girls and women, and we know even less about the ways reproductive hormonal changes may interact with ADHD symptoms throughout different stages of life, including puberty and the menstrual years, pregnancy and postpartum, perimenopause, and menopause.
We should not have to rely on fragments of information.
Clinicians need better evidence about what to screen for, what questions to ask, how symptoms may change during different reproductive stages, and whether treatment response may change too.
We need stronger research examining how reproductive hormonal changes may interact with ADHD symptoms, PMDD, treatment response, mental-health outcomes, and suicide risk across the reproductive lifespan. Patients need stronger evidence to understand what may be happening in their bodies, and providers need research that can actually guide care.
WHAT IS THE RESEARCH SHOWING SO FAR?
A 2025 systematic review examining ADHD and sex hormones in females found only 11 eligible studies, and available evidence suggested an association between hormonal changes and ADHD symptoms, particularly during puberty and across the menstrual cycle. Researchers emphasized how limited the evidence still is, and they called for more research across a wider range of hormonal life stages, including menopause.
Another 2025 study involving 715 participants assigned female at birth found that 31.4% of participants who reported having been diagnosed with ADHD by a clinician screened positive for provisional PMDD, compared with 9.8% of the non-ADHD reference group. That does not mean one-third of women with ADHD definitively have PMDD, but these findings led the researchers to call for further investigation into the mechanisms connecting ADHD with hormone-sensitive conditions such as PMDD.
The stakes also extend beyond concentration and executive functioning. A 2026 systematic review of 18 studies representing approximately 2.6 million people found that PMDD was associated with increased suicidality, and the review identified no studies specifically evaluating treatments for suicidality in people with PMDD.
None of this proves that ADHD causes PMDD, that PMDD causes suicide, or that every woman with ADHD will be sensitive to reproductive hormonal changes. What it does show is that there are important clinical questions at the intersection of these conditions, and we still do not have enough answers.
WHERE DOES THE NIH COME IN?
NIH is already studying different pieces of this larger picture. Researchers within NIMH’s Behavioral Endocrinology Branch study how reproductive hormonal changes are involved in conditions including PMDD, postpartum depression, and perimenopausal depression. Their work includes trying to understand why reproductive hormonal changes can trigger severe mood symptoms in some women but not others.
NIH also acknowledges that research on hormonal influences in female ADHD remains limited. NIH women’s health research resources specifically note that more research is needed to understand how hormonal changes during life stages such as puberty, the menstrual cycle, and menopause may affect ADHD symptoms in women.
Separately, in September 2026, NIH launched a $21 million program focused on developing computer-based models of sex-specific hormonal biology to better understand things such as therapeutic effectiveness, dosing, treatment response, and toxicity.
This initiative shows that NIH is actively investing in better understanding sex-specific hormonal biology and how differences in hormone activity may affect health and treatment. NIMH is also already studying reproductive hormone-related mood disorders, while other researchers are beginning to examine hormonal influences on ADHD. These efforts are important, but they are addressing different pieces of a much larger question.
WHAT I AM ASKING FOR
I am asking the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), in coordination with the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) and other relevant NIH partners, to advance and support coordinated research examining the intersection of ADHD, PMDD, reproductive hormonal changes, mental-health outcomes, treatment response, and suicide risk across women’s reproductive life stages.
We need research that can help answer questions such as why some women with ADHD may be particularly sensitive to reproductive hormonal changes, how ADHD symptoms and treatment response may change across reproductive stages, how ADHD and prospectively confirmed PMDD interact, whether certain groups may be at greater risk for adverse mental-health outcomes, and what interventions actually improve outcomes.
My goal with this petition is to demonstrate that enough of us are impacted by these unanswered questions, and we deserve better answers. Getting those answers requires research that actually investigates the intersection between these conditions instead of leaving women and their clinicians to piece everything together from separate bodies of research.
I want the next woman who notices that something changes every month, who knows she does not feel like herself but does not understand why, to have more than anecdotes and internet searches available to her. I want her to have answers backed by research.
I want clinicians to have stronger evidence informing the way they care for women with ADHD, PMDD, or both. I want researchers to have the support needed to investigate the places where these conditions and reproductive hormonal changes may overlap. Most importantly, I want women to have better information about our own brains and bodies than many of us had when we first started looking for answers.
If you believe ADHD, PMDD, and women’s reproductive mental health deserve stronger research investment, please sign and share this petition.
---
Sources, if you want to nerd out:
Osianlis E, Thomas EHX, Jenkins LM, Gurvich C. ADHD and Sex Hormones in Females: A Systematic Review. Journal of Attention Disorders. 2025.
ADHD and Sex Hormones in Females: A Systematic Review
Broughton T, Lambert E, Wertz J, Agnew-Blais J. Increased risk of provisional premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) among females with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): cross-sectional survey study. British Journal of Psychiatry. 2025.
ADHD and provisional PMDD study
Zhitnik E, Britt T, Bertone-Johnson E, Mackie TI, Hartmann-Boyce J. Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Treatments for Suicidality in People Living with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): A Systematic Review. 2026.
PMDD and suicidality systematic review
National Institute of Mental Health. Behavioral Endocrinology Branch.
NIMH Behavioral Endocrinology Branch
NIH Discover Women’s Health Research. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and NIH Women’s Health Research.
NIH Women’s Health ADHD Research Overview
National Institutes of Health. Computational Modeling of Hormone Homeostasis Initiative.
NIH Computational Modeling of Hormone Homeostasis Initiative
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on September 20, 2026