Perimenopause, brain fog, and noise sensitivity: Lizzie O’Leary’s late ADHD diagnosis

Journalist Lizzie O’Leary spent decades asking sharp questions for a living. Then the words started disappearing. Brain fog. Surprising rage. A head full of buzzing bees.

Lizzie, who hosts Slate’s What Next: TBD podcast, was diagnosed with ADHD at 50 after perimenopause made her ADHD symptoms too powerful to push aside. Lizzie talks about emotional regulation challenges that hurt her career, sensory sensitivity she’d written off as quirks, and what she wishes she’d known when she was younger.