11 Bad*ss Women Who Are Thriving With ADHD

Queen Bey's little sister and When I Get Home vocal powerhouse Solange Knowles is talented, accomplished, and living with ADHD.

Solange told News 24 that her disorganised speech and hyperactivity made people think she was high even while sober. She also said she was initially sceptical about the condition: "I was diagnosed with ADD twice. I didn't believe the first doctor who told me, and I had a whole theory that ADD was just something they invented to make you pay for medicine, but then the second doctor told me I had it."

In addition to her mental health, Olympic gold medalist and highest-awarded American gymnast Simone Biles speaks openly about her ADHD and her prescription for Ritalin and says that receiving treatment in competition shouldn't be seen as unfair game. "Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of [and] nothing that I'm afraid to let people know," Simone tweeted in 2016.

Simone aims to maintain an open dialogue to encourage others to view ADHD as a unique rather than defective condition hindering one's potential. "It's never held me back and I never let it hold me back," Biles said in an interview with Understood, a nonprofit organisation that provides online resources for ADHD. "I think it all depends on how you approach the learning disability . . . If you make it seem like a problem, then they think they have a problem."

Award-winning journalist Lisa Ling discovered her own ADHD while reporting on other diagnosed subjects for "The ADHD Explosion," an episode from her docuseries Our America with Lisa Ling.

"As I was watching these kids and their parents talk about [their ADHD], I felt like it's not really fair of me to just watch this happen," Lisa shared in a Distraction Podcast episode. "Because this is something that I always suspected of myself, I felt compelled to finally after 30-some years get tested, and so I worked with one of the doctors that we profiled in our episode, and he went through the battery of tests and confirmed that I had ADHD."

Lisa attributes her successful journalism career to her ADHD, claiming that it's forced her to find and stick to what she's truly passionate about. "I have always had a bit of a difficult time focusing on things that aren't interesting to me," Lisa said on Oprah Winfrey Network. "When I'm immersed in a story, then I feel like I can laser focus, but if I'm not working, my mind goes in every direction but where it's supposed to go, [and] I've been like that since I was a kid."

YouTube personality Jessica McCabe has her ADHD to thank for the success of her "How to ADHD" informational channel, which currently boasts more than 200,000 subscribers. Her large online following has since amassed an ADHD community that inspires wider acceptance and support for the less conventional ways of learning.

In a 2017 TED Talk, Jessica shared her success story about grappling with ADHD and how she ultimately stumbled into her successful career educating others and inspiring fellow "ADHD brains" to embrace the special advantages of their condition. "ADHD brains have a lot to offer the world. We tend to be generous, funny, [and] creative," said Jessica. "ADHD'ers are 300 percent more likely to start their own business. We not only think outside the box — we're often not even aware there is a box."