Strengths of mental hyperactivity - female ADHD, hyper creativity, imagination, visual thinking and a love of music

CREATE25 Public guerilla testing

CREATE25 Public guerilla testing

If you are reading this, you are likely aware I have spent the last several months co-designing the world’s first strengths-based ADHD and autism self-identification service for adult women, non-binary and AFAB. If you were not, where have you been?

Through early discovery research and administering a number of validated psychological surveys, I learned that neurodivergent women have a number of unique and wonderful strengths. The ADHD diagnostic criteria is, however, entirely deficit-focused and fails to pay attention to any of our strengths.

The medical model has been criticised by both the positive psychology and neurodiversity movements as being overly focused on diagnosing people with mental illness and “disorders” at the cost of overlooking human strengths. The screening service aims to support a positive diagnosis, acknowledging both our strengths and struggles. It does not mention the words “deficits” or “disorder”.

Over the past few weeks, I have been expanding the proposed screenings to recognise neurodivergent women’s strengths and mapping these to the positive psychology framework and back to the diagnostic criteria. As an autistic woman, I cannot lie to you - it has been a truly tedious mission. Never again. So, I think it is important to check I have it right before publicly piloting the service with 1000+ humans…

This calls for guerilla testing! Previously, I shared a public version of preliminary items to search for the ADHD strengths of “Hyperfocus” or flow proneness. I also discussed the link with the ADHD strength “love of learning” (elsewhere described as an “interest-based nervous system”). Thanks to everyone who tested this!!! Read the write-up here. I’ve since refined the items in response to your feedback. I am super happy with where it has landed.

Creativity is my top strength, so I am absolutely delighted to be conducting guerrilla public testing on the CREATE25, which I co-created based on my research with 267 neurodivergent humans from across the globe (patting myself on the back)! The CREATE25 is a self-report questionnaire featuring 25 items from the ADHD self-screening service for adult women, non-binary individuals, and those assigned female at birth (AFAB). It measures strengths related to ADHD mental hyperactivity—specifically creativity, imagination, visual thinking and a love of music.

If you identify as an ADHD woman, non-binary individual, or AFAB, I would greatly appreciate it if you could test this out and provide feedback in the comments (be honest). By contributing, you will be able to see what other women are reporting in the polls.

If you identify as another gender, please hold off for now. I will reach out later to all genders to help test the service and examine any sex differences (thank you for your patience).

Strengths in ADHD mental hyperactivity

1
Hyper creativity

Creativity is the ability to generate many new, original or innovative ideas during the act of problem-solving. Creative people are strong in divergent and lateral thinking. Divergent thinking is exploring a wide range of ideas in response to a problem. Lateral thinking is thinking "outside-of-the-box" to find unusual solutions to problems that are not immediately obvious.

Through my early discovery research, I found that neurodivergent women are high in trait creativity and that this is mediated, or increased, by the presence of ADHD (autistic women without co-occurring ADHD reported lower levels of creativity). Thus, we can infer ADHD mental hyperactivity likely mediates enhanced creative thinking.

Additionally, ADHD women reported high levels of indecisiveness or the ability to choose between options - this is also known as convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is the cognitive process of focusing on finding a single solution to a problem. Unlike divergent thinking, which generates multiple ideas or possibilities, convergent thinking involves narrowing down options to focus in a single direction.

Conversely, Rumination is a cognitive process that involves repeatedly thinking about or replaying negative thoughts, feelings, or events. Women ruminate more than men. Rumination is argued to perpetuate depression and anxiety. Women in the general population experience depression and anxiety 2-3x more than men. See the scholarly works of Susan Nolenson for a thorough discussion of why women think more than men.

Ruminators often report feeling stuck, unable to see options or able to take action. According to the "broaden-and-build theory", positive emotions broaden our thinking and our ability to see options and increase energy, while negative emotions do the opposite; they restrict our thinking and exhaust us (Frederickson, 2001). Thus, depression and anxiety restrict creative thinking and inhibit action.

100% of ADHD and autistic women involved in my discovery research reported overthinking - rumination. This was unsurprising. ADHD and autistic women experience high levels of co-occurring depression and anxiety. Depression and anxiety frequently co-occur. Within my sample, 9/10 reported anxiety. 8/10 reported major depression.

The autism diagnostic criteria requires that evidence of restricted interests and repetitive behaviours must be present from an early age. Our speech and behaviours reflect our internal thought processes. Masking is a coping mechanism whereby a person hides their neurodivergent traits in order to fit in with neurotypicals or avoid discrimination, exclusion, bullying, or abuse. Women mask more than men.

It has been argued that autistic women display fewer overt repetitive behaviours than men due to masking, which could lead to them being overlooked. Similarly, it has been argued ADHD women are less overtly hyperactive and impulsive than men; in fact, my findings showed neurodivergent often experience chronic exhaustion. High levels of co-occurring depression, burnout, chronic fatigue/ME or fibromyalgia might explain this.

This has led people to observe that there is an “internalised presentation” of ADHD or autism in women. I’d argue this is not entirely true - you just have to listen to our speech (much harder to control). Women talk more than men. ADHD women who mask whilst reporting high levels of mental hyperactivity also report hyperverbality and tangential and impulsive speech; autistic women report high levels of restricted thinking and repetitive thinking (rumination) and also report repetitive and pedantic speech.

In fact, I would argue that mental creativity and mental rumination, which are each linked to ADHD and autism, respectively, are fundamentally two sides of the same coin. This was corroborated in my research; I found that neurodivergent women are more likely to be both ADHD and autistic than not (AuDHD). Additionally, building on Frederickson’s theories, levels of creativity or rumination are likely related to positive and negative affect (that’s a fancy psychology word for feeling, emotion or mood).

What is more, In women, I found that our traits or symptoms are not fixed; rather, they fluctuate with hormonal changes. Creative thinking likely increases during the follicular phase of a woman’s cycle when mood, energy, productivity, and oestrogen levels are elevated. This is contrasted with the luteal phase when progesterone levels rise and oestrogen and serotonin drop, leading to increased depression and anxiety alongside rumination.

Research supports this theory; it is well-established in the literature that depression and anxiety levels rise during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. Studies have also shown that women in the general population report higher levels of creativity during the follicular phase and ovulation when estrogen levels rise (Krug et al., 1994; Krug et al., 2003; Slob et al., 1996 ). Thus, for the female brain, it appears that oestrogen enhances creative thinking, while progesterone, which increases during the luteal phase, restricts creativity.

All of this gets my creative brain super excited. Through my future research, I would love to explore how creativity is enhanced or restricted in relation to our hormonal cycles. For now, let’s find out how many ADHD women report hypercreativity!

CREATE25 ©2025 More Human

As an ADHD woman, non-binary or AFAB…

2.
Hyper imagination

ADHD and autism affect the way people process the world around them. Girls with ADHD are often criticised for being "daydreamers." In my discovery research, I found that adult ADHD women are high in trait imagination, or "fantasy proneness," and experience high levels of dissociation. Fantasy proneness is a cognitive tendency to engage in frequent, vivid, immersive fantasy or daydreaming experiences (Lynn & Rhue, 1988).

People who are high in fantasy proneness often have a rich inner fantasy world and overactive imagination, which may serve as a form of mental escapism or dissociation from reality. Those who are fantasy-prone may experience vivid mental imagery, making it challenging at times to differentiate between fantasy and reality. While high-trait imagination can enhance creativity and problem-solving skills, it may also lead to difficulties with attention and focus, which are difficulties associated with ADHD.

Dissociation is a psychological process where a person feels disconnected from their thoughts, feelings, memories, or sense of identity. This detachment can occur as a coping mechanism, often in response to pain, stress, trauma, or overwhelming emotions. Dissociation is a symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and CPTSD, has also been linked to fibromyalgia, and experiencing a state of flow - are all highly prevalent among neurodivergent women (Berkol et al., 2019; Eccles, 2017)

A similar concept to fantasy proneness is “maladaptive daydreaming” when excessive daydreaming impairs attention and focus and interferes with daily functioning. Research suggests that maladaptive daydreaming is more prevalent among people with ADHD (Somer et al., 2016). Some studies have linked BPD with increased levels of maladaptive daydreaming (Celban & Nowacki, 2024; Pyszkowska et al., 2023). BPD is a gendered diagnosis made to 3x as many women and is a common misdiagnosis amongst ADHD women with co-occurring CPTSD. Other research has implicated childhood trauma (Somer et al., 2021). Women are 2-3x more likely to develop CPTSD as a result of trauma.

Why females show increased fantasy proneness is curious - nature or nurture, sex hormones or relational trauma? Research has suggested that imagination is restricted by alexithymia. Alexithymia is an inability to identify, label and express emotions. It has been related to externally orientated thinking and difficulties with imagination. Alexithymia is prominent amongst ADHD and autistic people. However, research consistently shows sex differences in alexithymia, with men being more likely to have difficulties with emotional awareness (Levant et al., 2006).

Research has shown that women in the general population both daydream and nightdream more than men (Giambra, 1979). Additionally, women in the general population are more likely to experience sleep difficulties than men. Studies show that about 10-30% of women experience insomnia, compared to approximately 5-15% of men (Benca et al., 2005). Research suggests that 80% of ADHDers experience insomnia (Van Veen et al., 2010). In my discovery research, I found that 70% of neurodivergent women reported experiencing insomnia; insomnia was likely underreported, as 90% said that they had difficulties getting to sleep because of overthinking. ADHD, depression, anxiety and PTSD have all been linked to sleep disturbances, including insomnia, nightmares and lucid dreams (Blum et al., 2021).

This leaves me with so many questions. Through my future research, I would like to explore how imagination is influenced by the sex assigned at birth, gender, alexithymia, hyperactive/combined type ADHD, inattentive type ADHD and co-occurring autism, and the role of fluctuating hormones. In the interim, I am super curious - do ADHD women have a rich nighttime dream world - there is only one way to find out…

Test your imagination ©2025 More Human.

As an ADHD woman, non-binary or AFAB…

3.
Visual thinking

Research has shown that women in the general population report higher vividness of imagery than men (Isaac & Marks, 1994). Additionally, creativity is related to vividness in imagery in women and creative production in men (Forisitha, 1978). What this implies is that ADHD women *might* very well be higher in visual learning and processing than ADHD men. Let’s test this hypothesis… How do you process information in the world around you?

Test your visual thinking ©2025 More Human.
As an ADHD woman, non-binary or AFAB…

4.
Love of music

Within my discovery research, I found that ADHD women have a love of music. Stimming is a form of repetitive behaviour used by neurodivergent people to regulate their emotions. Musical stimming is a self-stimulatory behaviour that involves listening to music.

Music has been linked to increased positive emotions, creativity, imagination, energy, motivation and focus - which are indicators of a flow state or hyperfocus (Kiss & Linnell, 2020; Rawden and Tellnes., 2011; Ritter & Ferguson, 2017; Zaatar et al., 2023). Music increases creativity and imagination via maladaptive daydreaming (Zamar, 2024). Therefore, if you want to boost your creativity or imagination or create the conditions for hyperfocus, consider putting on some headphones.

Neurodivergent women with sensory differences are more likely to have sensitive ears and have trouble with auditory filtering, making them easily distracted by background noise. Misophonia can make neurodivergent women super sensitive to certain sounds. Noise-filtering earbuds or noise-cancelling headphones can help block out background noise.

Neurodivergent women may experience odd skin sensations related to an overactive somatosensory system and interoceptive differences (Eccles, 2015). Synthesisasia is a phenomenon where multiple senses are triggered and experienced as blended together and is more common among people with ADHD or autism. As a result, it is foreseeable that neurodivergent women are more likely to experience “musical frisson”.

Musical frisson, sometimes referred to as a skin orgasm, is characterised by sensations of chills or tingling while listening to music. Colloquially, this is often described as experiencing “the chills” and is related to strong emotions, in particular, awe. Awe is a self-transcendent emotion associated with mesmerisation, wonder and relative smallness. Naturally, I am fascinated to learn if this might be so - so frisson made number 25.


Test your love of music ©More Human. As an ADHD woman, non-binary or AFAB…

Please leave feedback in the comments

About the author

Hello, I am Leanne. I am a late-diagnosed neurodivergent (woman!), Positive Psychology Coach, and the founder of More Human. More Human is on a mission to close the gender gap in ADHD and autism recognition and diagnosis, widen access to good support, and create equal opportunity.

More Human are launching the first strengths-based ADHD and autism self-identification service for ADHD and autism in adult women, non-binary and AFAB. Over the past several months, I have been working with what is now 267 neurodivergent women to conduct research into their lived experience, co-design, and test a breakthrough service. As a brave survivor diagnosed with CPTSD, I feel privileged to lead this work.

I need your help to keep going.

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Thank you for your support.

Leanne.