Gen X women don’t have the bandwidth to figure out why they feel so terrible

At the end of last year, I started to see a cognitive behavioral therapist. My executive function, the set of mental processes that help order the day-to-day — like organization, working memory, time management and focus — was in shambles. In my intake interview, the therapist asked when I noticed that my focus had gotten worse, and I said that I’d been diagnosed with ADD when I was in my mid-40s, but added that I was also possibly in menopause. My ex-husband and co-parent had recently died, and I was now the single mother of a grieving teen. Add in encroaching fascism, and it just felt like too much.

As the last generation to come of age at a time when both neurodivergence and menopause were considered shameful secrets, Gen X includes a lot of women who arrive at middle age feeling like