Behind the Impact: How Lindsey Murphy is helping women with ADHD navigate life

Lindsey Murphy was a special education teacher in Brooklyn with more than 60 students in the program she led. She loved getting to know each kid’s  strengths to help them make meaningful progress each day. When an opportunity arose to apply her skills to the edtech and nonprofit space, she made the leap. She worked on an AI-powered writing tool for kids. 

That experience led her to Understood, where a product manager role felt like a natural next step. It offered a way to continue making an impact at scale — by helping parents and educators better support kids who learn and think differently.

Understood began by supporting parents of neurodivergent kids. But to truly reach the 70 million people in the U.S. with these differences, our work had to expand. We grew to support educators in the classroom — and more recently, women with ADHD. That shift reflects a broader trend: The rate of new ADHD diagnoses among women ages 23–49 nearly doubled from 2020 to 2022.

Lindsey was seeing this trend in her personal life. Several friends in their late 20s and 30s were being diagnosed with ADHD.

Many women with ADHD don’t get support until later in life, if at all. Emotional challenges like overwhelm, shame, and self-criticism can quietly affect work, caregiving, relationships, and self-confidence.

Lindsey says, “I’ve heard women with ADHD say, ‘I know what I want to do, but I feel emotionally overwhelmed and stuck.’”

82% of women with ADHD wish they had better strategies to get “unstuck” when lacking motivation. When they feel “stuck,” nearly two in three women with ADHD say they often avoid identifying strategies or solutions because they don’t have time due to family commitments (66%) or work schedule (64%).

“I’ve loved getting to build on my foundation as a teacher and expand my work to also help women get on a path to thriving,” says Lindsey.

Research shows that brief, well-designed digital tools can meaningfully support mental and emotional health.  So, the team partnered with Northwestern University to develop ADHD Unstuck. It’s a free, science-backed activity designed by and for women with ADHD to help women move out of that stuck feeling and work through emotional dysregulation. It takes less than 10 minutes!

Since its launch three months ago, more than 51,000 women have tried out ADHD Unstuck. We’re continuing to integrate user feedback and improve the experience. At the same time, a Northwestern study is looking at how to be even more effective for users so they can thrive.

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