Dopamine Dolls is a community and support service for women and non-binary people living with ADHD, in the Scottish Highland (SC052659).
Our charity is peer-led, with all members being from our community. Our aim is to support and empower our Dolls to build peer connections, share lived experiences, develop strategies, and embrace their neurodiversity as a community.
The key service we provide is peer support, which we define as the bringing together of people with shared experiences to support each other, providing a space where you feel safe, accepted, and understood. Within these support groups, our Dolls can relax in the company of people who understand us. We share information and ideas and have the chance to speak confidentially. Our aim is to help our Dolls feel that they are not alone, and that they have a place to go for shared experience and forming relationships with like-minded people.
You can find out more about all of our different sessions, and how to attend on Our Services Page. If you would like to keep up-to-date with our sessions, plus other events and activities, sign up to our monthly newsletter.
To create accessible and safe spaces for our community to connect and learn, whilst breaking down the barriers that restrict our community from gaining and understanding a diagnosis of ADHD.
To empower our community, develop strategies and an understanding of ADHD, as it pertains to the individual, allowing for the management of difficulties and the utilisation of the strengths of each individual.
To encourage the development of a society that supports neurodiversity, through raising awareness and providing education of the realities of how ADHD affects neurodiverse people.
As awareness has grown of how ADHD presents in adults, many of us have sought support and diagnoses. Unfortunately, the journey to diagnosis has proven challenging for many. It can feel like a postcode lottery, with waiting lists being years. The geography of Highland; lack of understanding of how ADHD presents in adults, particularly women and non-binary people; and the pressures on our NHS services means that there are many barriers - not only to diagnosis but to support too.
We appreciate that, due to said barriers to services, gaining a diagnosis may not always be possible, or desirable for some. Our community and services are, therefore, for anyone, who has an ADHD diagnosis or who is experiencing traits that they feel have a significant impact on their life.
People living with ADHD are at risk of isolation, undiagnosed and unsupported comorbid learning difficulties, common mental health conditions, unemployment, discrimination, lack of access to psychological interventions and lack of access to diagnostic services and treatment.
The lived experience of ADHD in women and non-binary people who have hormone cycles is different to that of people who are assigned male at birth, as said hormone cycles can impact ADHD traits. Additionally, perimenopause and menopause play a significant role in these bodies and have further implications for how life is experienced. Given the sensitive nature of these topics, and the social expectations and pressures surrounding them, Dopamine Dolls has been created with women and non-binary people in mind.