When freelance writer Carla Ciccone became a mother, she realized she might need to finally see a therapist. Sure, she had struggled to hold down a job and manage her intense emotions for most of her adult life, but she'd always made it work. But "making it work" wasn't going to cut it now that she had another human being to raise.

Months into therapy, at age thirty-nine, Carla was officially diagnosed with ADHD, and she learned that she was far from alone: the women in her cohort being diagnosed with ADHD had more than doubled in recent years. Also on the rise was the number of women being prescribed psychostimulant drugs. Women aged twenty-five to forty-four filling stimulant prescriptions increased by over ten percent between 2020 and 2021.

In Nowhere Girls, Carla weaves her personal story with a broader investigation into the rise of ADHD diagnoses. She looks back at the classrooms of the 1990s, where ADHD was diagnosed mostly to little boys who were unable to sit still, shifts her gaze to the hormonal upheavals of adolescence and their unique effects on the neurochemistry of girls, and then examines her own chaotic entrance into motherhood and her desire to do right by her own daughter. Throughout, she examines the science and cultural history of ADHD, and considers how the hundreds of thousands of women now being diagnosed with ADHD can revisit their own personal histories and navigate their way towards a steadier, happier adulthood.