Transcript:
Why are you becoming an Ambassador for ADHD UK?
I want to be an ambassador for ADHD UK because I think it’s really important that other people find a way of being educated about ADHD and can start to learn who they are for themselves. I think that having. The knowledge about ADHD and having a knowledge about myself as somebody with ADHD has really changed me and it’s enabled me to stop masking and start living the life that I want to live. I want to do that for other people. I want other people to be able to have the ability to see themselves as the amazing people that they are.
Tell us about your diagnosis journey.
When I was around 16, I had a very, very good friend who had then been diagnosed with what was Asperger’s and she had told me that she thought I had ADHD, and she gave me a book that she had very kindly ticked for me, with like a to do list, all of the reasons why she thought I had ADHD, and she presented this book to me, and I went away and I read it and it was like, AHHHHH!! Oh, this is like me. It’s like reading about me. So I went off to the doctors. I’d already been going to the doctors really, really struggling with my mental health for a long time. And I went to go and see somebody and I went to chat with them. They nodded away. They agreed with me and off I went to work straight after the appointment. And I said, I’ve got ADHD. That’s why I can’t stay still and I can’t be refined, confined to a checkout and I can’t, stay in one place and it’s why I keep talking all the time and why I’m talking so fast and you keep telling me off for it all the time and I’ve just found out that that is why I’m doing what I’m doing.
They kind of laughed at me a little bit because this is going back now to 2004 ish, 2005 and they didn’t really take me very seriously. Time went on and when I was 19 I had my first child, my daughter, a few years into her life, there were, she was very like me, she was so like me, it was unreal, and I kept thinking, why is this girl, she just keeps walking into the door frames, and every time she leaves the room, she forgets where she’s going, and this isn’t supposed to happen, I’m sure, until you’re older, and it was kind of, it was kind of irritating to watch, because it was like watching me, Time went on, she started to spill in school. I started to think, there has got to be more, there has got to be so much more to this. And I hadn’t forgotten this conversation when I was 17 about having ADHD and it was, it was in there, but it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. And when I was asking the teachers, what do you think was going on? They didn’t have anything. They say to me, they had no input to give me, Oh, she’s fine in school. She’s just a little bit ditzy and a little bit dreamy. And if she could only just concentrate and then maybe she focused a little bit more or she doodled all over the table today and she doesn’t really remember doing it. It was just an impulse. And so off I went, trying to find out more. And I actually went and did a diploma in autism. Because it was something that I was really interested in learning more about. There were a few light bulb moments there for me with my daughter, and she got onto the pathway for an autism diagnosis.
It was only during that process that I started thinking, but they did say I had ADHD. Hang on a minute. I’m going to look at this. And I thought it’s very prevalent in mums and daughters and it is hereditary. I’m going to find out more. So I got myself off to the doctors. I had been told by the same friend that had told me at 17, you can go online, you can go on right to choose. It wasn’t the first time she told me. She told me this several times over a few years and I’d put it off and I thought I’m going to do it. So I went online. Checked out right to choose, chose the place that I was going to go to for my assessment, and I sent the letter and a, is it the ASRS questionnaire? I sent that the into the doctors. So I went to the doctors armed with these pieces of paper and I handed them in and they were good with me. There was nothing in my medical file at all to say that I’d had a conversation when I was 17. And it was, it was really difficult for me because I thought, why is that not there?
Why, how is that fair for that not to be there? And I’m having to start again. I explained about the troubles that my daughter was having, and they agreed to go through the CG for my right to choose. Couple of months later, I got a phone call to say that I’d been accepted, and it was about six months later that I ended up having my appointment, which was.really good, because I know there can be a really long waiting list at times. So, I was seen, I was diagnosed the day after my 34th birthday. I don’t know why, I don’t know why I got a bit like that. And it was, it was like a proper eye opener for me, because It changed, it completely changed my life, finding out, and it was like somebody had just switched the light on after all them years, even though I’d had the conversation before when I was 17, it just completely changed everything. And knowing what I knew at that point about neurodiversity, it was like, wow, that’s why I do this. That’s why I’ve got a drawer full of crochet that I, like a whole thing that I don’t use. And that’s why I’ve spent all this money on loads of paints that I was going to decorate the house with, and then I didn’t. And it’s just, it was just awakening for me. It wasn’t depression, it wasn’t mental breakdowns, it was burnout, it was overwhelm, it was exhaustion, it was masking, and since that point, and I know I don’t have to do those things anymore, the world’s completely different for me. I’m not too much. I’m just me.
What would you like to tell people generally about your ADHD?
Because I have ADHD, often I talk too much or too fast or about things that might not interest other people but they interest me. Maybe just currently, maybe for the last few weeks. I’m kind of an all or nothing kind of girl. I love a good conversation about something that really matters and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming for both of us and I love who I am now. I didn’t love who I was before and sometimes that person that I was before can creep back in. So sometimes I will just go quiet on you after we have seen each other. I will just go, you know, completely silent. You will be ghosted by me because I will be analyzing everything I said during our conversations. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love spending time with people. It doesn’t mean that I am not happy with our friendship or the relationship that I have with a certain person. It’s just, I find things very overwhelming and it’s usually back to the old rejection-sensitive dysphoria. I am overthinking the way that I acted. Did I talk too loud at that point? Why did I shout that out in the restaurant? Was there any need for that? It went quiet. Why? Yeah, it creeps back in sometimes. I forget things so, so easily. I am likely to leave the room and forget why I went there. I can look down at my hand and think, why is there a teabag in here? What? Where did I? I was making, what was I doing? Why am I in the living room with a teabag? I was making a cup of tea. I just, I got distracted. It happens. It is more than what you read about and more about what you hear about, it’s more than what’s glamorized in the media. There are some real lows, but also some real highs to having ADHD. And that can mean that I can be under the covers in bed hiding. Scrolling on my phone, hours and hours going by, not knowing what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. I’m just watching TikTok for hours. And then I look and I’ll think, where did the day go? Where, what, I was going to do things. And then other times I don’t stop and I work so, so hard that I forget to eat. I forget to drink. I stopped myself going to the toilet until the very last minute. And that is just who I am.
What would you like to tell your employers about your ADHD?
Currently, I am self-employed. And I am the happiest I’ve ever been. I started working when I was 13 years old and took on a paper round. I got lost so many times and ended up not delivering those newspapers I moved on to different jobs, bakery. They were so fed up of me and they said to me on my leaver’s card. Does the supermarket you’re going to work at have health and safety installed for their employees who are going to have to listen to you talking so much all day.
Are they aware of who they have employed? And I think it was meant as a bit of a compliment, but I took it the other way. And I really, that is who I am. So I really struggled in that job and I think telling them all the time things like, oh, but I can’t help that I did that. I can’t help that I went to the back of the store to go look for something and forgot what I was looking for. And then I couldn’t come out and tell the customer because I, I couldn’t deal with that embarrassment that I had gone off to look for something. They’d been waiting for me and I couldn’t remember what it was. My old boss said that I was like a Labrador and that I was loyal and I was lovely and nice to have around. I was great company, but if I saw something, then I was gone and it wasn’t a good quality and somebody as an employee, I really struggled with that and still do now. I moved from that job. I was in a like a team leader role, but I had to leave that job because I felt like I was constantly, constantly pulled apart for the things that I did and didn’t do because of how I was. And I couldn’t help that. And I just really, really struggled to manage in there.
I moved on to a job role working in care because I’ve always wanted to be a support worker. And it was very specific to me that it had to be a mental health care home. But I talked to the residents and I talked to the staff and I chatted and I sung and I danced and I got involved and there wasn’t time for that in that job role because you’re there for a very specific reason. You’re there to care. And in my understanding, caring is about more. They didn’t, didn’t sort of see it like that and they saw me as a little bit of a little bit distracted, a little bit ditzy, a little bit silly. They, yeah, they didn’t really, they didn’t really understand who they were working with and I didn’t understand myself back then.
So I think it’s important for employers to understand that you have got an absolute gem of an employee. If you nurture them, if you give them what they need, if I had been left, say on the shop floor to chat to customers coming past, they used to say, here’s the smiley girl. Here she is. And we’d have a chat and it would be, it would be wonderful. And they loved the experience. And people said that to me, I come here to see you. But my bosses were fed up with that. They didn’t want that. They wanted me to serve the customers, get them out, get them gone. And that isn’t, that isn’t right. And if they had nurtured the side of me that is chatty and bubbly and friendly, it would have been better for them. And sometimes in any job, in any position, if you take somebody who’s like that, or who is particularly skilled in an area, maybe they’ve got a special interest in a certain area and you nurture that and you allow them to run with it, then they will bloom and they will be an absolute asset to your company or your business, no matter how big or small.
I think that it’s really important that people who are neurodiverse or think that they are and they’re awaiting assessments are able to feel comfortable and safe in their jobs to go to their employers and say, this is what’s happening. This is what’s going on in my life? Here is a worksheet. Here is what, you know, this means for me. Please can we work together so that I can be an asset to you rather than it being seen as a negative.
What would you like to tell your school about your ADHD?
So my school, I was a really well-behaved child. I absolutely loved school. In fact, I was a little bit bullied for it. I wanted to do well. I wanted to be top of the class. I wanted, I had so many dreams for the future. I loved writing. I loved reading. I was blitzing through books overnight. It was brilliant at primary school.
When I got to high school and there was the social dynamics, that’s when I really struggled. I got distracted. I got distracted by trees and squirrels and boys, sometimes girls. I got distracted by everything and I struggled. I just struggled to focus and struggled to navigate sort of the world socially and that became really difficult for me.
I was constantly thinking, what am I doing wrong? Why am I not fitting in? Why am I the weirdo? Why am I constantly called a weirdo or a freak? And it didn’t help because the teachers sort of joined in. We go, I left school in 2003, so it’s a little while ago and I’d like to think it was a bit better now. But if the teachers could have seen the struggle I was having, the every single day I turned up without a pen or I was sifting through my essays that I’d taken so long to write, only to find them crumpled up in the bottom of the bag with an apple core and whatever else was in there. Why did they not know and see that? I wish that teachers knew that you can have a pupil who longs to do the very, very best and to be the best that they can be but they are hindered so much by having ADHD and without their awareness, you, you don’t have the ability to achieve and that can really hold you back in your life. If they had known from, from knowing me as they did, that I wanted to do well, why could they not have come up with some sort of, skills for me, an understanding of me, even without a diagnosis, even without knowing, you know, what they do now about girls with ADHD. Why could they not think, Oh, she’s really struggling, let’s help her out. Why don’t we have a pen for Samantha in the drawer? Why don’t we hand her a wallet that she could put her work into? Why don’t you know, why are we not taking her to one side and helping to say, these are the things you struggle with? Not that these are a lack in something in you and the lack in your personality, instead of saying she has so much potential and she’s wasting it. Why did they not take that potential and nurture it? And I think that’s really important for my teachers back then to know and the teachers around now to know.
What would you like to tell the NHS about your ADHD?
I would like to know why it’s so hard for anybody to get a diagnosis or to be listened to. I think the NHS needs an understanding of ADHD, the GPs, you know, the people who you see more regularly before you are referred somewhere. I have seen countless counsellors in my life. I have been referred to many, many places for the issues that I faced all of my life until I was diagnosed with ADHD.
I honestly could not tell you how many people I saw apart from that one conversation with that one person at 17 years old. It was the subject was never broached again. I, I saw psychiatrists and psychotherapists, you name it, and I was constantly, I mean, for a year, I talked about so many things that actually I know are ADHD, and I know that is actually linked to me being autistic, and it was never brought up, and I don’t know why two and twos never sort of four it’s it isn’t it’s like oh I wonder why you could be doing that maybe it’s depression here have some tablets and I do think that it’s very important for people who come to the GP, whether they are 16 or 70, that they are acknowledged and that they are respected and they are preferred. I know that there are countless people I’ve spoken to now in their 50s and 60s and they have gone to the GP and the GP has said, why do you want to know now? You’ve got to this age, carry on through, you can do it. Why? I don’t think if you’ve walked around all your life, not knowing something. Why should you not benefit from knowing the truth? Why not be allowed to embrace your true self and understand? So I think doctors, nurses, anybody before that referral stage needs to understand that people are desperate and they are searching for the reasons why. And the only thing that you can do to help them is start getting them the answers.
What would you like to tell your friends about your ADHD?
I am very lucky that somehow I have landed into a pile of neurodiversity. So all of my friends really are neurodivergent, whether they knew it before or not. I tell them and I can’t help it. I’ll say that’s the ADHD. You really need to go to the doctors. My friends before growing up, I wish that they knew that I just wanted to fit in and I just wanted to be liked and I wanted to be understood. I struggled every night when I went home. I rehearsed what I was going to say the next day, played out scenes in my head and how I, how it could have gone better or how it could go better. I wish that my friends had realized that I had so much more to give if they’d just let me be myself. The friends that I have now, I just want to say thank you so much for letting me be myself.
If you could have a magic wand, would you entirely remove your ADHD?
There is no way I would get rid of my ADHD. I love that I have ADHD, and I love everything about myself with it. Now then, that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t take away my lack of focus. I would definitely take away the rejection-sensitive dysphoria that I really, really struggle with. And I would probably quite likely make myself be able to drink a drink when it’s in front of me or eat a hot meal and I would definitely, definitely take away the need to stop myself going to the toilet before I finished a task.
Now, I would definitely keep my hyper-focus. It’s made me so, so good at the things that I do. I don’t believe in the phrase Jack of all trades, master of none, because I learn things that I’m interested in really, really well. I might not carry them on. I might spend an absolute fortune in the process but it all adds to the facets of my personality and who I am. All the little snippets have led me to where I am right now. The times that I learned to crochet, the times that I had a little dalliance with photo editing for my husband who’s a photographer. The times that I decorated the house with fancy paints. They’ve all got me to where I am now, and I’m running a t-shirt business, making t-shirts and clothes for neurodiverse, neurodiversity So, every little bit of it, the editing I use every day now, making them, doing the designing, is, they’re all small things. But I would, I wouldn’t be who I am without them, so I’d never take that away. And I think that actually, if you embrace having ADHD, you can try your best to navigate your way through the negatives and embrace the positives.
Tell us about one of your favourite ADHD strategies.
Best thing that I’ve come up with so far is removing steps for myself. And by that, I mean, when I have steps involved in doing something, it can often put me off doing it or it can mean I can get destructed along the way. So, remove those steps, like having a kettle in my office, rather than having to leave and go to the kitchen means that I can do that. And then I can try, you know, I can carry on and I can work or for my daughter, when I was sorting out her bedroom and trying to make it so that she’s able to deal with her executive dysfunction, I made sure that she had a clean basket for washing and a dirty basket for washing. So, clean clothes go straight in there, clothes for washing are straight in there. They don’t end up on the floor. There’s no extra steps involved. You’ve not got to bring them downstairs. You just got to do that and it’s done. And then, you know, we’ll work through it. Putting it away together. It’s one thing.
So I think any little tiny steps that you can remove no matter how big or small they are will make life easier. I am still learning to do that. There are definite things that I put off. There are so many things to do before I can do the thing I need, and it’s a learning process, but I really think that it’s going to work in the long term.
What is the worst thing that has happened to you as a result of ADHD?
The first thing that has happened is the years and years of bullying that I’ve had, whether it was in school or in the workplace, even in nightclubs, no matter where I’ve been, people haven’t been understanding of who I am and why I am the way I am. You know, oh, I thought you were really attractive until you opened your mouth and actually you’re just a freak. Things like that doesn’t matter to me now. Like I let my freak flag fly. But before it wasn’t like that, I didn’t see it that way. And I feel sorry for the person that had to deal with those things. It, you know, I might be over it now, but growing up was so, so difficult, constantly, constantly being called names and, you know, lazy and all of the horrible names associated with really what’s just traits of having ADHD or being autistic. So, yeah, it was really bad and I was, I definitely got taken advantage of an awful lot for it as well.
What is the best thing that has happened to you because of ADHD?
Since I was diagnosed with ADHD, I have been able to embrace myself so much more and learn about who I am. That means that when I’ve started to enjoy doing something, I’ve been able to say to myself, Oh, I know this is hyper-focus. So I started to do things and instead of putting them off and instead of taunting myself for them and thinking, Oh, well, I’m never going to be good enough because it’s just going to be a passing phase. I’ve been able to say, actually, I really enjoy doing this. I’m going to carry on doing this and I’m going to make something of it. So a year and a half ago, I started a business, for, which is really for embracing neurodiversity. My special interest is neurodiversity, so I’ve been able to use that, along with my other interest, which was personalizing things. So I started off with a Cricut machine, and I moved on to a special printer, and then on to a bigger one, and a bigger one. And actually, it’s enabled me to grow a business that I absolutely love, that is growing and I go off and I do pride festivals and celebrate LGBTQ and I just absolutely love that it has meant being able to step out of my old comfort zone and find a new one, being happy with who I am, being able to say this is what I do, I’ve got these t-shirts, they’re all, you know, promoting awareness and understanding and educating. It means that I can just really, really just be myself, be happy with who I am and start a business that will hopefully one day be thriving.