26 The Times Magazinehen Charlotte Mia, 28, was
studying graphic design at the
University of Plymouth, she
always set out to hand in her
work on time, but she’d get
diverted. First, she’d chat to
other students and get caught
up in their amazing projects.
Next, she’d have an urge to
pour a glass of water, open
a window, tidy her room – all important
for a good working environment, or so
she told herself. Finally, despite her best
intentions, she’d give up and go out.
There were other struggles. She’d forget to
go to lectures or to plan meals. “I ate a lot of
instant food, like noodle pots,” Mia says now.
She’d lose her keys again and again and had
real difficulty remembering to pay her rent.
“Everyone else seemed to be managing
completely fine, but for me it was so much
harder and I didn’t know why.” She googled
“memory loss”. She felt a failure and drank
“far too heavily”.
A saving grace was meeting Jess Joy,
28, who was studying fine art at Plymouth
College of Art. Like Mia, she was battling
headwinds that were limiting her potential.
“I’d always leave things to the last minute,”
she says now. “I desperately wanted to
manage, but always felt I was playing catch-
up. I struggled a lot in my first year. My
mental health was in an absolute state.” She
had insomnia, hardly left her room, couldn’t
be bothered to shower.
The two became close friends. “We’d
sneak off early from nights out and go and
sit in my room in the dark trying to wind
down,” says Mia. “We tried to fit in and make
friends, but the environment was just so loud
and overwhelming.”
In 2018 they were still working out their
place in the world, wondering if a “normal”
life would ever be attainable. Mia had a job
as a graphic designer in Brighton. She’d
worked there for two years and was part of a
small team. “But my mum got ill and my five-
year relationship ended, and I started to turn
up late, miss emails, make careless mistakes.”
Joy was in a similar position. She’d been “let
go” from her office job. She now finds the idea
that she could fulfil an admin role “laughable”.
One evening, Mia called Joy. They each sat
on their respective sofas, crying. They discussed
Twitter posts to cheer themselves up. One
account struck a chord: Black Girl, Lost Keys.
They spent the next few days on Twitter
researching. It all started to click into place.
Joy and Mia have ADHD: attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder. Mia was shocked:
“I didn’t know women or girls could have it.”ADHD is a cognitive disorder rooted in a
disruption of the self-management system ofthe brain – the part that allows us to organise,
plan, focus, as well as manage emotions. There
are three subtypes: hyperactive and impulsive,
inattentive, or combined.
ADHD is different for each person, but
the main symptoms include difficulty starting
and finishing tasks; being disorganised and
distracted easily; losing things; zoning out
of conversations; impulsivity; time blindness.
Children and adults with ADHD are often
exquisitely sensitive and feel emotions
intensely. Some are hypersensitive to touch,
sounds, light, even tags on clothing. The
condition has nothing to do with intellectual
ability. People with ADHD often have
high IQs. Many are exceptionally creative,
charismatic and think outside the box. They
also have an uncanny ability to “hyperfocus”
on things that really grab their interest.
But fitting into a complex world that
rewards concentration and focus can be lonely
and hard. ADHD is associated with poor
educational performance, difficulty finding
and keeping stable employment, higher
divorce rates, traffic accidents, substance
misuse, criminality. It often comes with
a side order of depression and anxiety. Adults
with ADHD are much more likely to have
attempted suicide than those without,
according to research published in 2020.
“It should be taken very seriously,” says
Dr Rob Baskind, a consultant psychiatristand specialist in adult ADHD. “It is very
debilitating, particularly if undiagnosed.”
Which is why early intervention is key. “It’s
often a fairly straightforward condition to
treat,” he says – ADHD responds well to
stimulant medication.
And yet it is often thought of as a
“condition that’s not valid at all”, says Baskind.
The government doesn’t formally record
figures for ADHD, as it does for autism, a
neurodevelopmental disorder that is a lot like
ADHD in many respects, and is actually less
common. Autism has a prevalence rate of
1-2 per cent; ADHD at least 2.5 per cent.
ADHD isn’t recognised by the Department for
Education as a primary need in the same way
as dyslexia and autism spectrum condition,
and as a result teacher training doesn’t always
include ADHD. Nor is it mentioned in the
NHS Long Term Plan, a ten-year-blueprint for
care published in 2019. Autism and learning
disabilities, however, are highlighted.
“People think ADHD only exists in
naughty boys,” Baskind explains. In other
words, it’s a behavioural problem. In fact,
it’s a biological and cognitive disorder you
are likely to have been born with. Scientists
estimate that ADHD is about 70 per cent
inheritable. This puts it up there with traits
such as blood pressure, height and weight.
So why is the kind of person who has
ADHD assumed to be male and under ten?
Because the manual that experts first used
to diagnose ADHD in the early Eighties was
mainly based on studies of boys. “If you’re
using mostly boys to define the diagnostic
criteria, and you are then using the diagnostic
criteria to define who has ADHD, you’ll be
finding mostly boys,” says Dr Joanna Martin,
a specialist in ADHD at Cardiff University.
Girls, experts suggest, are more likely
to have the inattentive subtype, in other
words, appear dreamy and scatterbrained- qualities which, of course, are perfectly
acceptable for girls and don’t ring alarm
bells in any obvious way. Women also talk
of hyperactivity being internal – having
1,000 different ideas crowding in your head
at the same time. A fidgety brain, rather
than body. “But parents and teachers can’t
observe a child’s hyperactive thoughts,” says
Martin. “The question is: can a child sit still
and concentrate?”
Testing has since evolved, particularly
for adults. The first diagnostic and statistical
manual for grown-ups was published in 2013.
“Before that, experts thought ADHD was
something you grew out of,” says Rebecca
Champ, a psychotherapist and ADHD coach.
Nevertheless, “emotional dysregulation” - extreme mood swings, a symptom
experienced by a lot of women – is still
not part of the diagnostic criteria.
“We know there are girls who are not
W
Lucy Clement and her husband, ChrisLucy, 42 , from Leeds,
is a GP. ‘Learning three
years ago that I had
ADHD was a penny-
dropping moment’
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