The Times Magazine 29getting diagnosed who should be,” says
Martin. According to her studies, between
three and four boys have ADHD for every
girl. But in treatment clinics the rate is higher:
seven to eight boys for every girl. “That
suggests girls are not getting to the clinics, not
getting referred, not getting diagnosed. Girls
are not getting the treatment and support in
school that they need.”
The upshot is that girls are missing out,
and so, it follows, are women. “It means
women have no idea they have ADHD – they
have never associated their struggles with
ADHD and neither have clinicians,” says
Michelle Beckett, 49, the founder of the
charity ADHD Action, who was diagnosed
with ADHD five years ago. “I went through
decades with potential I couldn’t quite
realise. You think, ‘Am I just a rubbish
adult?’ I struggled with depression and
anxiety. I’ve been suicidal. And it was ADHD
all along.” She spearheaded the first all-party
parliamentary group to raise awareness of
ADHD in 2018. “It should be an emergency,
given the impact on so many areas of life, but
in actual fact, women and girls are under the
radar and the quality of their lives is suffering.”Lucy Clement, 42, is a GP who lives in Leeds
with her husband, Chris, 43, an electrical
engineer, and their two children, Daisy, 11, and
Max, 9. She did well at school. “My mum and
dad are teachers, very structured people, and
they also knew how education worked. My
mum gave up work for seven years bringing
up me and my brother and she was completely
devoted to us.” She was reading at two, “flew”
through primary school, “loved” secondary
school. Looking back, she says her success was
the product of a restless mind. “I have this
constant need to feed my brain.”
Things started to unravel when she went
to read medicine at the University of Liverpool
in 1997. “I went from being the biggest swot in
the entire world to the least disciplined person
ever. I absolutely could not prioritise work
over play. I did hardly any work at all.” Her
room was a “disgusting” mess, she says. “I
even bought a double bed once, just so I could
put stuff on one side and sleep on the other.”
She failed her first year exams. “I’d never
failed an exam!” She blamed her parents. “I
said, ‘You didn’t make me independent enough.
It’s your fault I went wrong at university.’ ”
She resat her exams, passed, and went on
to graduate and qualify as a GP in 2013.
She met her husband in 2007. “He realised
I was this quite scatty girl who lived each
day as it came. I think he enjoyed that. I was
spontaneous, fun. He couldn’t believe he’d met
this high-earning person who had no savings.
I’d spend it! I’d go out and eat and have fun.”
Clement bought a house in 2005. Three
years later, Chris moved in. “He’d getexasperated. Why are you still on the same
insurance policy and paying loads of money?
Why is your tax disc out of date? Why haven’t
you paid these bills? Why aren’t you opening
your post? I was so overwhelmed by bills,
I didn’t open the post until a red one came
through. I knew I had to open that one
because it would say ‘final warning’.”
Daisy was born in 2010; Max in 2012.
Clement went back to work part-time: three
days as a GP, two at home. “I love my job
and I could do that fine, no problem. And yet
at home I couldn’t keep anything tidy. I was
the most disorganised mum. Always the one
forgetting nappies and raincoats. I wouldn’t
think, ‘We need to eat tonight; I’d better get
something out of the freezer.’ I’d get to five
o’clock and go, ‘Argh! We need to eat!’ Luckily,
there’s a Co-op around the corner. I’d go there
and give them a sandwich.”
By 2017, when she was 37, both her children
were at school full-time. “I thought, this is
the moment I’m going to become the perfect
housewife. No excuses now. Oh my goodness,
I hated my days off. I’d look around me and
get so overwhelmed. No matter how hard
I tried, I couldn’t get on top of stuff.
“I’d get to the point where I’d look around
and go, ‘What am I doing? How do I finish
this?’ And what I’d do is run a bath. I’d feel
calm, feel the warmth. You can’t do anything
when you’re in the bath. And that would
happen most days when I was off. About one
or two in the afternoon, I’d get in the bath.”
She bought self-help books and devised
programmes. “But I couldn’t sustain it. Itwould all go wrong again and I’d feel really
rubbish about myself.”
In 2017 she was assigned a life coach
through an NHS scheme to support primary
care workers. “It’s meant to be about
leadership, but I kept talking about my kitchen
cupboards. I remember saying other people
seem to be able to do things as easily as they
can breathe.” Be organised, plan, structure a
day, create a routine. “And I just couldn’t.”
In January 2019, when she was nearly 40,
she signed up for NHS England’s Supporting
Mentors Scheme, where experienced GPs
support more junior doctors. Clement was
paired with Adrian, an established GP. “In the
first meeting he said, ‘The interesting thing
about me is I have ADHD.’ I was like, ‘Oh,
really.’ I wasn’t at all interested.”
She was more worried about her brain and
why she was so forgetful. In the fourth session,
after a particularly difficult week, she broke
down. “What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
Adrian suggested she had ADHD. “He made
me do a questionnaire then and there and
I just burst into tears. I carried on reading
about it that evening, and I haven’t stopped
reading about it since. I had this enormous
penny-dropping moment. I spent the whole
week looking back on my life with this new
lens, either laughing or crying.”
She was formerly diagnosed three months
later. “People said, ‘ADHD can’t be that bad.
You’re a GP.’ I’m lucky. My job works. It’s a
very good job for someone with ADHD. My
appointments are organised for me and each
interaction is different.” She admits she finds
it hard to retain facts, such as the names of
the bones in the foot (“I google!”) and keep
on top of paperwork, “But so do a lot of GPs.”
She compensates by working late. She points
out that good GPs recognise patterns – are
able to examine the body and pick out the
key symptoms and put the puzzle together.
“And my visual brain is very good at doing
that.” Her patients also benefit from her
“hyperfocus” and lateral thinking.
“Some could argue my ADHD is mild,” she
continues. “But come to my house. Try to get
in my car. Don’t go in my handbag. Don’t come
in my brain. You really don’t want to be in here.
“I’m a happier person since the diagnosis.
I totally understand myself now.”When dealing with ADHD, women are also
battling society’s expectations. “We’re not
supposed to be bad at washing up or forget
people’s birthdays,” says Beckett. This is why
“the shame and damage to self-esteem is
particularly acute in women”. Clement agrees.
“My husband does most of the cooking, all the
cleaning, all the washing. I’m quite proud and
very grateful.” But at times she feels “de-skilled”The manual first used
to diagnose ADHD
was mainly based
on studies of boys
Bianca Faricy, 48, a teacher, was diagnosed in 2020COURTESY OF BIANCA FARICY Continues on page 41