Is ADHD a disability?

As an ADHD Coach, I have a window into the lives of incredibly intelligent, passionate, and kind ADHD-ers – they can just often not usually be so kind to themselves! One of my favourite things about coaching is how speaking to someone who understands the unique wiring of your brain can shine a completely new light on the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

Despite around 80% of the UK’s disabled population having invisible disabilities, it’s still an area we don’t quite know how to handle as a society. Although we’re talking more openly about mental health, the shame involved in speaking up about a condition that impacts our ability to be ‘normal’, or to ask for help with this, can still often be incredibly scary and shameful. This can be because we’re relying on other people to believe us, after we’ve taken the difficult step of first believing ourselves.

Here are some of my favourite recent quotes from clients:

“When you say it’s not my fault, sometimes I let myself believe it, and it makes me feel so much better.”

“I was so shocked ADHD could be a disability, but when I think of how it took me 6 hours to do a task that took my friend 1 hour, I think that maybe it is, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

“When I was given the help I needed, I realised this wasn’t a ‘special’ adjustment or preferential treatment, as it did just literally level up the playing field between me and other people.”

“I thought I was lazy and stupid for 50 years, until I got the diagnosis.”

The Equality Act says a person is disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on their ability to do normal daily activities. There are very high standards for being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – usually at the level of having certain areas of your life seriously affected, over a long period of time.

So yes, ADHD can be a very serious, invisible disability. We can be disabled by our own brains, such as literally being unable to get out of bed, despite thinking a million hours an hour, suffering our own specialized version of internal torture. We can also be disabled by external barriers in our environments – such as by the stigma associated with ADHD in society, or having to fit into a ‘one-size-fits-all’ world that simply doesn’t make allowances for neurodivergence. or getting it wrong.

Before I was diagnosed, my life was seriously affected in all areas. I couldn’t keep an internship or job, didn’t even have a GP, had extremely bad relationships with my friends and family, binge drank alcohol 4-5 times per week in the aim of quietening down my brain, and was suicidal. When I was diagnosed, I said that ADHD wasn’t a ‘real’ problem. This ironically made me feel better at the time, as I was so scared of being sectioned to a mental health hospital in explaining how crazy I believed I was.  

Things were so bad that I went on a 2-week holiday the next day and didn’t come back for a year, holding my hands up in admittance that ADHD was most definitely real, and destroying my life. Accepting this was a disability for me allowed me to stop beating myself up, to ask for the help I deserved, and to start taking responsibility for the things I wanted to change. I accepted that maybe I wasn’t always the problem in every single situation – maybe I deserved to live like everybody else.

From that moment on, I was unstoppable. I published a best-selling book on the modelling industry which was featured on the cover of the Times & Lorraine. I worked in mental health, disability and immigration law for over 2 years during the pandemic, influencing Government on Coronavirus & Brexit legislation - the furthest thing I could have imagined doing when I graduated with the belief I’d never be able to get a job!

I developed healthy relationships with the people in my life and found hobbies I enjoy. I published a book on ADHD, ‘ADHD: an A to Z’ which led to presenting for companies such as Microsoft. I became a Coach for the ADHD Advocate, finding true fulfilment, purpose and meaning in my work every single day – something I never thought I’d have. This week, I presented on invisible disabilities to Lewis Silkin, a law firm I’d previously dreamed of working at. Life has transformed into a continuing and limitless series of opportunities now that I’ve started working with my ADHD, instead of trying to be ‘normal’.

I still need to have phone backgrounds reminding me to ‘SAY NO’, sleep in my gym clothes occasionally to be able to go to yoga, and the bed sheets would probably never get changed if it weren’t for the cleaner. But in comparison to a few years ago, where I locked myself into an 8-month contract in a too-expensive flat that was directly opposite to my new job, as an attempt to force myself not to quit in the first week, I’m doing pretty well.

So, on this International Day of People with Disabilities, please remember to have some compassion for yourself, and to reflect on how well you’re doing, and how far you’ve come. If nothing else, you’re surviving through a global pandemic! If you know someone with a disability, whether it’s visible or invisible, please be brave enough to have open, honest, and curious conversations with them, exposing yourself the vulnerability of truly listening to what they say.

Here are some facts that shocked me:

• Only 51.5% of disabled people are in work, compared with around 81.7% of non-disabled people.

• There are more clothing lines in the world for dogs than there are for disabled people.

• Disability affects 1 in 7 people worldwide.

ADHD can definitely be a disability, but accepting this also empowers us with limitless extraordinary abilities – book a free introductory call with me now to get started on yours.  

Microsoft x ADHD: an A - Z

Microsoft recently invited me to speak to them about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as I published ADHD: an A to Z earlier this year.

I was pretty excited to present their own research back to them, having recently come across a study from Microsoft Canada in 2015 which found that the average human attention span was shorter than that of a goldfish. It had decreased by a quarter in 13 years.

There’s a distinct lack of research on attention span since then, but Google recommends that websites should load within 1-2 seconds. When we talk about ‘attention’, it’s difficult to know what we mean - doing one task? Listening to someone when they’re speaking? Watching a tv show without looking at another screen?

How I see it, is how long we can choose to pay attention to something, to the exclusion of other thoughts. I recently tried to count to 10 and couldn’t do it without thinking of something else. I asked the audience at the presentation to do the same, who all had the same experiences. I would guess that the average attention span as of 2021 is probably 1-2 seconds (there’s been a distinct lack of research since 2015)!

So, if we all have an attention deficit, how do we classify someone as having ADHD?

As diagnosis rates of have skyrocketed over recent years, the conversation has become more confusing. Researchers have come up with a name for ADHD symptoms induced by technology - ‘Variable Attention Stimulus Trait’. When I was writing ADHD: an A to Z, I kept becoming distracted by whether I should open it up to everyone, second guessing whether ADHD was ‘real’, as the people around me constantly demonstrated signs - forever losing their keys or glasses, an inability to have a conversation without checking their phones, and double or triple-booking their free time with plans.

This continued until I read the NICE guidelines for professionals diagnosing ADHD which required the person to have '2 or more symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity and/or inattention which cause at least moderate psychological, social and/or educational or occupational impairment, and are pervasive, occurring in 2 or more important settings.’

In other words, to be medically diagnosed with ADHD, your life has to be pretty much falling apart in at least 2 or more areas. Given that the waiting times for assessment are up to 7 years in the UK on the NHS, and private options can cost well into the thousands, people who think they meet this criteria need some sort of support in the meantime. So the book stayed as it is, focused on ADHD rather than ‘attention’ more generally - though it could very easily be applied to many people who wouldn’t meet the diagnosis criteria.

Being diagnosed with ADHD won’t necessarily change much - learning about it will. My life became far worse for the first 6 months before I took control of my own treatment and insisted on being transferred to the NHS, but it’s a complex rollercoaster to be strapped into, especially when you throw in the opinions of others. Yes, everyone is on the attention deficit spectrum, but this doesn’t invalidate those who are diagnosed with the condition, just as much as it doesn’t invalidate those who aren’t. Ultimately, it’s just a label.

It overwhelms me to think about neurodiversity and the fact that we all have different brains in one way or another. The sheer amount of information on the internet means that it’s incredibly easy to self-diagnose and work yourself up into a place of believing you ‘have’ some kind of ‘condition’, ‘disorder’ or ‘illness’.

Typically, there’s no brain scans involved in diagnosing ADHD, as there would be if you had a tumour, for example. It is quite simply just one person’s opinion. Yes, they might be medically qualified and/or you may be paying them a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you are the person who knows you best. Having a 1-2 second attention span is probably pretty normal as of 2021, and it doesn’t mean you need to be diagnosed with ADHD.

If you find yourself unable to pay attention, start with the root of the problem. Remove the distractions (i.e technology). Sit. Breathe. Practice counting to 10. Repeat.

If you feel like you need help, get that help - and get off Google.

why I wrote a book about ADHD

Last month, I published a book about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I wrote about 95% of it in about 3 weeks last year, after finally changing my GP surgery (a mere 6 months after moving house). My new doctor told me that if I wanted to change my medication dosage, then I’d need to go on the NHS waiting list to go to the ‘ADHD Centre’ again.

I felt the nervous pit of anxiety in my stomach as I tried to mentally predict what would happen if/when I became used to my current level of medication and needed to move up to the highest dose, and what would happen after then.. but pulled myself back into the present to ask how long that would be.

‘7 years’.

I laughed almost as much as when a psychiatrist first told me that the ‘quirks’ of my personality that had developed over the years since I had graduated from university were actually ADHD, not any of the other medical conditions that I had begrudgingly self-diagnosed myself with. I didn’t think ADHD was ‘real’, and definitely not serious.

spolier alert: ADHD is a real, very serious, neurodevelopmental condition

After confirming that the doctor had said, yes, there were medical waiting lists for people to see doctors that were up to SEVEN YEARS LONG, I asked how people survive in the meantime. She didn’t have an answer. I thought of the particularly bad year I had experienced until I finally admitted there was some sort of problem I didn’t have control over happening inside of me. I would wake up every day devastated to still be alive and to have to spend another day being me - feeling like my brain was permanently on fire became an odd sort of (very depressing) normality.

That went away when I was diagnosed, though the diagnosis process itself was some sort of real-life horror-movie specifically curated for the ADHD mind. Navigating your way through the shame of admitting you have a problem and then trying to extract information about what this process is ‘supposed’ to be like on the internet is hell. I was too afraid to ask any doctor for help for years, because I was convinced that the natural next step would be being sectioned in a mental health hospital.

So is trying to navigate private psychiatrists, costing £400 per session, and asking people who have ‘known you throughout your life’ to answer questions about you. It’s an incredibly shame inducing experience to have to admit that you are incapable of living normally to the people around you, many of whom don’t want to admit that you have ever suffered, in case it reflects badly on themselves. It’s horrible trying to tell whether ADHD is ‘real’ or not, trying to understand whether it’s just being ‘distracted’ or whether you should indeed take the medication that is being prescribed to you by a medical professional, despite it costing so much money and the people around you telling you that it’s ‘speed’.

how my brain feels (really quite painful and difficult to pull apart)

This is all hard enough, but even more difficult when you’re just trying to wade through the shame of existing, feeling like everyday is turning up to an exam that you’ve studied really hard for, but the exam questions are all on a different topic - to then motivate yourself to get help. My brain feels like carrying around a school class of children, but the teacher’s left the room, and just trying to get them all to shut up for JUST ONE SECOND takes every ounce of willpower I have. So there isn’t a whole left over to navigate doctors and therapists, medication and illnesses. There’s just the Googling ‘AM I GOING CRAZY’ 20 times per day, and confirming to yourself that yes, you probably are. Then being distracted by something else.

So, having been able to get help and finally have the teacher come back into the room (where like magic, the children all fall into submission), I thought ‘someone should do something about that’. So I wrote a book. The words poured out of me, such as how to get diagnosed without waiting for 7 years / falling out with everybody you know / becoming convinced that maybe the psychiatrist is trying to financially exploit you, and then transfer over to the NHS so you don’t have to pay £300 A MONTH FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE TO BE ABLE TO EXIST LIKE A ‘NORMAL’ HUMAN BEING WHO DOES NOT HAVE 5 SIRENS BLARING IN THEIR MIND AT ANY ONE TIME.

In true ADHD style, I became ‘hyper-focused’. It was all I could pay attention to or talk about for a few weeks, finishing up to chapter W, then I went on holiday. I did not pick up the book again for 10 months, except to send it to people who messaged me about ADHD occasionally who all told me that I needed to publish it. This is what ADHD is. It’s not always a ‘deficit’ but more of an inability to control what your mind does: it’s the kids ruling the school, deciding what subjects they’re going to do that day. They might be brilliant at it, but then they’ll ditch it just before getting the certificate for another one, leaving a long list of unfinished projects and ashes of dented self-esteem in their midst.

Me on holiday, completely forgetting about the book I had spent the last 3 weeks of my life obsessing over to the exclusion of everything else for the foreseeable future.

It means that you can pay lots of attention to the things you’re interested in, but NONE AT ALL to the things that you’re not - even to the point of literally falling asleep when you’re checking out (I used to do this all the time in class). It sounds like common sense, but imagine if your brain just stopped playing ball when you tried to make it do the things you don’t ‘want’ to do. It feels like someone else has control of your decisions, which is pretty scary when you’re strapped in the chair and forced to watch, eyes sellotaped open.

Luckily, the spark came back when I started seeing an ADHD coach. Actually, when I found out that there is Government funding to help people with disabilities (including ADHD) get / stay in work, including job coaches. I literally couldn’t believe I had spent so many years obsessing over how to do this, and there had been support there all along: people needed to know about this.

That little spark of passion (and my brilliant coach) managed to help me get the manuscript over the finish line and into a real life book. That’s the amazing thing about ADHD - a little goes a long way, and we are REALLY QUITE ENTHUSIASTIC when we are inspired - we can get things done that would take other people years. Our ‘dysregulated’ emotions mean that we can quite easily forget about the life-destroying shame we’d been feeling just the night before, and pick ourselves up to try again. Persistence is the key to success, just like those who are actually ‘crazy’ enough to think and act differently without stopping to think about it. We’re a creative, compassionate and extremely courageous bunch, us ADHD-ers.

Refusing to accept ourselves, whether we have ADHD or not, means that we ultimately are procrastinating by beating ourselves up for being who we are. This mass wastage of energy could be diverted into yourself, if you started working with what you’ve been given, rather than against it.

If I had stopped trying to force myself to try and live a life that I ultimately didn’t want to live, then I would have been able to enjoy my early 20s, instead of wishing them away. I won’t ever get that time back, and we won’t ever get this moment back: do you want to spend it hating yourself, or enjoying the ride?

Please read it here.