I didn’t always know it was in me. I didn’t always know its name. When, in fact, did they coin the phrase, the medics or the psychiatrists? Pass.

Suffice to say that years and years and years ago, I knew I had some differences. Others didn’t necessarily scattergun ideas like me. Others didn’t trip up over themselves, trying to run somewhere, or be told to “Calm down“ or “Take it easy”.

Others, some did, but not many, did not have an expert come into school to do an assessment on you which involved little games with cards and bricks if I remember rightly. Teachers during my teaching life would say “I would never have THOUGHT of doing it that way!” (about 75/25 admiringly and/or critically!).

When I had my first child, the ADHD became wild. Speedy was not the word for my reactions! I suppose just as postpartum depression can feature in some mothers, ADHD can… I’ve never asked anyone who might know the question, though.

So. Why now? At 73, and with paid, working life behind me, why am I bothered about pinpointing ADHD as featuring in my make up? Well, the answer is that I need to know. Because it’s all very well to self diagnose, and have those close to you attest to your ADHD, and be exasperated by facets of it, but because I feel I could at last be kinder to myself if I knew and felt that the ADHD as much as depression had marred my life and my working life. I am as intelligent as the next person, and Val told us she had passed the test for MENSA when she was younger, a thing we have in common, although I know for a fact that on a bad day, I wouldn’t pass for Kindergarten!! True!

I wonder, therefore, if you feel you have been held back by MH or anything else that blighted parts of advancement in your professional life. Cambridge was hinted at for me, but I ended up going to a Polytechnic. I chose that for myself, rightly or wrongly, to reduce the pressure of expectation. Was I right? Was I wrong? Who knows! But I feel strongly we all get to where we should be in the long run, given a fair wind, luck, and good friendships. What do you think?

Sally

A Moodscope member