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Amy Moore. ADHD UK Ambassador

School:
I was 23 when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was 23 when I was told I wasn’t stupid. I was 23 when I finally had answers – finally made everything in my life make sense.
During my primary school days, I was a quiet child – I would never say boo to a goose and wouldn’t be able to talk to people I didn’t know very well without being overcome with anxiety. During my primary school days, I wasn’t very good at anything – I was told that I needed to focus, pay more attention, and make an effort. I was often forgotten about in the classroom – with people not always noticing if I was even there. I would never put my hand up, never volunteer ideas to any group project unless I was forced, always stood in the back, and tried to go unnoticed.
I can imagine that what I have just said goes against many people’s initial thoughts of ADHD. I wasn’t naughty, I didn’t talk back, and I didn’t ‘act a fool’ around the classroom. People have referred to ADHD as ‘naughty child syndrome’ for years, so when I told by the doctor that it is something I might have, I laughed.
Going through the education system with the majority of teachers thinking I wasn’t smart was difficult. Exams were the most challenging things I could imagine, sitting in a classroom being told about one topic for an hour was draining and not being able to fidget was, as a child, was torture. The rules in the classroom did not allow someone with any kind of diversity to thrive. The children around me who consistently got the grades and constant praise were leaps and bounds ahead of me.
I remember one very crucial part of my upbringing occurred in year 5. I was off sick for a month, after contracting glandular fever and not being strong enough to attend school. When I went off, I was the lowest level reader in my class. When I came back, I had just started my first harry potter book. 

While I was off sick, my mum and I spend time practising reading and figuring out what was best for me to learn how to read. Being given this extra time and support, allowed me to follow along and feel brave enough to read by myself. Reading has been a passion of mine since, and I will spend hours and hours getting lost in a book and using my mind to imagine worlds in a way, I like to think, that is more unique than everyone else.
During this month of sickness, I also missed out on learning division at school, and I have never been able to crack this. In the transition from primary to secondary school this bit of knowledge was lost. My teachers told me that this is something I should have learnt during primary school and to read the textbook to figure it out, despite my protests trying to explain that I did not understand it and learning straight out of a textbook was not the best way for me to develop.
My grades in secondary school were fine – nothing amazing, nothing too bad – just fine. I was again pulled up on my lack of concentration, the little confidence I did have within my friendship group made me a little bit too chatty in class when I was next to those I knew. When the seating plan did not sit me next to someone I knew – the world of silence became my best friend again, shutting down and not being able to interact with those I was not confident around. I felt exposed – like those who were around me judged me for not knowing the answers, as if my peers would laugh at me. Feeling so alone during school was a natural feeling – and it wasn’t until I grew up that I realised that this – was not the way things were meant to be.

Teenager years:
In September 2017, I knew something was wrong. I moved to a brand-new city to start my life as a university student. I had it all planned out. I was in a new relationship; I had some great new friends, and I was studying criminology, the course I had wanted to do for so long. Initially things seemed to be going well, yeah of course there was teething problems – missing home, struggling with the new workload, and still figuring out who I was. The longer I stayed at university, the more I put things down to anxiety or thinking I was depressed. I thought, maybe these feelings were a result of past childhood experiences and trauma and I just needed to work through my issues – maybe see a therapist and get to the route of my problems that way. The longer I was at university, the more unstable my emotions became, I was irritable, stressed, anxious, angry and ashamed. As before, I put this down to suppressed childhood trauma resurfacing and thought I was just being dramatic. The longer it went on, I had convinced myself I had bipolar or a form of personality disorder – but every time I spoke to my friends and my boyfriend of the time – I was laughed at or made to feel silly. Comments such as ‘don’t be stupid, you’re probably just stressed’ or ‘everyone has something, grow up and get on with it’ were things I heard more often than I should have. The constant nagging in the back of my mind that I was right, there was something wrong was overshadowed time and time again, making me doubt myself and think that my peers must have been right.
It was February 2018 when I finally bit the bullet and went to the doctors – I described my symptoms and was prescribed sertraline – finally! An answer to my questions – I have anxiety. I thought I was done, have some meds and crack on – I’ll be fine. Surprise surprise, I was not. The mood swings kept happening, my focus was next to nothing and my motivation to do anything was severely lacking. All university coursework projects were submitted with minutes to spare after me writing them the day before they were due, my restlessness had doubled – I could not sit still, my organisation was all over the place – my room looked like it had been ransacked and i was acting on impulses.
I had had enough – I went back to the doctors in November 2018 and broke down. I cried and could not even get my words out – thankfully, I had been lucky enough to get an appointment with a GP who asked me a question that changed my life. She sat across from me and asked, ‘would you be okay with me starting the assessment of ADHD’, now at the time – I thought she was the one that had lost it – I couldn’t possibly have ADHD, I didn’t tick any of the boxes of the naughty children at school, she must have been wrong. During the space of the appointment, she saw me and she talked to me about what ADHD actually is. She discussed the different types and explained that it isn’t one box fits all. we discussed it for a while, and she sent me away with a huge list of resources to investigate and understand. In the days following that appointment, things finally started to make sense.

DIAGNOSIS:
From November 2018 to August 2020 – I didn’t talk to anyone about what I had discussed with the doctor. Things had started to make sense in my brain, but I still felt silly – as much as I wanted it to be true and there to be a reason why my brain worked the way it did – it still didn’t feel real. After my initial appointment in November 2018, I had been back once to carry out the initial assessment with the doctor, I believe this was in March 2019. Now it was just a waiting game for the next steps to come thorough. I finally felt able to discuss what I was going through with my closest friends – I felt like a fraud saying I had suspected ADHD, feeling like they would judge me! Talking about it took a huge weight of my shoulders, and of course – the people closest to me didn’t judge me, they supported me and allowed me to talk about it as much or as little as I needed. Finally feeling like I was able to discuss this was the change I needed.
After talking about what was going on, I felt a huge shift within me – I started feeling more confident and being able to start taking steps that helped me – I started being able to organise my life, find out what worked for me and what allowed me to thrive. The longer time went on, the less silly I felt about potentially having ADHD – I knew it in my gut that this is what was wrong. In September 2021 I was lucky enough to start a relationship with a partner who supported me and stood by me throughout everything. In April 2022, I finally received the next steps of the process – a questionnaire to complete, answer questions about all aspects of my life – as well as sections for my partner to complete, my mum and a close friend so they could get a full picture of myself. In typical ADHD fashion – this got done 2 months late (oops!) but once it had been sent off, the ball started to roll.
On July 10th 2023, it was finally time to see if all the years of uncertainty were going to make sense. If all my questions were about to be answered. I went to my appointment and had a 2.5-hour assessment with the doctor – this was awful, I felt under the microscope – I was fidgeting, nervous and restless. I will never be able to put into words the feeling when I was told I had ADHD. The relieve, the understanding and the grief. I finally knew why my brain acted the way it did. I understood why I thought the way I did – I realised I wasn’t stupid. I grieved the life I had before, I celebrated the freedom having a diagnosis gave me and I cried with relief knowing there was a reason why I didn’t fit in.
Having a diagnosis allowed to me to understand so many parts of myself that I couldn’t before. I felt seen – I felt like I was allowed too fully be myself. I was allowed to look back and tell my younger self: She will graduate – with 2 DEGREES!
She will be a dog mum to the world’s most lazy spaniel.
She will work in a job she loves.
She will be an aunt, a godmother, a bridesmaid and so many other amazing things for so many amazing people!
Having an ADHD diagnosis was not the end of the world, in fact, it was the start of mine in so many ways.

Since then:
Since I got my diagnosis, I have grown and developed more than I could have even imagined. I have fully come into my own – I have used my ADHD as a strength and altered the way I work to ensure I can do anything if I put my mind to it.
Of course, there will always be limitations as the world is not the most inclusive to those who aren’t neuro typical. I have the thoughts that I was stupid as a child often, years of thinking that does not go away overnight. I often have thoughts that not being able to focus is just me being lazy. I still think sometimes that I’m an imposter – I wasn’t naughty in school, are the doctors sure that I have ADHD. As time goes on, I am still learning what it is like to live with ADHD, I’m still figuring out what works best for me and those around me. I use my ADHD to help me thrive in my job, supporting SEN schools as someone who would have benefitted from SEN when I was growing up, is a privilege – being able to watch others benefit from SEN support is something I feel so passionately about and something I want to do for a very long time.
Having ADHD is not a disability, it is an ability. It allows me to see the world differently, I can use my skills and the ways I have adapted to do things in a way others can’t. ADHD does not define me; it adds to me being the person I am. ​

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@amy-moore-493783172