I was a funny child. Thinking back, I don’t know how my family didn’t pick up on my ADHD or autism. I achieved in school because it was expected of me. I didn’t have many friends because I didn’t know how to make friends or keep friends – the friends that I made I got bored of quickly and moved onto someone else. I did a lot of sport at school because I was tall, so that helped me seem a bit more “normal”, but I was really just the weird smart kid that everyone wanted to try and beat in exams.

I went on to university even though I really didn’t want to go. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t the right environment for me – I always wanted to run my own business and build something for myself. But I was expected to go to uni, so that’s what I did.

In my 3rd year of a 5-year degree I nearly got kicked out. I couldn’t pay attention in lectures, I sat on my phone the whole time, I didn’t know how to write notes and I didn’t know how to study, I couldn’t do tutorials or practice questions because I never took anything in during the lectures and I ended my Christmas exams with a 44% average after being a first-class student for the first 2 years.

I was ashamed and disappointed in myself because it felt like I’d let everyone around me down and ruined my perfect academic record. I’d only ever got A’s in school and was always top of the class, so how did this happen?

I couldn’t get the type of job that I thought I wanted, the kind of job that screamed SUCCESS, because I didn’t have a first-class degree. So, I went back to university and did a 2nd Masters. I focussed completely on my uni work for a year and had no social life (Covid lockdown helped with that a little bit…), but I finished my degree top of the class. This made me feel worse about myself and made me beat myself up more – “why couldn’t I have done this the first time!?” was the voice playing on repeat in my head.

I started my graduate job in 2020, and worked from home for the first year or so before I was able to get into the office because of Covid restrictions. The first time I met anyone that I worked with in person was at a random hotel in Aberdeen city centre, where we had to isolate for a week before going offshore in the North Sea.

Lack of executive functioning skills and low self-awareness from undiagnosed ADHD, combined with having my first “professional” job after university, working in a new office environment, and being isolated and locked down during Covid, led to burning myself out and becoming really ill. A few doctors appointments later and I was on the waiting list to see a psychologist. When that appointment finally came, it took less than an hour for the psychologist to realise I was dealing with undiagnosed ADHD. A year later, I was diagnosed with Autism as well.

As someone who received these diagnoses in my mid-twenties when I was starting my career, suddenly a lot of things about my life and my past started to make sense.

I became passionate about understanding ADHD and autism so that I could embrace my diagnoses and figure out what worked and didn’t work for me, both in my personal life and professional life. I realised why I had struggled at work and at university and with friendships; that what I had been labelling as “success” wasn’t success at all – well it wasn’t success for me; and I quickly found out that there were an awful lot of people with very similar stories to mine, all struggling and not understanding why we struggle.

Now, I know that success to me is feeling fulfilled in what I do, and what makes me feel fulfilled is helping other people and making a difference. I want to create an impact. I want to empower others. I want to help people realise and understand that they’re not alone or “broken”. I want to help companies realise that different doesn’t mean difficult and that adjustments for people with ADHD, autism or any other neurodivergence actually help everyone!

My diagnoses, countless hours of researching ADHD, connecting and building relationships within the ADHD community and having ADHD Coaching allowed me to stop beating myself up for not being “normal”. These things enabled me to understand my strengths and desires, and allowed me to understand the environment I need to thrive. They empowered me to stop trying to fit into a box that was never made for me.

I have been raising awareness and increasing understanding of ADHD (and neurodiversity in general) in my local community for the past 3 years since receiving my diagnosis. I’ve presented on neurodiversity at conferences, as part of panel discussions, and have trained companies on ADHD and neurodiversity, and I am very proud that my ADHD advocacy and support work has expanded outside of my local community over the past year since becoming a self-employed Certified ADHD Coach.

I want to continue to support ADHD-ers and give back to the ADHD community. I want everyone with ADHD, and their families and loved ones, to know that they are not alone. They are not broken. They do not need to be ‘fixed’.

I want to continue to educate society on ADHD in the hope that, one day, society will accept ADHD-ers for who we are. We are not ‘too much’; we are not ‘differently-abled’; we are not ‘high-functioning’; everyone isn’t ‘a little bit on the spectrum’; and just because we’re ‘not like your friends 7 year old son who’s constantly bouncing off the walls’ doesn’t mean we don’t have ADHD!

For anyone feeling like they’re only doing things because they’re expected of them – I understand. For anyone feeling like they’re disappointing others – I understand. For anyone feeling like an outsider – I understand. For anyone who’s masked for so long they don’t know who they are or what they like and dislike – I understand. For anyone feeling alone or broken – you’re not. For anyone wanting to work through these things, understand they’re strengths and desires, build the environment that allows them to thrive, and find they’re community who ‘gets’ them – I’m here for you.

Being an ADHD UK Ambassador is like a dream come true for me on my journey to raise awareness. The ADHD UK resources have been a fantastic tool for educating myself and finding out more about what else is going on around the UK, so to be given the opportunity to be an Ambassador the charity and help others at the same time is a fantastic feeling.