Hi, I’m Jenna. Growing up, I knew I was not like everyone else, like I had missed the memo about how to grow up with friends and connections. I didn’t know how to read people and I couldn’t decipher what I was frequently getting wrong.

It was these struggles that led me to a life filled with anxiety, low mood and misunderstanding, with misdiagnosis at every turn and years of ineffective medical treatments. I found myself in abusive situations because I didn’t read people’s intentions, I missed social cues and I misinterpreted people frequently.

It was when I was in a time of crisis in my early 30’s that a crisis nurse suggested I speak to someone about ADHD. After consoling me for over an hour in tears she suggested that I was always looking to treat the symptoms and not the cause, and to seek medical advice.

Like so many of us, particularly late diagnosed women that we are seeing coming through the system in recent years, the stages of grief following a diagnosis hit me really hard. It’s been a really long tough road to work out who I am and why I am here, and get to know me as I peel off the layers of masks I had used to protect myself from the world.

But one thing I could never let go of, was the injustice of the trauma I experienced as a result of the lack of understanding, support and earlier recognition. I have a passion for protecting people from abuse in all forms, and as we know neurodivergent individuals are significantly more likely to experience abuse than our neurotypical peers. I want to ensure we teach parents, professionals and young people how to recognise those signs before the damage is done, prevent the harm by finding ways to give them the tools to keep themselves and their families safe.

I am incredibly proud to be an ambassador for ADHD UK to help further share these messages, to encourage professionals in all industries and our public sectors to consider how we can better protect our neurodivergent young people, even before diagnosis is achieved. I want to be the voice for so many that have experienced or are experiencing these abuses, and I want to use my lived experience to better our futures.

If I can help to keep just one young person safer, I will have succeeded.