Sam Northwood. ADHD UK Ambassador

Hi, I’m Sam. My story is one so many of us share. I fought through my degree without the support that should have been there. I burned out mid-career because there’s no real support system. And I learned the safety nets are broken: employment tribunal backlogs that run over a year, an Equality Act with no real teeth, and a PIP process so dysfunctional that most rejections are overturned at tribunal, wasting millions fighting the very people it should be supporting.

Right now, this country is wasting a staggering amount of talent. People with ADHD are capable, creative and driven. What we get instead is politicians using our condition as a political football, telling the country what our lives are like without ever living one, and a media happy to print it. Every headline calling ADHD a trend or an excuse keeps someone out of a job, off a course, or too afraid to ask for adjustments they’re legally entitled to.

We aren’t broken. We’re being failed. And that ignorance only survives while we stay quiet.