Hey! My name’s Eve and I have both ADHD and Autism, and didn’t get diagnosed until I was 42.

As a kid, all my school reports were the same – smart but talks too much, hyperactive, easily distracted, and doesn’t apply herself. I remember being so hyperactive I made my teacher cry and my mum restricting what food and drink I could have because she thought additives were the problem and not that I had ADHD. So I learned from a young age that being myself was something bad, but hiding the hyperactivity and distractibility, and being quiet and “normal” was something good.

When I was 12, I was in a serious accident and spent over 4 months on traction (i.e. attached to a hospital bed). While I’d learned to internalise the hyperactivity, this is when I perfected it – because I had no other option. I spent the rest of my teenage years trying to fit in and be like the “good” kids, which obviously didn’t work because I wasn’t bad or broken – I was neurodivergent.

Throughout my teenage years and in to my 20’s, I became the party girl. I didn’t realise it at the time, but when I was drinking I felt more confident to be myself and any “weird” behaviour was because I was drunk. I learned to embrace the “weird” label, but inside I felt so sad – why couldn’t I be like everyone else? Behaviour that I now realise was down to ADHD, were called “problems” and character flaws which just made me feel even worse about myself.

I went to Uni and got a degree and masters, but still didn’t fulfil my potential and seemed to struggle so much more than everyone else. I got a job with the civil service within the criminal justice system and became passionate about helping people understand their behaviour and how to make better choices. I have a really clear memory of a colleague telling me I was “so weird” and just laughing it off, but inside I was so hurt.

During lockdown I decided to stop drinking; this is a whole other story but it allowed me to understand myself without a crutch to lean on. In 2022, a friend got diagnosed with ADHD and in supporting her, I started to recognise ADHD behaviours in myself. In 2023, I plucked up the courage to seek a diagnosis for both ADHD and Autism, and in 2024 I was diagnosed with both. My ADHD traits didn’t look like my friend’s because I had the joy of Autism too, and that can present very differently.

Finally, everything seemed to make sense. The more I learned, the more I understood about what drives my behaviour. I realised I had been carrying so much shame about who I was and I started to allow myself grace and forgiveness. I saw how people with ADHD were being let down in the criminal justice system. Their ADHD was labelled as something to be fixed as opposed to something that needed to be understood and I became passionate about viewing their behaviours through a lens of neurodivergence, and not a part of them that was broken. While many late-diagnosed women realise they are neurodivergent due to peri-menopause or their children, but this wasn’t the case for me and I am passionate about helping support other women release the shame and understand more about their neurodivergence.

All my life, I felt like a weird horse who never fit in with the herd. But I was never a horse – I was a zebra and a zebra will never be a horse, no matter how hard they try.