Review Corner: Inside Our ADHD Minds
In February 2023, I sat crying on my sofa as I watched the first relatable representation of what it felt like to be me on national TV. When I first saw Flo’s story on Inside Our Autistic Minds, it was a comfort I didn’t know I needed to realise it's not just me. I have been on this wild adventure of meeting my brain properly for the first time for four years but was officially diagnosed in July 2022. A year later I was also diagnosed with ADHD which became a whole new special interest and hyperfocus for me to consume.
Naturally, this led to another dose of sobbing at my screen as Chris Packham once again authentically and considerately explores and narrates neurodivergent lives for the follow up series: Inside Our ADHD Minds.
Packham instantly warms my soul as he begins the show by describing Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder as ‘a rather unhelpful name’ he goes on to say ‘people with ADHD don’t have a deficit of attention, they struggle to regulate their attention. Their minds quickly jumping from one thing to the next’. My own mind was virtually fist-pumping his accuracy and truth.
At first, I was apprehensive as Henry was introduced. It’s hard not to be, when the gender bias is so rife when it comes to ADHD. Everything from diagnostics to public awareness is all around white men. This is not to say that I couldn’t connect and relate with Henry because I did, on so many levels. Raw aching punched to the heart as I saw myself and my daughter in his words. Henry’s parents were supportive and creative in helping him through school. They intuitively worked out how his ADHD mind absorbed information better for revision whilst he was actively moving. Something I am wholly aware of as my 9yr old learns best on the go, like bouncing on a yoga ball or climbing a tree whilst reciting a poem she’s creating in her head for me to jot down notes for her as she does.
Henry in public is seen as a confident, energetic and an endearing showman but I could see through it.
The fun party Hannah facade is something that shrouded me for decades. An armadillo if you will. That armoured exterior protecting the soft and vulnerable interior. Which we soon witness as Henry, with Chris in the confines and quiet of his own flat, describes himself and his life with adjectives ADHDers all over the world know only too well: lazy, disorganised, forgetful and floundering. Hating on himself, he compares himself to his peers on what is seen as ‘right’ and acceptable in a society designed for neurotypical people. During a tour of his floordrobe, Henry describes his brain as a Tombola filled with tasks, actions and thoughts that he has no control over which ball (task) comes out. I was instantly transported back to when my daughter was seven and she was shaking a jar of purple buttons and said ‘this is like the thoughts inside my brain, hundreds all jumbled, it’s so very busy in my head’. Sometimes visual analogies are the best explanations and I truly hope that not only is this relatable for other ADHD minds but that it helps those that love or know someone with ADHD comprehend even just a fraction of what it is like for us.
The running theme and constant current is the shame Henry holds inside, ultimately for something that isn’t true. As ADHDers, we are often plagued with shame. If only we could embrace what our differences do for our minds that are wonderful. The barometer of worth that society holds us against, is not actually important.
The shame segues into the second participant on the show, Jo a 52 year old woman whose brief employment history chat at the beginning of her interview with Chris had me nodding and smiling along.
Boredom in work is kryptonite for someone with ADHD and it’s not surprising that we are regularly likened to the ‘jack of all trades’. Jo, who was diagnosed late in life like many women, particularly in peri-menopause or menopause, opened my floodgates when she said ‘I just thought I was rubbish at a lot of things… that I was a bad person’. She describes the grief post-diagnosis; how you can’t help but look back at your younger self and wish you could have helped them sooner.
Jo talks about how menopause exasperated her ADHD traits. Chris investigates this connection further with Professor Amanda Kirby chair of the ADHD foundation. Gold star for a solid expert-led conversation. I’m 43 years old, I hit peri-menopause around 37 and last year had my womb and ovaries removed due to ongoing health issues. Thus, I was thrown full throttle into surgical menopause. It was brutal. Combine that with ADHD and well, my world detonated and my poor brain was starved of oestrogen. The fight to get HRT levels right and the absolute lack of knowledge and understanding in the healthcare system was detriment to my wellbeing. Amanda talks about the gender bias; how girls and women are mis-diagnosed, misunderstood and explains why so many of us in our 40s and 50s are now coming to the fore. She states it’s only been the last two or three years that the link between drops in oestrogen negatively affecting cognitive function and ADHD have been made. Which is bonkers when we already know that ADHD is a neurological difference. Of course, menopause will impact neurodivergent women significantly more than the general female population. I’m doing a one-woman standing ovation in my head at this point.
The show then cuts to the making of the videos that both Henry and Jo created, along the same vein as series one. They use a production team to encapsulate a visual and auditory synopsis of what it is like inside their minds and share it with their friends and families. Without too much of a spoiler - because I would love for people to witness the final pieces for themselves - I just want to say not only did they both represent ADHD brilliantly but also conveyed just how creative our minds can be. Both screenings are an emotional affair as the reality of living with ADHD properly dawns on their families. What brought me to tears was Henry’s mum, as supportive as she was with accommodations during his school years, genuinely hadn’t realised ADHD doesn’t just stop when you become an adult. We just hide it better because of shame. Jo’s inner monologue echoed my own; bad daughter, bad friend, bad mother. Our brains can be really mean to us at times and it is evident that the inner gremlin is wrong most of the time as her daughter and friend tell her.
Overall, this episode was brilliant. I’m so grateful for the awareness it will raise and the care taken to give such an honest and factual insight into ADHD for the world to see.
However, this is a review so for feedback purposes, I wish there was a deeper dive into the vulnerability of ADHD in girls; how impulsivity, rejection sensitivity and people pleasing leads us down many an unsafe path. They touched briefly on addiction in the small segment at the ADHD art class but I would have loved to see more on the subject. We also need more diverse representation of ADHD to explore how preconceived stereotypes, cultural differences and racism can impact access to diagnosis and support. The show left me wet-faced, bleary-eyed and emotionally raw but also lighter. I just wish it wasn’t a single, one hour show as it is impossible to really investigate and portray ADHD across its full spectrum in sixty minutes.
Check out the show here.
‘Inside our Autistic minds’, here.
Or for more infromaiton on ADHD, visist tge ADHD Foundation here.
