I was diagnosed with ADHD (combined-type) 10 days before I turned 49. On my birthday itself, I logged in to LinkedIn to write ‘a quick post’ about it, but as usually happens, I found myself writing way too much and it didn’t fit.
I’m pleased to say that a lot has changed since I wrote this, and I’ve learned plenty about myself and ADHD too. But if you’re at an early stage of your own ADHD journey, I’m sharing the resulting article over here in case it resonates.
I only found out about my own ADHD because of the generous and courageous posts written by others on social media, and that has truly changed my life. I hope my experience might help someone too.
ADHD masking on an expert level
Reflecting back, I’ve always had the feeling that I fell short, never quite fulfilling my potential.
I often felt like I’d let people down, and that I didn’t really fit in. These symptoms and more are reflected in something called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and this in particular sums up my experience, especially during my school years.
I didn’t know why. I just assumed I was lazy and wasn’t good enough and so I worked hard to try and appear like everyone else.
That’s called masking, I’m expert level and it’s exhausting.
Masking has some serious downsides. I invariably came across as inauthentic, there was just something slightly off and disingenuous about me. And, in addition, the mental energy involved in keeping that mask in place makes human interactions a gruelling challenge that can take hours and often days to recover from.
I took note of my social exhaustion and assumed I was an introvert, staying home more to protect my energy.
Fortunately for me, masking brings some benefits as a professional voiceover artist.
Who do you want me to be? I’m all over it.
So I can truthfully say, it’s not impacted my performance in the booth.
The downsides of ADHD and business
But some of the other aspects of ADHD have been, to be frank, a bit of a disaster for my voiceover business.
People pleasing, procrastination, perfectionism, hyper-vigilance, and anxiety meant it could take me an entire day to word an email for a quote.
Pre-medication, my brain was always on, the noise truly never stops. And justice sensitivity can see me go into battle for things where most other people would have stood down. It can be embarrassing.
I’m empathetic to the extreme, experiencing what I believe other people’s emotions to be, and even feeling physical pain when someone hurts themselves.
Accepting myself and my ADHD brain
Around 2.5 million people in the UK are likely to have ADHD, and I consider myself to be one of the luckier ones now that I have a diagnosis.
I have friends who have battled with depression, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and all kinds of mental health diagnoses, when actually the root cause was not a mental health problem but a brain difference.
And that’s all it is. An ADHD brain works differently.
But in a world designed for brains that work one way, having one that sees an alternative view is hard.
I have a wonderfully supportive family, some dear friends, and a career I love. I completed my Masters degree to prove to myself I wasn’t stupid (what a ride!), and I love my quirkiness, my ability to see connections others don’t, and my creativity.
But none of this has come easily, and finally getting the diagnosis that explains what’s been going on, giving me the opportunity to learn new ways of doing things, and allowing myself to actually be myself, is huge.
Late diagnosis, especially for women, is a massive story at the moment. It’s not because we are being over-diagnosed, it’s not some new trend, it’s that we were missed before.
And in midlife, when peri-menopause meets undiagnosed ADHD, things get really tricky.
So. When I turned 49, my birthday gift to myself was accepting myself exactly as I am.
What happened next? (2026 update)
As no one with ADHD will be surprised to hear, I took a deep dive into learning all I could about my brain. I had a lot of coaching, some therapy, and I signed up to train as an ADHD coach with Gold Mind Academy, knowing that the first third of the course focused on my own experience and getting to really understand me.
I intentionally left gaps between the 3 modules to allow plenty of time for my brain to process what it could and to ensure I was living what I was learning. I felt for the first time in a long time that this was something I could fully commit to, and having skirted around the idea of coaching for many years, I finally felt I’d found my place.
So now, I’m a certified ADHD-informed coach with ACC accreditation from the ICF. I balance my voiceover work with coaching creative professionals – some with stories like mine, some with different experiences. All brilliant, fascinating, wonderful humans that struggle to see their strengths but are ready to make a change. It’s an incredible privilege, and I’m very grateful that I’ve ended up here.
If you’d like to find out what coaching might look like for you, whether you’re diagnosed or not, you can book a 20-minute no obligation chat using the calendar below.