Written in May 2025

Following the incredible Inside Our Autistic Minds two-parter that Chris Packham fronted for the BBC two years ago, Inside Our ADHD Minds uses the same format to bring real experience and real expert information to the public.

The opening words about how “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” is misleading were almost identical to what I say when I’m introducing the topic in my training sessions. We’re not disordered, we are different. We don’t have a deficit of attention, just challenges regulating our attention. We were off to a good start…

Is there an ADHD epidemic?

ADHD has been in the headlines for a couple of years now, with many uninformed and inexperienced people making claims about epidemics and overdiagnosis. One of the more subtle pieces of information in the BBC programme was that the rate of ADHD globally is 6%, while in the UK this number sits at 1-2%.

This means ADHD has been historically underdiagnosed, so the perception of a rise in diagnosis now is in fact just catching up. It is just down to the diagnosis of people who have been missed and have therefore not had the help, support and medication they need.

The truth about late diagnosis

Jo’s experience of late diagnosis when she reached menopause will chime with so many women who were misdiagnosed, or missed entirely. The maelstrom of changing hormones and neurotransmitters can cause a crisis beyond that which neurotypical women experience (which is bad enough). It’s often the time of life when women seek help with challenges they’ve dealt with their whole lives, which have now become too much.

When Jo talked about her anger and grief at not being diagnosed earlier it reminded me of the “grief vs. relief” paradigm I talk about – it’s a phrase I’m quite proud of coining. In the post-diagnosis period we look back at our experiences in the world so far with a different view, and while there’s the relief of finding out that you’re not just “shit at life”, as Jo and I both felt, there’s also grief. Thanks to my alexithymia, the grief part hasn’t affected me as much but it is a significant element of the experience of late-diagnosed female ADHDers.

The short films that the Jo and Henry made really show what it’s like living with ADHD; what it’s like living with a mind that keeps distracting you and which isn’t suited to regulating your attention, emotions or actions.

Room for improvement and final thoughts

If I had one criticism, it’s that while Packham usually correctly refers to people as “neurodivergent”, the phrase “neurodiverse people” creeps in several times. Whether this is an attempt to reflect the language use that we are seeing around this topic and within our community, or whether it was a genuine slip or oversight in the edit suite, it raises an important question.

Does it serve us better to accept incorrect language on occasion, when the rest of the information is correct and helps our community? When we interrupt or correct people in their use of language, do we put them off talking about the topic altogether? Are we getting in our own way? It’s a question I’ve asked before and one which comes to my mind frequently.

There is one more episode focusing on dyslexia, which I’m really looking forward to as the first one which won’t reflect my own experience. But Chris, and the BBC, if you’re reading this, maybe you could do an episode about AuDHD?

Watch Inside Our ADHD Minds here (BBC iPlayer, UK only)