- Yep, yep.
It's a coming out video.
Is it as you expect a comically late coming out video?
I mean, it's what you've come to expect from me,
isn't it now?
So.
(person laughing)
No, it's, not because Pride Month is over
and now it's Disability Awareness Month.
So I'm actually coming out about something else.
Oh boy, this is a very awkward video for me to make.
I've been trying to make it for a year now.
And also, congratulations to many of you
who guessed that this video was coming
because you diagnosed me again in the comment,
for anyone who's new here,
I got diagnosed with EDS by my subscribers.
I've got ADHD, no one's shocked.
No one is shocked except for me.
The only person shocked by this.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
or ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
That's a term describing a nervous system
that developed differently whilst your brain was still
its kind of in its plastic fetus, child-like state.
This leads to a normal brain function, which impacts memory,
self-control, learning ability and even your emotions.
It is quite literally a brain that is wired differently.
ADHD is characterized by excessive amounts
of inattention, hyperactivity
and impulsivity that are impairing in multiple contexts
and pervasive, it's everywhere.
The whole brain has it, it's in there.
You can't make it stop even when you really,
really need it to.
The precise causes of ADHD are unknown
in the majority of cases,
but genetic factors play an important role.
ADHD tends to run in families
and has a heritability rate of 74%.
There are three primary types of ADHD,
predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive
impulsive, and combined type.
Inattentive, this type of ADHD has symptoms
including being easily distracted by extraneous stimuli,
including your thoughts in older adults and teenagers,
frequently does not finish following instruction.
Failing to complete tasks,
struggles to organize tasks and activity to meet deadlines
and to keep belongings in order.
It makes you frequently overlook details
or make careless mistakes.
And I actually hate the word careless.
I make careless mistakes all the time,
except they're not careless because I really do care.
I just have an inconsistency of attention.
Well, this is the type for no focus, forgetfulness.
Hyperactive, can't sit still during dinner,
class or meetings, often fidgeting
or squirming in your seat,
constantly restless and cannot quietly engage
in leisure activities or play
to the extent that you need to actively
do something else whilst watching TV
or during video game loading screens.
Yeah, hyperactivity type.
The person who frequently seems to be on the go
or appears uncomfortable when not in motion,
they talk excessively, including struggling to wait
their turn, answering a question
before it's finished
or finishing people's sentences for them,
yeah, it's not just running around.
Combined type, you get it from the name
as the name suggests, it's the other two together.
So I've always known that my brain is a bit different
and it works in a very alternative way, its own way.
It's does its own thing.
Growing up, I felt like living in my brain
was somewhat akin to sitting there
with 20 televisions on and five radio stations.
And I've got 10 books in front of me that I'm trying to read
and five open notepads, and at the same time,
there are these three different people standing there
and they're trying to talk to me
and have conversations with me
and I'm trying to converse with them,
but also I'm writing and I'm reading and I'm looking
and I'm listening and I've got a lot going on right now
and that was just constant growing up, all the time.
And my parents just told me that I was very highly sensitive
and high energy and neurotic.
So I was like, okay,
I guess that's just how brains like mine are.
That's normal, I did make life a bit hard,
but it also made it, the main difficulty for me
was the utter inability to connect with the world.
So I found it quite hard to be able
to make memories or engage in what was going on around me.
And it sounds really weird if you say it out loud,
but because there's so much going on
in my head all the time, as a child,
I wasn't 100% sure on what was real,
like which line of visuals that was in my awareness
was the real one or the correct one,
or which one I should be paying attention to.
So sometimes I just wasn't paying attention
to the one that was actually real.
So then I just didn't,
I wasn't paying attention to it,
so I just don't have the memory of that.
So I have a lot of dissociation according to my therapist.
Yeah, I got diagnosed with dyslexia instead of ADHD,
which in retrospect, where's an interesting choice
considering I had the reading age of an adult
at the age of eight.
And also now, I can actually spell pretty well.
So this is very, I've already gone off track.
(person sighing)
It was the nineties and I wasn't very hyperactive.
I was just a very dreamy child.
And a girl, girls and women with ADHD
tend to display fewer hyperactivity
and impulsivity symptoms,
but more symptoms of inattention and distractibility,
I say tend to, because guess who has the hyperactivity type?
This gal, don't worry though.
I also have chronic fatigue, so I'm actually,
I said chronic fatigue, my body.
Yeah, so my hyperactivity is mainly all internal,
as is my impulsivity.
Do I randomly blurt things out?
Yes, do I climb things 'cause they look cool?
No, I'm too tired for that.
However, since it's easier to notice
and then seek diagnosis for the child
kind of running around the room screaming
than it is the child staring outta the window,
having 5,000 thoughts a minute
and surviving on two hours of sleep a night,
more hyperactive types tend to be diagnosed
than inattentive types, so more boys
than girls are diagnosed.
And when it comes to adulthood, it's fun being a lady,
which is totally something for a whole different video
because I mean, that's a subject in itself.
So that wasn't a thing.
People didn't really think of ADHD in girls like that.
Even though fun, fun,
when I went to go and get properly diagnosed
and I took this test, they give you the special test,
which is you have to pass these markers for signs
that you have ADHD now as an adult
and signs that you would've had,
passed the test for ADHD as a child as well.
And I took the child one and I was like, whoa,
look at me go, oh, almost full marks brilliant.
Woo, excellent, I'm really knocking this one out the park.
Yeah, no, wow.
So I originally made a video
about executive functioning issues,
which I suffer with a lot and put it down
to just being like, I put it down mainly
I think to my brain damage, which is fun
and understandable because when I was 17
I had a medical procedure and it went wrong
and it hurt part of my brain.
And brain stuff, when the brain goes wrong,
it goes wrong and that's just what happens, da da da.
And yeah, and if you were wondering, yes,
I do do this with my hands a lot,
mainly off camera or it gets cut, so,
but I've decided not to do that now.
Hi, why not, why not?
Yay, it helps me feel better.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, so anyway, executive functioning issues
and a lot of you in the comments
were like, goodness, Jessica,
this sounds a lot like ADHD.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's not like the first time
that anyone's mentioned that.
I would say in the seven years
that I had been making YouTube videos,
the does Jessica have ADHD comment
has come up, it's come up a lot.
And I didn't really take that much notice.
I didn't not notice, but I didn't really kind of go, yeah,
maybe I do, until Rupert was born actually.
So until two years ago.
And I think it was largely just because other friends
of mine who do have ADHD and have been diagnosed with ADHD
for a long time were like, Jessica,
the things that you put down to brain damage
are remarkably similar to the traits of ADHD.
And I was like, intriguing, fascinating.
But the thing is,
I have a large gap in my memory from that time in hospital,
which a lot of it is obviously down to being so ill
that I wasn't able to remember stuff very well.
But a lot of it's also just down to trauma.
It's a not great Pandora's box of traumatic memories
and awfulness that lives in my mind.
And do people tell me I should go and get therapy for it?
Yes, do I think that's not helpful?
Yes, because I'm not gonna open that box.
It's fine, it can sit on a shelf,
but it doesn't mean that I don't know much about that time.
But I did start to realize
that actually there are lots of things
I've never been good at that I put down to, oh,
I stopped being able to do that
because my brain was damaged at 17.
And then I actually thought about it and realized,
oh no wait, I could never do that.
I was damaged from the start, cool.
I know that damage isn't like the best,
most correct wording to say that my brain
is wired differently and I do apologize for that
if that is upsetting for someone.
And I don't feel negatively towards my brain
when I say that my brain is damaged.
I don't mean that in a bad way.
I think it's fine to say that I had brain damage.
It's okay, it's not a pejorative term,
but I don't see ADHD as a damage to the brain.
It's a different wiring of the brain.
But interestingly, when I did get diagnosed,
the doctor that I spoke to did also say
that the interesting thing about a ADHD
is that the reason it's become quite common
and that you often see it with something else,
is that once something goes wrong with your brain,
ADHD is the most likely thing to happen.
So if you have a wiring problem
or do I have a wiring problem?
I have a neurological disability,
my nerves are not right that the most obvious follow on
will be ADHD, there's something wrong in your brain.
ADHD is gonna follow that.
Like, oh, makes sense, makes sense, yeah.
I did not have a good enjoyable brain scenario as a baby.
So clearly, yeah, I was up there.
It was for once a test I was rather good at,
that's not fair, that's not fair at all.
I spent my childhood either getting like 100%
or 2% on tests, that was on everything,
but also on everything in life,
I had to take an IQ test as part of my dyslexia test
'cause they do that to make sure
that it's not another reason you can't read.
I can read though.
So why was I taking dyslexia test, so many questions.
I have like a 99th percentile for visual IQ,
which essentially means that I'm really good
at stacking things in the fridge.
Easiest way to explain that, I can very easily stack things.
I'm like, what's that game?
Tetris, I'm very good at Tetris and I have an under 1%
for phonological awareness, which I mean,
I am deaf though, so I do feel
like that should come into that.
Also a range of other things.
I just thought that was the funniest one.
So I went to my GP and asked him about getting a referral
to a psychiatrist to talk about ADHD.
And he told me that the wait list was two to three years.
And I was like, cool, that's great.
I'm struggling right now.
Having a very small newborn child
was making things a bit harder.
So two to three years was not working out for me
and thus going private seemed to be the best option.
Yes, there was a need to get tested.
So I reached out to a lovely friend
who had just gone to get her test done.
Rowan Ellis, it's Rowan Ellis, I asked Rowan Ellis.
Rowan Ellis has an amazing video
about her path to an ADHD diagnosis.
Very much recommend.
I'm gonna put the link to that in the description
and also she can go watch here
on this little card right there.
Go and watch that, it's a wonderful video.
I completely forgot to mention this
whilst I was filming originally,
but when I made my Autism and Media Trips video,
I also went down a kind of ADHD
whole research worm hole and had a, wow,
this sounds just like me, how funny kind of moment.
But I got to rescission paralysis
because I didn't think I perfectly fit the symptoms
and I didn't send the emails I wanted to send
until I then saw Rowan's video,
which talks about the symptoms
other than the ADHD stereotype of a seven year old boy
who kind of runs around everywhere.
So thank you again, Rowan.
So I reached out to Rowan and she recommended her doctor,
that her doctor was actually retiring,
but then he recommended another doctor.
So then went to that doctor,
but then I think that doctor couldn't see me,
so recommended someone else
who was also at the same practice.
Anyway, I went through like so many different people
and I think sent out like eight,
10 emails to different places.
Did not hear back from anyone except for the one
that Rowan had recommended,
who recommended, who recommended
who recommended someone else
and finally found a lovely doctor
who was really, really nice.
And I think the loveliest thing
was that when you get sent
the forms that you do before you go in for the assessment,
it's very kind of easy to go, oh,
like I'm second guessing myself.
Here it is on the form and it says this.
And I'm like, well yeah, I mean, yeah,
obviously I am like that, but maybe everyone else is,
maybe everyone's like this,
I mean I'm ticking this,
I mean maybe most people tick this.
I don't know whether this is gonna actually add up
to kind of get me over this diagnostic line.
Maybe I'm below the line
and I actually need to buck up a bit.
Which even if you are beneath that line,
no you absolutely do not need to buck up a bit.
That's ridiculous, you are pretty darn close to that line.
So clearly there's a little bit of extra stuff
going on in your brain right there.
And you could definitely benefit
from some ADHD coping strategies.
Just saying, okay, don't discount yourself
just because you don't pass the the magic line.
That's not, no.
So anyway, when you're taking these
and you'll be like, ah, I don't know,
cause I'm not actually talking to a professional.
It's just a piece of paper and me.
And they get someone who is close to you,
which can be either a parent or they like it
to be someone who sees you a lot.
So mine was Claudia obviously.
'Cause I'm like my spouse.
Spends every moment of every day with me.
So she filled in a form about what I'm like as well.
She was like, oh yes.
(person laughing)
Can't cook a meal without it taking four hours.
Don't let her loose with a knife,
she'll chop her own fingers off,
but you don't really know, know.
And I went for the assessment and it was one
of the most empowering experiences I've never had.
It was really lovely because she gave me examples of my life
that I had not even known were examples of ADHD.
(gentle music)
Some specialists have suggested the following
as a list of symptoms associated with ADHD in adults,
carelessness and lack of attention to detail,
continually starting new tasks while finishing old ones.
Poor organizational skills,
inability to focus or prioritize,
continually losing or misplacing things.
Forgetfulness, restlessness and edginess.
Difficulty keeping quiet and speaking out of turn,
blurting out responses and often interrupting others,
mood swings, irritability and a quick temper,
inability to deal with stress.
Extreme impatience, taking risks and activities
often with little or no regard
personal safety or the safety of others.
For example, driving dangerously.
There may be a reason I still don't have my driving license.
I think I'm great at driving, no one else does.
But it was more than just saying, yes, you have ADHD.
It was the fact that as she was going through things
with me and talking me through the questions of, well,
how did you do academically in school?
What was this like for you?
Did you struggle to make friends as a teenager?
Did you struggle to keep your friends?
I'm like, I was great at making friends.
Could I keep them?
No, can I respond to anyone's text messages?
No.
I'm so sorry to everyone who ever texts me.
I will eventually reply to you within the year.
But as I was talking, she was so empowering and kept saying,
well that's really amazing that you did that.
That's really wonderful that you were able
to complete that or that really shows
that that must have been an incredible struggle for you.
Yes, that was actually, yes.
Yeah, that was a struggle.
Or she'd say something like, oh, people with ADHD
tend to find that it's very difficult to go to a campus,
we were talking about universities and she said,
people with ADHD tend to find that it's very difficult
to go to a non-campus university.
And I was like, oh yes.
Yeah, I found it particularly hard actually
that my university wasn't a campus
and that I had to move around the city a lot.
And she's like, well,
it's really wonderful then that you were able to,
and I thought, well, but I didn't get to every class
and I didn't manage to always do things in time
and I had to get extra time for things.
She's like, but you completed it, didn't you?
Yeah, but I didn't get the grade
that I really would've wanted.
She's like, but you did it.
Yeah, yeah, I did actually, yeah.
For some reason that made me feel better than anyone.
Oh God, now I cry.
But yeah, for some reason
that made me feel better than anyone has ever made me feel
about the struggle that was my university experience.
Just because she said it in such a generalized way.
For some reason it just hit me
when it was like, people with this condition find this hard.
Obviously it was hard for you.
And I'm like, oh yeah, okay, good.
It wasn't just me.
She's like, yeah,
you've got physical disabilities too, yeah, yeah,
that was pretty pretty difficult.
Yeah, I did struggle a lot and that was just really nice.
That meant more to me than my freaking diploma,
so what, it's a piece of paper that has some numbers on,
I don't know where that is to be honest.
One of the main things that my friends have asked me
when I say like, oh, I diagnosed with ADHD is why,
which is sort of interesting because I didn't question
why beforehand, but I think they sort of want to know
what my intentions were.
Like what do you hope to gain
from having another diagnosis,
I don't love that for me, I don't love that for me.
Not that you should ever feel bad
about having more than one thing.
Hey, often things are comorbidities.
That's how bodies work, if they're like cogs in a machine,
one cog is wonky,
then it's gonna set the other cogs off, bodies do that.
So my body is full of wonky cogs,
but the main things that I wanted to get out of it
were firstly just kind of a sense
of knowing why I'm like this.
My friend Andrea has this theory
that everyone has a word that cuts them to the core.
The one word, one thing, one word that can hurt you deeply.
And to me it's useless, I hate that word.
It really upsets me.
And it's probably the word that I have often had used
about me, because I'm not great at day-to-day stuff.
That's fair to say.
I guess I'm not great at the kind of things
you would deem adulting, I don't love that about myself.
And I really wanted to have a reason as to why,
I wanted there to be something that would explain
to me why when I try to do the laundry,
I spend an hour cleaning the drawer
that you put the laundry detergent into
rather than just putting it into the machine
and walking away, we've got other things to do.
Or if I'm trying to unstack the dishwasher,
why does it take me so long?
Because I just stare into space.
What was I doing?
What was happening, where does the time go?
So many questions.
What do I do with my time?
Why do I get sucked into things
and then I'm unable to pull myself back out?
Whilst the classic idea of someone with ADHD
might involve a person who struggles to focus,
it's actually just that we can't manage our focus.
A task we aren't particularly interested in completing.
Ah, I can't make my brain turn towards it.
Something I find interesting or rewarding,
even if other people think it's hard and boring.
(person laughing)
12 hours of not stopping to eat later,
I realize they've been completely absorbed in the task
and haven't even been to the toilet.
Ah, this is called hyperfocus.
I will read an article about something,
an in depth piece of hard hitting journalism
from years ago on a topic
that isn't massively relevant to my life
or the state of the world or current days,
but just interests me in that moment in time.
And I will open that webpage at 11:00 PM
whilst I'm brushing my teeth and whoopsy,
now I've fallen down a rabbit hole
and I don't get into bed until 1:30
when Claudia comes into the bathroom to wee
and goes, go to bed.
Why do I do this to myself?
Ah, yeah.
So I just needed a reason for that other than I'm useless.
Why can't I keep track of the days?
Why don't I know what month it is?
Why am I not super sure who people are?
Like I just can't pay attention when they tell me
their names or I do not know.
Oh my God, so I wanted to know why that was happening to me.
And I've always been this way and I want to know why.
It's really nice to know why.
And to know that that's just that, yeah,
that's just me.
That's just who I am as a human being.
I can try to overcome this.
I have more awareness of myself now.
I am aware that this is an ADHD problem,
so I know not to allow myself to fall into the trap.
I know my danger zones, don't go near the danger zones.
No, no, no,
no phone at 11:00 PM when you're in the bathroom.
Or you could get sucked in
and then you're not coming back out.
Just knowing these things about myself is helpful
and also means that when it does happen,
I can forgive myself.
Why am I incapable of cooking a meal for my child
in under 45 minutes, because I have ADHD.
It's a thing.
It just is, do I need to cook him a meal?
Okay, well let's schedule in an hour, shall we?
There's my hour.
He'll have a meal at the end of it.
And the second thing that I wanted to get
from getting diagnosed was meds, medication.
Yes, go on, put more in there.
I already take a large amount of medication
thanks to my chronic pain and neurological issues.
No describe that, but hey,
now at least I have ADHD medication.
I had to try a few different ones until I found the one
that works for me, everyone's different.
Very interestingly, I have a problem
with emotional regulation, part of my ADHD,
did you know, emotional regulation can be part of,
well, emotional dysregulation can be part of ADHD.
I feel emotions incredibly strongly, very, very strongly.
So I will cry a lot at adverts
when I'm sad, I think really sad.
But if I'm happy, I'm like really happy,
I can be like switched out of it quite quickly.
Never all over the place.
It's like, this is so reductive and I apologize deeply,
but it's a little bit like having your period all the time.
I know, I'm so sorry.
(person sighing)
But then I found the correct ADHD meds
for me on the correct dosage,
I take 20 milligrams of the med that works for me.
I'm not gonna go into meds very much
because we all I different bodies
and the thing that works for us
is gonna be completely different.
So if I tell you, oh, this is the best thing.
Oh, it's amazing, brilliant.
I mean, it's not gonna work for you necessarily.
That's not really how it goes.
I can tell you coping strategies
and things like, oh, have you tried Google Calendar
and color blocking the calendars and how amazing that is.
And it really helps you to sort through
and visualize what it is you need to do that day.
That is a wonderful coping strategy.
That is something I can share.
But I think medication is very specific
and talk to your doctor.
I'm not your doctor, but interestingly,
this is something that I think
is quite universal with ADHD meds,
is that taking 20 milligrams of the correct medication
that works for me,
I'm able to emotionally regulate much better.
I just feel that my emotions are more,
they don't hit the top range so much or so quickly.
And they don't move around so much.
I don't like jump between emotions so quickly
and so often I'm much more in the, okay,
it's cool, it's fine, no big,
you can say something mean to me
and it's not gonna super upset me days and days.
Oh my god, I might just be more like,
wow, that was really mean, how harsh,
but it won't literally keep me awake
for the next three nights.
That's a lie, it used to keep me awake for two weeks.
I still sometimes have nightmares about the ones
that got stuck in my head when I was a child.
Anyway, emotional dysregulation guys, that's a bad one.
But I started taking the 30 milligram dosage
because I was starting,
I noticed that my meds were trailing off mid-afternoon
and I needed the little energy pump
to get me to the end of my working day
so I could stay focused.
I'm super focused right now, can't you tell?
And it did not work, did not work.
The emotions were all over the place again,
I was, I would even dare to say depressed.
I was sad, really sad.
Every day at 6:00 PM on the dot almost,
I burst into tears and that's really quite bad
because that's the time we sit down with Rupert to eat.
So we were sat at the kitchen table with Rupert
and I'd be like.
(person crying)
Over nothing and he's just sat there, mama's sad,
mama's crying, oh, mama need a hug.
And he bless him, he's so sweet.
He like trying to make me feel better
and he like give me food as if that would help me.
But interestingly, fun facts, fun facts,
fun facts all around guys.
Fun facts all around.
So fun fact, adult ADHD and joint hyper mobility
are highly associated with a fivefold increase in odds.
If you have autism, a ADHD or tic disorder,
you are more likely to have joint hyper mobility
than neurotypical people.
Who knew, neurodivergent study participants
also report significantly more symptoms
of pain and disautonomy.
You can kind of click the card up here for a video
where I explain what disautonomy means
because that is a confusing word, I understand.
Interestingly, when I started taking my medication
for my a ADHD and I found med that worked for me,
I noticed an improvement in my hyper mobility
related symptoms too.
I mean, not my insomnia though because no,
when we were in Malaysia for a month this January,
my blood pressure stayed a lot more stable
than it normally does in the heat
and my joints swelled less and I had a lot more energy
than previous trips and I just wasn't passing out dying,
Claude's family there also remarked on the change.
So it was noticeable to other people.
And I definitely feel it's a change in me physically,
particularly with how my body just isn't giving me
as much grief as it used to.
So yeah, ADHD meds, they are working for my brain
and the rest of my body.
So where do you go from here?
Obviously there's the telling people thing.
I mean here I am telling you, so there we go.
Am I coming out to many people I know
via this video rather than telling them, yes I am.
Yes, is that because I'm kind of scared
to tell them in person or via some kind of text?
Yeah, so since being diagnosed,
well obviously I've told Claudia,
I mean, that'd be pretty weird if I didn't.
I made her take the test with me.
I haven't really told a huge number of people.
Interestingly, I've kind of told
all the new people I've met, not all of them.
Only if it's come up. I think two days after I got diagnosed
and had my assessment,
I went to a garden birthday party for a baby.
I got to a lot of baby birthday parties now,
and I just randomly told some like baby friends of ours
because we were talking about whether our houses
were messy or not.
And I was like, oh yeah, well you know, I have ADHD
so blah, blah, blah.
And they were like, oh, and they didn't know
that it was a new thing for me to say
and that was really nice.
I was like, oh, I really like that.
Oh, so it's quite,
there's something quite freeing about being able to say it
to new people, like yeah, no, this is the thing,
I've always known this about myself.
(person laughing)
Oh god, I wish I'd always known this about myself.
My life would've been a lot easier
if I'd always known this about myself.
Like if I'd just been diagnosed as a child,
what a different view I would have.
I feel like that would've been less fighting.
Like I've always been quite positive about myself
and I've had to forcibly be kind to myself.
But I think there would've been less struggle,
less internal.
I wouldn't have had to crush down the I'm useless,
I hate myself feelings and turn them into something else
if I'd known this.
Because now I'm like, that's fine.
I did pretty well considering.
So yes, there are many people
I haven't told, quite a few of them
because they've said negative things about ADHD
in my presence in the past
and thus I don't want to tell them.
Couple of them I was like,
should I talk to them about ADHD?
I'll put some feelers out.
Let's just bring up ADHD as a topic, see how they react.
And I got back some quite like,
oh that's, wow, what unfriendly and PC opinions.
My gosh, how about I never share my inner thoughts
with you ever again.
Yet here I am sharing them in a YouTube video.
So apparently I like you more than I do those people.
So no, we're not gonna live in shame.
This is ridiculous, no, I refuse.
There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
It's other people who have the incorrect ideas
about ADHD and that is on them.
Yes, anybody who has strange,
bizarre thoughts about neurodiverse,
people who doesn't understand that brains
can be wired in all sorts of different ways
is just a very unfortunate soul really.
That's very sad for them.
So in terms of coming out videos,
I wouldn't say that this one is probably
like the world's most shocking video
that anyone's ever seen.
But I was shocked to discover this about myself
but in many ways discovering this new thing about myself
has been incredibly empowering and wonderful.
I feel so much better about myself
knowing why my brain works this way is this way.
It's just nice to know things about yourself
and to have a deeper understanding
how you work as a little human being.
To realize that there are things about yourself
you can't really change.
But to see that that's where the beauty lies
because we're all kind of, we're all as humans
given our lot in life, right?
We all have whatever it is that we start off with.
And I just really like knowing now what it is,
why I am like this, why I have such gaps.
There's something very dehumanizing in a way
about having gaps, from having gaps from dissociation,
other people have a greater knowledge,
understanding and awareness of your own life history story
and the way you move through the world
than you do because they remember it.
They were there and you're like, oh, that's cool.
I was there but I wasn't paying attention.
So I've got absolutely no clue.
Brilliant.
And they can tell you absolutely anything
about what happened and you just kind of
have to believe it and go along with it.
Sure, okay.
Right, I guess that happened.
It sucks and I hate it.
But also if you specifically do have gaps in your memory,
but no other symptoms of ADHD,
do go and get that checked out as well.
Felt like the the motto of this video,
go get checked out, go get checked out.
Speaking of here are the signs that you should
go and get checked out by a doctor
in case you might have ADHD.
(gentle music)
If you think you or your child may have ADHD,
speak to a GP or primary care physician
if that's what you call them in America,
your GP cannot formally diagnose ADHD
but they can discuss your concerns with you and refer you
to a specialist for assessment if necessary.
I should note it may take a while
because the waiting lists can be varied.
When I first went to the GP,
it was a waiting list of like two to three years.
But I do have friends who've gone more recently
and their waiting list was only six months.
So they may refer you for an assessment
if you were not diagnosed with ADHD as a child,
but your symptoms began during childhood
and have been ongoing since.
Which is important because symptoms
have to not be explained by a mental health condition.
Your symptoms need to also significantly affect
your day-to-day life, so for example,
if you're underachieving at work
or finding your intimate relationships difficult,
which is something that I talked about a lot
with my assessor, not because I find
intimate relationships difficult,
more because you have to go through a checklist
and they're like,
does your life reflect this, this, this and this?
And I was like, wow, that's a lot stuff.
My life is a lot more boring than that
largely because I'm terrified.
(person laughing)
Of the impulsivity that lives inside me.
So I've never allowed it to come out.
As a small child,
this does not relate to the part that this video,
the section that this was meant to be.
But as a small child,
I like made all these rules for myself
because I knew that I had something within me
that was very, very impulsive
and also incredibly like hyper, had a lot of energy,
quite out there and I was kind of afraid of that
and I didn't like getting in trouble.
So I made myself life rules to follow.
That included things like not eating chocolate ever.
I know, very interesting.
Some of them got a bit intense for a while.
I trained myself to only ever sit straight, very,
very upright, then develop a scoliosis anyway.
Jokes on me still sit very straight.
I trained myself to brush my teeth five times a day.
That's excessive, you don't need to do that.
You'll brush your gums away.
Yeah.
Stopped doing that once my dentist told me
that that was gonna happen,
then had an internal crisis about it, obviously,
Yes, but yeah, things like anything
that might be deemed illegal, I did not, yeah,
was against the rules that I made for myself
when I was seven and still have to live
by the majority of them.
What happens if I don't?
Good question, I have no idea.
I don't want to find out my, internal world implodes
I imagine is the answer to that.
Let's never find out.
Okay, bye.
So there you go.
If that happens to you, go talk to a doctor
and we can be pals.
(person laughing)
We can be ADHD pals 'cause gosh,
version, people just find each other.
Thanks for listening to my coming out story.
I appreciate it.
Please comment below, let me know
your story because you guys are amazing.
You told me to go and get myself checked,
went, got myself checked, you were right again.
The internet, turns out you don't need to use Google
as a doctor.
You could just make a YouTube channel
and people will leave comments.
(person breathing)
This is quite freeing, I like this.
I will see you in my next video,
which will be a Q and A about ADHD.
I'm on Instagram where I'll be asking
the questions to go along with this video.
It's @Jessicaoutofthecloset.
There will be a link in the description down below,
so you can very easily click on that.
I'll leave it as the second link,
so don't even have to click on that
and then go looking for it and then get lost
'cause you looked on something else.
And there are a lot of links down there.
Thanks friends, see you soon.
(gentle music)