In hindsight, I suppose I shouldn’t have been that taken aback by the diagnosis. I had a niggling feeling for some time that something wasn’t quite right, and the signs were there. But to hear it from a specialist consultant at a London hospital made the whole thing suddenly very real. “I can confidently say from your results that you are suffering from ADHD,” he said. “I’d like to do some further tests but from what you have told me, I would say that you have had ADHD since childhood.”

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, more commonly known as ADHD, is a condition that includes symptoms such as feeling restless, an inability to concentrate and a tendency to act impulsively without thinking. Though far from a ‘new’ disorder, in recent years it’s come to greater prominence – in part because of the long list of well-known people who have gone public with their diagnosis, mostly in adulthood. Paris Hilton, Solange Knowles, and Zooey Deschanel are just some stars who have openly talked about their journey with ADHD and how it has shaped their lives for better and worse.

Each has spoken poignantly about their experiences and how they, before their diagnosis, had a sense of otherness and an awareness they weren’t quite functioning like other people. I know that feeling all too well.

I was always distracted as a child, and couldn’t concentrate on any subject that didn’t engage me at school. History and English, I sailed through with ease – but when it came to maths and science, I’d spend those sessions looking blankly out of the classroom window, my mind wandering. It got so bad that my mother gave up going to my teacher-parent meetings because she couldn’t bear to be told I was “disruptive” again. In contrast, my two brothers – now both high-flying lawyers – were straight-A students. My family just couldn’t understand it.

My teen years were wild. I was constantly on the move, physically and mentally. I was like a dynamo, always looking for next big thing to capture my very short attention span: music, fashion, friends. And in my 20s… well, that’s when I fell into drugs, which I have been very open about. I would spend the following decade trying to face up to my addictions until I finally got clean for good 18 years ago.

Now, I had always presumed that my ‘problems’ or ‘issues’ were just personality traits – being scatty, talking too much, feeling awkward in social scenarios, unable to follow a conversation or butting in – and I put a lot of this at the door of my substance abuse. I also assumed that when I got clean, I’d feel a whole lot more together, and much of the chaos of my life would disappear. But it didn’t. I was still turning up to the theatre on the wrong nights or mixing up the start times of my children’s school events. If anything, my tendencies appeared to get worse – probably because now I was clean, I could see things more clearly.

It wasn’t until three years ago that I realised something might be up. My husband Danny and I were whiling away a Saturday afternoon with my great friend, the artist Zoe Grace, when we fell upon a quiz that was a basic ADHD test. I didn’t know much about the condition then, but I’m very interested in anything to with the psyche, so I thought it might be a bit of fun. If anyone out of the three of us was prone to to this condition, I thought it had to be Danny, as he’s always been a bit manic and hyper (which comes in useful when you’re a drummer).

As I answered the questions, it started to dawn on me what had plagued me for all these years. Do you have: a lack of concentration? Tick. Anxiety? Tick. OCD? Tick. Are you oversensitive? Tick.

According to the quiz results, Danny appeared to be on the borderline of having, while Zoe sailed straight through the test. It was my score that worried me: it led the algorithm to suggest I see a consultant to get a professional diagnosis.

You’d think that anyone who faced this kind of moment of self-awareness might do the right thing and make an urgent appointment with their GP, with a view to getting a referral to a specialist. But not me. I decided to put it off. Not for a couple of weeks or months – I left it for three years. A tactic typical of anyone with ADHD, I now realise.

I was busy with business – my fashion, vintage clothing and antiques lines. I was moving house again, writing a book or two, trying to keep up with my four children, redecorating, making face masks (there was a pandemic, after all), and the fact I did any of this made me proud. But if you scratched the surface, all was not quite as wonderful as it might seem.

In truth, I was all over the place and I couldn’t focus. For example, on a typically stressful day, I was caught speeding on the way to my dressmaker’s house. But rather than tackle this head-on or even be aware of how many points I had on my licence, I just brushed it off when I should have a done a speed awareness course. I was hit with a six-month driving ban – right in the middle of a house restoration and working on a new interiors book that required me to be on location. I was devastated.

Only last year, I managed to lose a lucrative contract with a wallpaper company that was using my designs. They had sent me a contract to renew my partnership with them. Distracted as I was – in Paris, working on another project – I breezily signed without reading not just the small print, but any print. I thus signed away all rights to my designs. When I came running to my brother for legal advice he just put his head in his hands and sighed, wearily.

I am not sure why I left it so long to get professional help. But it was a chance encounter last year that finally gave me my wake-up call. While taking my daily early-morning swim at our local membership club, I spied a regular fellow swimmer. I waved as I normally do, but she seemed distracted and didn’t acknowledge me. It was only later in the changing room that she came up to me and apologised. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. But I have just been diagnosed with ADHD, so I’m a bit flustered by it.”

I was taken aback – she had nothing to apologise for and I was amazed by her admission. “Really?” I found myself blurting. “I think I might have that too.”

She looked me in the eye and said, “If you think you do, I have someone who might be able to help.” Later that day, she emailed me the number of a specialist, and in a matter of weeks I found myself in the consultancy room of a London hospital that specialises in mental health and wellbeing. 

After a lengthy consultation and various tests, the diagnosis came through. Initially, I was a bit shocked but over the course of the following appointments I’ve started to feel a sense of relief. Suddenly, things have begun to make sense – that piece of the jigsaw that I was always searching for.

In his report the specialist cited my OCD, my sensitivity, my fear of being out of my comfort zone, my impulsiveness, obsessive thoughts, rejection sensitive dysphoria, and poor sleep pattern followed by periods of intense fatigue.

But it was what he said about addiction that really fascinated me: many of the patients the hospital had seen that presented with ADHD also had a history of mild to severe substance abuse. That’s not to say everyone who has ADHD has dabbled in drugs, nor that substance abuse causes ADHD. It’s more likely that people with ADHD are more prone to abusing drugs and alcohol, and not just because they’re impulsive by nature. It’s what specialists refer to as a ‘neuro-adrenaline’ issue – where patients with ADHD tend to self medicate because their brains lack dopamine. 

This was fascinating to me because since I have been clean, I have always questioned my relationship with drugs. There was no history of addiction in my family at all, and rehab, therapy and meetings never worked for me. In the end, getting clean was actually quite straightforward. All it took was someone giving me some amazing advice: “Change your playground.” We moved to the country, leaving London and our rock and roll ways behind, and I immersed myself in a world I found easier to navigate. It wasn’t long before I was pregnant again with my youngest, Betty, and I’ve never looked back. 

But the other question I wanted to ask was why it took so long for me to be diagnosed correctly. With all my addiction issues, I had seen plenty of consultants, psychiatrists and therapists in my time. In my view, the answer simply comes down to gender. Women have a tough time getting diagnosed with ADHD, in part because of stereotypes about what ADHD ‘looks’ like, but also because our hormonal changes can mask the true issue. Ovarian hormones interact with nearly every system in our bodies; that affects not just our medical health, but our mental and emotional health too.

I was quite a moody teenager. When I was very young, I got pregnant with my first child Daisy, and then went on tow have three more children (Alfie, Frankie and Betty) with Danny. For two decades I was pregnant with a tribe of children under my feet – is it any wonder that my moods were off the wall? And then just as I got through the other side of that, and my kids had grown up, along came the peri-menopause. Suddenly, I had brain fog, couldn’t sleep and become ‘irrational’. The problem is that with all these hormonal rites of passage, the symptoms of ADHD can easily be misread.

This has been an interesting journey for me. But I know I was lucky to eventually be able to get a diagnosis. Now,  I want to raise awareness for a condition that is just as likely to affect women as men. 

My life is still somewhat chaotic. My moods swing and I’m still tired at times, although I have learned to read contracts and check my bank balance. But I’m about to embark on my treatment; the consultant has prescribed a mild course of medication. And when I told him about my business mayhem and household chaos, he had a suggestion: “Have you ever thought about getting a PA?”

Pearl Lowe is a designer creating fashion and home décor, as well as selling vintage finds. You can check out her work through her website.

Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.

Images: Dave Watts Photography