Ever wondered if you have ADHD? In the past it seemed like this was a label reserved only for naughty boys, but these days more adults than ever are being diagnosed with the condition. Which begs the question: do some of us have it and don't even know? 

In this episode Anna is joined by comedian Shaparak Khorsandi, whose life was transformed for the better when she was diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in her forties. With the support of NHS consultant psychiatrist Dr Jessica Eccles, Anna and Shaparak explore how ADHD can affect us as adults, and what we can do if we suspect we have it.

We want to thank the wonderful Sarah and Chris from the online community HeyDHD who helped us out for this episode. You can follow them here.

To learn more about Shaparak’s ADHD journey, you can read her book Scatterbrain, available in all good bookshops. And you can find out more information about Dr Eccles' research at @drbendybrain.


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Have questions about sex? Divorce? Motherhood? Menopause? Mental health? With no topic off limits, Anna’s here to prove that whatever you’re going through, it’s not just you.


If you have a dilemma you’d like unpacked, visit itcantjustbeme.co.uk and record a voice note. Or tell Anna all about it in an email to itcantjustbeme@podimo.com


This podcast contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children. Listener caution is advised. Please note that advice given on this podcast is not intended to replace the input of a trained professional. If you’ve been affected by anything raised in this episode and want extra support, we encourage you to reach out to your general practitioner or an accredited professional. 


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I'm not the kind of person who wants to sit in a metal box.

I'm not the kind of person who wants to lie in a wooden box.

A third of bikers who have died on our roads were speeding.

So ease off the throttle and keep within the speed limit.

It's the show where we're all learning to love ourselves a little more.

Bloody hell, that was so vulnerable of you to write.

And chatting to some of our favourite people.

Anything in miniature size, I don't know why they try and make it cute.

He comes on full PVC mask and he's like, do you like me now?

We've got new episodes out every Tuesday, so just search for Go Love Yourself wherever you get your podcasts.

I have to admit, there are days when I feel totally distracted, unable to concentrate, and just downright overwhelmed, and the thought does occasionally cross my mind.

But at what point does everyday stress become something more complex and why does it seem like more adults than ever are being diagnosed?

who's really struggling with staying faithful.

And then I hated myself for feeling that way.

I'm joined in the studio today by comedian, writer and activist Shaparat Kasande.

Now Shapi was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in 2016 and has just written a book all about her experiences called Scatterbrain.

I mean, it couldn't be a more perfect title.

For Shappi, her diagnosis was the first step towards living a better life.

She says, when I was finally diagnosed in my 40s, it felt like the lights had been turned on after a lifetime in the dark.

So who better to help us learn all about ADHD?

It's that you're blurry, but I've seen you before.

That's all you need and we're just gonna focus on sound today anyway but I'm so pleased that you could join me not least because you've released a new book Scatterbrain which is all about your late diagnosis of ADHD so I'm really interested to get your take specifically on today's dilemmas.

But before we dive into some deep advice I want to ask you about your own it can't just be me dilemma.

So what have you brought in for us Shappie?

you know what I'm gonna sound so judgmental.

I'm gonna sound so judgmental but it can't just be me who judges people for going on holiday to Dubai.

Because If you've got all that money, why would you think, I'm going to go somewhere for my holidays that has artificial rain?

What to make the Europeans feel more at home?

Yeah, or just to make people survive the heat.

Because they've got workers who have to go out in that heat and work.

There's just something about going there on holiday specifically.

If you work there, that's not my business, but if you've got the money to go to all the different places in the world and you choose to go somewhere that went straight from the push bike to the Mercedes-Benz with no culture happening in between, I'm afraid I judge you.

I went on this Dubai rant to 1 of the dads at the school gate recently and he listened politely and then he went, that's where we got engaged.

Oh my God, what's being totally inappropriate just going on?

Yeah, there was no need to go on a rant about Dubai to a dad at school that I barely know.

I do feel better and you know what, if some people hate me for this, I'll live

So it's time to move on to our main topic for the day, namely ADHD.

And to help us with that we're joined by Dr.

Jessica Eccles who is a consultant psychiatrist and trained in the assessment of neurodevelopmental conditions including ADHD.

It's lovely to see your smiley face in here.

Now you appeared in a recent Channel 4 documentary about ADHD with Sam Thompson from Made in Chelsea.

And you were involved in exploring with Sam whether he actually had ADHD.

So we're really thrilled to have a bona fide expert in this area today.

Could you just give us a bit of a summary about what ADHD actually is, please?

So there's lots of misconceptions and rumours and things about ADHD.

So people typically think of ADHD as being sort of boisterous schoolboys who get into trouble.

But what we know is that ADHD is much more than hyperactivity and boisterousness.

So in girls and women this can be kind of daydreamy or inattentive.

But there are big things about ADHD that not everyone is aware of.

So that's about how quickly emotions can change and go from 0 to 60.

How much mental activity someone with ADHD may experience.

So constant thoughts which can make it hard to relax, hard to unwind, hard to go to sleep.

Sometimes it can bring some wonderful things like creativity, thinking on the spot and passion for all sorts of things.

So ADHD is something that has to have been present in childhood and there are different ways of approaching it and managing it which I'm sure we can talk about.

Shappi if I come to you I'm interested in what ADHD means for you because it was diagnosed for you later in life.

It's really beautiful the way I manage my life now and where my head is now.

But that started to happen before diagnosis because, you know, I'm not an idiot.

And so the school days were the most debilitating because I am a geek without portfolio.

So all my friends were the super clever people that were in the highest stream.

So I went to a comprehensive where depending on how you did on the 11+, you got put in band.

So all my friends were in band 1, the accelerated learning, and I was sort of kind of in 5 or 6.

But for English and French, I was brilliant.

And instead of thinking, well, why is this girl that we've sort of written off academically really good at these 2 subjects?

They kind of thought that, well, she likes these subjects and she's deliberately being annoying and not doing the others.

So I really struggled and Jess what you said about the hyperactivity in that scene for boys is so spot-on because how I managed it was masking which meant just drawing as little attention to myself as possible.

I never got into trouble and my brother got into trouble all the time and then at home with my parents he'd get into trouble for being in trouble.

And also I started to speak like this as a child even though I went to a comprehensive school where people sounded more cockney, but with this accent I got away with far more.

I'm so sorry miss but I wasn't able to do my homework last night because we had guests from Iran and there just wasn't time and they'd go, oh right, okay, got it, it's whatever.

And so, you know, I did really badly in my GCSEs and then for my A-levels I had a super clever friend who whisked me away to her mum's country home when I went to Sixth Form College.

And she wasn't messing about with studying for her A-levels.

Because I was with her at her mum's house, forced to sit down and go by her timetable, I ended up getting an A for my English.

And that A was life changing because I'd never got an A before and I felt like it was a you're not thick certificate.

And so I went to university, but by this time my self-esteem had been ground into the ground, right?

I worked as a cleaner and stuff before comedy paid the rent, which only took like 10 years.

So I must ask actually Jess, I mean you did mention the emotional dysregulation.

Shappie's just said that she tantrumed into her adult life.

It's absolutely part of the neurodivergent experience.

So there are many things that can lead to what look like tantrums, but these actually might be shutdowns or meltdowns so just too much going on, too many competing demands.

Although people don't talk about sensory sensitivities much in ADHD it's a big part having under sensitive and over sensitive things to sound, light, food, taste, texture and sometimes this can all become too much and a neurodivergent person may just seem to shut down or have a tantrum and it really is often in response to overwhelm.

Right I need to ask you and we may well come on to this later on as well but my immediate response to this is isn't that just all of us?

I feel like I have a meltdown in response to overwhelm.

I think it is part of human behaviour and ADHD is sort of like a spectrum at which we've portioned off the end of the spectrum.

So it might be that for non-ADHD people they may have 1 or 2 meltdowns in their life.

But for someone who is living with ADHD, is neurodivergent, this may be something that happens frequently or that they really try incredibly hard to avoid.

So they might take themselves out of situations where they think that this might happen.

So people might just actively say, well, I'm not going to go to that party because I know that there's going to be too much noise, there's going to be too much to concentrate on, I might say the wrong thing, I might end up drinking too much, I'm just going to take myself to bed because that environment is going to be overwhelming.

know Learning to do that finally was like the biggest gift life has given me because how that meltdown looked for me was catastrophic.

And throwing things because I can't find a shoe.

Witnessed by my nearest and dearest, never by strangers, never by friends because I can mask.

Like my three-year-old wasn't getting ready for nursery and I had a meltdown because I had work and time and going through a divorce and he said, age 3, you're not angry with me, you're angry with something else, but only I'm here.

So while I understand people saying, oh, well, I sometimes get cross over nothing.

If you saw the way I behaved you'd know that there was something wrong.

Well and I'm intrigued by this partly because I think I can identify so suddenly I'm kind of like oh my god have I got ADHD but also I'm thinking about one's family members and one's partner.

It must be very difficult for the people around somebody who's diagnosed with ADHD to be able to also cope with that.

Well you know if they knew I had ADHD I think it would have been a game-changer.

My last 2 partners have not known me to even lose my temper.

Tell you the difference, so before I started to get help a boyfriend might go, oh an ex-girlfriend of mine that emigrated has moved to Spain so I'm just gonna pop over and see her.

I would go okay I'm feeling insecure about this, Why am I not secure in my relationship?

I need to talk to my partner because if I'm feeling insecure then we need to speak and if we can't resolve it perhaps this person isn't the 1 for me.

Those thoughts go through my head now calmly and I'm able to, but at the time, why don't you go to Madrid and marry her and just absolutely cry and become hysterical.

Now when, when your partner is doing that, however justified it might be, your back's against the wall.

Now, the awareness of this is so critical because I've had the scaffolding of a loving family.

I've had the scaffolding of comfortable life and access to information.

If you don't have these things and you behave this way, it can escalate.

I'm not making an excuse for horrific behavior, but I will say our prisons are full of people with ADHD who have committed spontaneous crimes and who don't know they have it and they're marked as bad and all of this so it's so critical we talk about it.

I'm gonna come on to what changed for you shortly and how you then managed your ADHD and how you've become so much calmer.

I have a few dilemmas on this topic to put to you both today.

We were actually contacted by an online community called HeyDHD which is run by Sarah and Chris who were both diagnosed with ADHD as adults themselves and they've created the Instagram page to help other adults who've either been diagnosed with ADHD or suspect that they have it.

And they've shared some questions with us from their community.

So thank you very much to everybody who sent in their queries.

1 of them that caught my eye was this 1 from an anonymous sender.

And they wrote, I saw in a post on ADHD that 1 in 5 people is neurodivergent and 1 in 20 people has ADHD.

Why do so many people, including doctors, still not believe that it's real and that it can really affect us.

And just for reference those stats were taken from the ADHD Foundation.

Jess, do you think there are still doctors out there that don't believe in ADHD?

I think there are some that are sceptical and I think 1 of the problems is, as you have highlighted, and those figures are consistent with what's put out by Embracing Complexity, a coalition of neurodivergent charities, there's going to be at least 1 child in every classroom, several adults in every workplace who have ADHD.

I think the big problem is that we learn so little about it at medical school.

I learned a lot about things that are far far less common, affect maybe 1 in a thousand people, you know, schizophrenia or psychosis and they affect maybe 1 in a hundred people but something that affects maybe 5 times as many people isn't given the same weight in the curriculum and that really has to change.

Did you experience this cynicism Shafi as well?

I think America's been kind of ahead of us in awareness.

When I was in America in my 20s someone said to me I think you might have ADHD and I was

label everything So I was a cynic in my 20s.

And a big part of that, I think, is because I grew up at a time where mental health wasn't talked about.

And also ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the 2 Ds are incorrect.

We hyper focus, we have plenty of focus, but it's not always on the right things.

And that's the attitude shift that's changed.

We are coming out of a time where we're too frightened to admit that there might be something in quotes wrong with us.

Since I've come out, since I've come out as an adult, I have had avalanches of people sharing their stories.

I think that as we talk about it more people who may have it may gain the confidence to explore themselves.

Well let's talk about that because I'm really interested in the fact that it seems like a lot of adults right now have been diagnosed with ADHD.

I have a few friends personally who've been diagnosed recently, women, including my ex-partner Sue, who's talked about it publicly.

In the past, I think as Jess said, it's been associated with the disruptive boy in the classroom.

Why is it that more adults are being diagnosed at the moment?

And are we seeing that missing generation of women, do you think?

I would absolutely agree that yes, our diagnostic criteria and our screening tools have perhaps a systemic bias towards picking up men, boys, and we know that our assumptions about ADHD affecting men so much more than women are not true.

But just as Shappi said, girls, women, they often mask.

They put a lot of effort into appearing to be good children.

And this comes at quite the cost in terms of anxiety, fatigue and other things.

So if people feel uncomfortable about going to a doctor or a psychiatrist for diagnosis and feeling that they're labelled or as you say Shappie that there's something disordered about them.

Can they just self-diagnose via an online platform or does it need to be official?

So actually if you suspect you may have ADHD you can request consideration of reasonable adjustments in work and education without a formal diagnosis.

So this is sort of learning support plans at school and at university and also access to work.

The diagnosis is a gatekeeper for medication.

So there is no way legally that you would be able to take ADHD medication without an ADHD diagnosis in this country.

But you could self-diagnose if you suspect and then go to work and say look I believe that I may be on the ADHD scale so therefore what I'm asking for adjustments within the working environment.

Exactly and there are so many things little things that can make a big difference in the workplace.

So perhaps having access to a quiet space where you can concentrate or headphones so that you can use whatever you need to help focus.

Having structured breaks make a big difference.

Neurodivergence training for your boss and for your team so that they can understand what value a neurodivergent person may have in the workplace as well as the accommodations that would support them to thrive.

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OK, so let's move on to our next dilemma, which I'll read out.

So what should I say when people say ADHD is a superpower?

I don't feel that way and it hurts my feelings because I find daily life hard a lot of the time.

I don't buy into the whole superpower thing.

I think it's just 1 of those words that's been kind of, hey, it's my superpower.

Yeah, when I'm on stage as a comic, I feel very, very present.

But I don't think that's a superpower any more than someone who is really on top of their accounting.

I think these glib sort of terms aren't helpful.

Some people are good at some things, some people are good at the other things.

I can change plans in a second and roll with it, other people can't, but their dressing table is immaculate.

I think to sort of say it's my superpower, it's kind of a youthful ownership of something which in the past has been a taboo label.

So in that way I guess I understand why people use it.

I completely agree Shappi, I don't think we should weaponise this word super power and this whole idea of high functioning, low functioning, it is divisive.

Neurodivergent people have what is known as a spiky profile.

So they'll have some things which they seem to be good at and some things that they don't seem to be good at.

It's spiky and that's what makes them different to non-neurodivergent people who have a smoother profile.

So what you can do really is to try and work out what are those sticking points?

See all It Can't Just Be Me transcripts on Applepodcasts

Do I have ADHD? With Shaparak Khorsandi