Emily Hawkley

Payroll, Systems and Benefits Officer

I was diagnosed with combined ADHD 12 months ago. Combined ADHD means that I show characteristics in all 3 areas. These are Inattentiveness, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity.

Growing up, I had no real issues that didn’t seem like “normal” issues that many people faced. I was well behaved, well mannered, excelled at school and sport and whilst I didn’t have a large friendship group, I did have a small group of very close, intense friendships.

One area I did perhaps struggle with was my career, I never really stuck at a job more than 18 months but just put that down to not finding the right role or organisation for me. I know now it was me running away from things when they got tough instead of facing them head on.

Following the birth of my daughter in 2017 I suffered with post-natal depression. I was told it was normal,” lots of people get it”, “it will pass” and all the other things parents are told after the birth of a child. Only for me it didn’t pass. It became so hard to cope that I ended up receiving CBT counselling which really helped but didn’t address why I had it. No one seemed interested in the why Doctors just wanted to offer me medication and solve my immediate issue rather than understand the why.

Fast forward a few years, I have overcome the post-natal depression, and my daughter is now nearly 3. We attend her usual 2.5-year check with a health visitor, and this identified that she was delayed in development. We hadn’t picked up on this previously as she started walking early (9 months!!!!) and was very independent and physically capable. They identified speech and language issues, and this led to further conversations with many other professionals culminating in a referral for Autism and ADHD assessments when she was 4 years old. This was the start of my journey with neurodiversity.

As she began to get older, her struggles became more apparent. I started researching, learning, speaking to professionals all to understand neurodiversity and my daughter’s personal struggles. We learnt about the different types of neurodiversity, different characteristics, different presentations in different types of people, masking (this is the ability to cover one’s symptoms or struggles to appear “normal”). Prior to my research I had the usual stereotypical understanding of ADHD and Autism.

As a family we learnt coping mechanisms to teach my daughter to enable her to manage her symptoms and struggles daily. We taught our wider family how to manage these same struggles and how to best support our daughter.

In the process of researching, learning and teaching family it started to become apparent that a lot of my daughter’s struggles were the same as my own growing up. I spoke to family who said “she isnt different, she is the same as you when you were younger” and this is where my personal journey to diagnosis started. I started to connect my childhood, and early adulthood struggles and all of them were easily explained by ADHD.

I approached my daughter’s consultant for advice and she agreed and urged me to speak to my GP. I booked an appointment and did my research on my options so I could be prepared. Having been with my daughter through her journey for several years I knew that the process would be long, stressful and emotional.

My GP thankfully was very clued up on the topic and very supportive, he advised me about something called “Right to Choose” whereby I could make the choice that NHS waiting lists were too long and therefore I could choose a private provider at NHS cost. We discussed the options and made the referral together. 7 weeks later I was given an appointment, completed several assessments and associated tasks and this led to an immediate diagnosis.

Diagnosis for me arrived with a mixture of emotions and even a year on I am still going through that journey. At first there was relief, I now have an answer for all the things I struggled with as a child. I am no longer a problem, there is nothing “wrong” with me I just view the world in a different way. This was quickly followed by anger and sadness, if this was identified when I was younger would I have struggled as much as I did, how different would my life have been, would I have had post-natal depression. All these questions swirl around making you feel angry and sad. This is then replaced by a sense of “giving up”. There was a period where my brain decided life was hard and I couldn’t do it due to my ADHD. It is easy to use it as an excuse. Following my diagnosis, I chose to take medication to help manage my symptoms and on days when I didn’t take them, or they were not available I struggled a lot.

People may not be aware that there is a medication shortage for ADHD medication in the UK currently and this has been ongoing since April last year. This means that sometime the medication is not available, or I need to change to different medication or dosage amounts. This has led to me to start taking control of my own symptoms and struggles.

I started listening to podcasts, doing more learning and research on personal development and coping strategies for myself. I learned about how my diet and exercise levels can impact my symptoms and my ability to manage them. Slowly I started to reframe my own thinking so now instead of using ADHD as an excuse, I started to look at the strengths it gives me.  This has enabled me to start managing my day to day much more successfully. I know my strengths and struggles better than ever but more importantly I know my worth!

At TAAS, we have a great support network for people with neurodiversity and I have found comfort in this group being able to talk through my experiences. The best way I have found to process my thoughts and feelings is to talk about them openly and use my experiences to support others. On a daily basis I face struggles that impact me, my daughter may be struggling with her day or they may be my own struggles and the team I work in are supportive and understanding and I know I can speak to any of them if they need support.

Having an employer that values all employees and encourages those with neurodiversity, enabling them to thrive and succeed has meant that I am more committed to the organisation and my work, more motivated and more engaged. Knowing that I am in a safe environment at work to be the authentic me and be accepted for that makes the daily struggles easier to handle.

My advice to anyone is if you think you may have a neurodiverse condition then speak to your GP and seek help and guidance and for organisations my advice would be to get to know each person on an individual level, understand their personal traits, struggles and strengths and work with them. The neurodiverse community are an asset more than anyone realises as long as they get the support and adjustments they need to thrive.

You can read the experiences of our other TAAS colleagues here.