I turn off my alarm, pick up my phone and open Apple News to see that Sheridan Smith has opened up about her recent ADHD diagnosis, and my head is filled with just one question: how many women in the spotlight are going to open up about their late diagnosis of ADHD before we, as a society, step back and realise just how many women have been let down by the system and are in need of answers?

In the past couple of years alone, we’ve heard from Nadia Sawalha, Melanie Sykes, Christine McGuinness, Fern Brady, Paris Hilton, Olivia Attwood, and Georgia Harrison (to name but a few) about how the late discovery and diagnosis of their neurodivergence has changed their life. These women all share incredibly similar stories: they struggled through life, always knowing that they were different, always feeling as though something was ‘wrong’ with them, often battling through periods of horrific mental health while receiving little to no answers or support from the medical system about what was really going on. Then, later in life, whether that’s in their 20s, 30s, 40s or 50s, they were lucky enough to come across the world of ADHD, autism and neurodivergence, and all of their questions were answered – questions I can bet are almost the exact same ones I spent the best part of 25 years chasing around my mind.

What is so wrong with me? Why am I so sensitive? Why can’t anybody see that I am a nice person? Why do I find things so difficult to understand? Why can’t I just keep up with life in the same way that everyone else can? Why am I so lazy? Why am I so much more incompetent than anybody else? Am I a terrible person?

“Just how many women with ADHD have to be let down by the system before something changes?”