"How I Turned to Alcohol to Mute the Chaos: Bailing on Three Universities and Boyfriends Revealed My Hidden ADHD Struggles"

IT WAS by chance that Annabel Fenwick Elliott got the ADHD diagnosis she’d desperately needed as a child, when she was aged 34.

By this point, she was wallowing in self-hatred, having spent three decades being told she was scatty, addicted to booze and unable to hold down a relationship for more than a year – meanwhile, her brother had got a diagnosis aged seven.

Annabel Fenwick Elliot drank for years to calm the incessant chatter in her headCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott Unlike her brother, who was diagnosed with ADHD at 7, Annabel didn’t get her own diagnosis until she was an adultCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott

Even now, Annabelle says she is ’embarrassed’ to admit that she has the condition because it is so widely thought of as ‘.

But experts say that ADHD is actually , and support is failing those with it – despite raised awareness of symptoms generating the huge chatter around the condition.

What’s more, it’s more likely to be missed in schoolgirls, compared to boys.

A study this week found that when , they are at risk of serious problems such as depression, self-harm and teenage pregnancy.

Here, Annabel describes her life until the point she was told she had ‘off the charts’ – and the symptoms that flew under the radar.

I’m somewhat embarrassed these days to admit I have ADHD. Not because I’m ashamed to have it – when harnessed correctly, it’s a competitive advantage – but because it is arguably the most overdiagnosed, overexploited condition of our times.

I don’t even believe half the people who claim to have it, which hardly makes me a good poster child for what is a very real and at times, debilitating state of being.

And yet, my life got measurably better after my surprise diagnosis was confirmed.

It explained the chaos of my history leading up to that day, reframed my past and changed the course of my future.

So I was unsurprised to see a new study from Cardiff University that found were more likely to suffer from anxiety, and self-harm, as well as drug and alcohol misuse.

I checked all these boxes in my teens and twenties, and I doubt I would have, to that level of severity, had I known about my neurological disorder sooner.

The clues were there from the very beginning; I was always a restless child, and my school reports – unlike every other aspect of my youth – were consistent.

I lacked focus, lost books, turned up in the wrong uniform, didn’t do my homework and was often absent altogether.

Despite this, and to the great annoyance of my , I was also a straight-A student when it came to crunch time, because last-minute cramming for exams was my speciality.

While my brother, who had his ADHD confirmed at seven, was obviously bouncing off the walls, my circus was always in my head, noticeable only to myself. I may have looked like I was just daydreaming, but I never had a moment of calm

Annabel Fenwick Elliott

For this reason, I got away with it on the surface, and no one suspected I had any sort of disorder.

This is true of many girls, who tend to go undetected until well into adulthood because of how differently ADHD presents compared to boys.

Indeed, male children are four times more likely to be diagnosed.

While my brother, who had his ADHD confirmed at the age of seven, was obviously bouncing off the walls, my circus was always in my head, noticeable only to myself.

The signs of Annabel’s condition were present from childhoodCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott As an adult , she struggled to hold down a job but thrived in the high pressure environment of tabloidsCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott Being impulsive and forgetful also put a strain on Annabel’s friendships and relationshipsCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott

I may have looked like I was just daydreaming, but I never had a moment of calm.

The best way I can describe it is this: imagine you’re in a room and you’ve forgotten what you came in for.

There are several TV screens on the wall, all blaring different channels, plus a playing loud music behind you, a gaggle of people in the corner whispering to one another, a toddler tugging at your trousers asking inane questions and then someone in the doorway yelling at you because you can’t concentrate.

Day in, day out, constantly.

The nature of my messy school days followed me into my adult life.

I was a restless soul; winning places at both the Universities of , which I bailed on after a term, and , which I left after two years without graduating.

I was also drinking heavily by this stage – the only reliable strategy I had for calming my thoughts.

On paper, I would have been classed as an alcoholic. Not that you would have guessed it, for I was a highly accomplished wreck head.

My drinking flew under the radar of my friends and family, but I was stuck in a cycle of throwing back a bottle of a night or abstaining completely for weeks at a time.

So tight was the alcohol chokehold that I drank .

I carried the detrimental habit with me until fairly recently, when I came across the .

ADHD laid waste to work and friendships

After university, I was just as flighty with , burning through many professions: model, bartender, and advertising executive among them, before I finally fell into journalism, which played to my strengths.

All my bosses before that will have told you the same thing: I was skittish, late, unreliable – and thus useless at most ‘normal’ roles – but highly competent when the job was at its most challenging.

Much is made of the fact that ADHD makes it hard for us to concentrate and to sit still, which is true.

Lesser known, however, is that we thrive under tough conditions – we’re battle-hardened.

When a topic fascinates us or when we are under high pressure – preparing for exams being a good example – we can enter ‘hyperfocus’.

It’s a state of extreme engrossment that will have us glued to a task for hours on end, forgetting to eat, drink or use the bathroom.

We’re great in emergencies. It is even theorised that ADHD has long had evolutionary benefits.

“In the context of hunter-gatherer societies, the traits associated with ADHD – notably novelty seeking, impulsivity, and a heightened state of alertness – likely offered considerable adaptive advantages,” states the Sultan Lab for Mental Health Informatics, at Columbia University.

Annabel only got diagnosed with ADHD at 34, after interviewing a psychiatrist for a newspaper storyCredit: SWNS Annabel with her son Jasper, who she says is already showing signs of the conditionCredit: SWNS

As for the more mundane aspects of everyday life? Not so much.

It’s why I did my best working for national tabloids, where deadlines are tight and there’s no room for complacency.

But my relationships were always mayhem.

Friends didn’t respond much better than employers when it came to my being impulsive, forgetful and high-octane.

One of my closest school friends stopped talking to me during our twenties, she later explained, because she couldn’t stand the ‘chaos’ that I always brought with me everywhere I went.

Boyfriends never lasted either. I used to berate myself for the fact that I could never hold down a romantic relationship for longer than a year or two.

The self-hatred only made me jump around more.

Forgiving myself for destructive traits

So when I ended up at a Swiss rehab clinic at the age of 34, to interview one of the world’s most eminent psychiatrists, Dr Thilo Beck, for a newspaper story, and he told me within ten minutes of meeting that it was highly likely I had ADHD, the penny dropped.

I was, as per Beck’s suggestion, formally diagnosed back in London by a psychiatrist shortly thereafter, and found to be on the high end of the spectrum.

I scored 9/9 for attention deficit and 8/9 for hyperactivity – people with ADHD can be mostly one of these, or a combination of both.

What helped me the most was forgiving myself some of the more destructive traits and making friends with the strengths it gave me.

I explained my ADHD early on in my relationship with my now-husband Julius, and I’m sure it helped us build a healthier union than one I’ve ever had before.

We’ve been together for five years now and have a son, who, incidentally, is already showing signs he may have inherited it.

ADHD may have cost me a lot. But it’s also my superpower, and these days I don’t run from it, I use it

If so, we will make sure he’s never admonished for it as I often was in my youth.

When I take my ADHD pills, I am able to churn through mundane tasks, remember appointments and hold conversations like a neurotypical person would without talking too fast or interrupting.

What also happens is that I become boring, less creative and drained of my humour.

Julius actually prefers me unmedicated.

I’m glad, on balance, that my brain is wired the way it is – I just wish I’d known all this much sooner.

ADHD can be ponied about too much as an excuse for bad behaviour. But anyone who genuinely has it will tell you that the relief that comes from finally having a name for it was transformative to their lives.

Knowing that I had a neurological that made me operate differently was a lot more useful than just assuming, as I always had done, that I was a substandard person.

ADHD may have cost me a lot. But it’s also my superpower, and these days I don’t run from it, I use it.

Annabel with her husband Julius Scholtes – she says her diagnosis has helped them build a strong unionCredit: SWNS Annabel now forgives herself for the destructive traits ADHD can drive and uses the positive ones to her advantageCredit: Annabel Fenwick Elliott