Late diagnosis ADHD stigma

hi friends hello hello hi hi lovely people hi hi hi um so yes thank you so I made a video uh opening up about how I have ADHD and so many of you left really wonderful delightful lovely heartwarming comments and sharing your stories um sharing how most of you were not anyway surprised that I haven't actually um thanks and um and it was just very lovely very lovely very heartwarming thank you I appreciate your support and I it was delightful thank you very much but I thought I would also do a foll

ow-up video with questions that people had from the first video so that is this this is that hello welcome to that video so it's an off the cuff one um where I will attempt not to talk too much about each question that's a major symptom of my ADHD so there you go I've already answered one question um people asked what are the main symptoms of your specific ADHD Jessica talking a lot I talk a lot um I I'm not really letting people finish their sentences Because by the time they started a sentence

and got a few letters in and my brains already come up with 50 ways for the sentence to end so I genuinely used to find talking to people quite boring because I had already completed their sentence in my mind um which is not a very healthy way really to communicate with other people it just got better as an adult I think because we have a wider range of topics to talk about now where is the mirror children about the same thing most of the time which probably didn't help so the first actual ques

tion what sparked you to First seek a diagnosis um for me it was actually reading parenting books might be an interesting one there but we started reading parenting books I think about a year before we even started trying to conceive Rupert which is quite far in advance I would definitely interestingly uh I'm a planner a big planner which I guess you would expect like I have the makings of being one of those people who color like color coordinates everything has all the different labeled sticky

tabs and the highlighters and I do own these things it's just the putting them into the practice and then maintaining that uh structure that is the difficulty for me but I do I do love a system I do love an organizational system and it does work really well for me when it's working so in reading the books it was a lot about like turtles out being naughty when they do things multiple times they're just trying to learn the boundaries and they don't learn about the consequences of their actions unt

il they're later on to what they're about eight and I'm reading this and being like I'm sorry other people know the consequences of their actions is that a thing I don't I don't really I don't no I don't I don't really know the consequences of my actions at all and I remember a lot as a child getting told off of things I mean like why would you do this when you knew that this would happen and be like wow would I know that would happen I didn't I wouldn't know that jiggling this jug would make it

fall over how silly and I still do that I am the grand age of 34 and I still do stuff that then ruins things and I'm like wow but another human have known that this bad stuff would happen done I think maybe as a child uh and I didn't uh I didn't continue the growth damn I wonder what happened there should probably look into that so I did it's called ADHD this video is a paid partnership with better help because as we talk about getting a new diagnosis oh my goodness can it be helpful to talk to

a professional about your mental health both better help and I believe that everyone no matter your age gender sexuality race or disability status should be entitled to therapy better help assess your needs and match with a credential therapist from the thousands they have available so you should find a good match even if you're looking for a specific type of therapist or someone who specializes in a particular area that you're having trouble with right now or even someone who speaks maybe a sp

ecialist language and isn't normally available in your area maybe exclusively speak to therapists who specialize in disability well that's made easy with better help and don't worry if you don't find the perfect match at first because with better help it is okay to change your mind and easy as you can imagine having a ADHD I changed my mind a lot and thankfully Better Health are here to help me and not judge me if I want to and you don't even have to tell the therapist you just like press the bu

tton you don't even have to have like a breakup one of my favorite things about better help is also that it is accessible if you have time constraints because of a chronic illness you can easily find appointments with a therapist who's available at a time that suits you and it just take away the travel time which is ideal for me because I've not always feeling physically well enough to leave bed out of my house you know but your mental health therapist doesn't mind if you date the call from the

comfort of your own bedroom all therapists on the platform are trained experienced and accredited they've got a range if you're interested in trying better help just head to the link in my description betterhelp.com Jessica Carroll Converse art for 10 of your first month what is your relationship with the words deficit and disorder do they make you feel less than interesting so that would be attention deficit hyperactivity disorder I personally don't have an issue with words that are bad like th

at um in much the same way that I previously I don't have a problem with the word disabled applied to me I don't think it's a it's a bad thing and I need to feel bad about it being um applied to me because I I think it is a very true and like I I do have a um and a problem in that sense it is a disorder of my brain my brain has a a difference in the way that it is wired to the way that other brains are wired the fact that it is I mean you could say that that brain is like orderly because it is t

he standard and that my brain would be disorderly in that it is differently wired that would be one way of looking at it I suppose um it doesn't feel to me that it's a it's a harmful word I would see it only as um as a helpful word that I could use to explain to people what my world is like internally so it's a it's a bonus that I can easily have something to say to someone else oh I have a disorder in my function of attention and ability to process information I'm I'm someone could say oh okay

thank you for telling me that's great good now I know I can better assist you in this way so for that I think that's only a bonus right brilliant cool now I have a way to help someone attention deficit as you think of that it's quite it's a quite an interesting thing really because one thing about ADHD is that um your attention is sometimes yes in a great deficit in that it moves it's going all over the place right sometimes you just cannot pay attention but sometimes it is hyper focused and you

have so much attention even way too much into something but I do still see that as a deficit because it's hard to pull it out and bring it where I want it to be so it is still again a bit of a helpful word for me because I'm I see it as a term that um helps me to understand how my brain works why a different dress a different day I had to I had to stop filming I don't know what you're talking about chaotic perhaps uh yeah no I I've just been I've been struggling with migraines this week fun fun

potentially unrelated story to to ADHD uh yeah still have physical disabilities we still have it's not like ADHD is a new thing in my brain just knowing about it is new anyway um let's go on so moving on to a question that does actually relate how does ADHD affect my physical disabilities I would say this is obviously a difficult question to answer in some ways it's very difficult to pull apart symptoms like where do they come from why does this happen fatigue what causes it could it be because

I have a missing Gene that means there's a hole in the Milan sheath around my nerves and my body's trying to constantly overcome that and that's exhausting or is it because I have ADHD and my body wants to move all the time and is constantly doing this and that is exhausting both oh everything and my brain doesn't shut up and I cannot go to sleep because it will not shut up both of those could lead to fatigue so it's very difficult in that way to pull apart a symptom and say why does that happe

n but I think the things that I can point to and say your ADHD makes this easier or this harder when it comes to physical health is that it makes taking care of myself and having a disabled body um a lot harder ADHD makes taking care of your own body harder and it makes it a lot harder when your body has a lot of additional needs anyway I used to liken um having a disabled body to having a baby I used to think when I was going to University like I'm going to University and I'm being a student fo

r the first time but it's as if I'm joining University and I also have a baby to look after I also have to think all the time about well you know if I go there or I've got to be back at this certain time because I've got to look after the baby my body and I've got to make sure that I've got food in I can't just oh skip a meal grab some food here I have to always be prepared I have to always think about nourishment I have to always make sure I'm getting enough food that I've always got my medicat

ion blah blah blah blah and that's difficult when you have a brain that forgets to do stuff a lot and adult thing is a bit complex sometimes so in that way it does have a drawback to my physical health but I guess in many ways um it also makes things a bit easier because you know what I'm overboard and I have spent a lot of time lying down due to being ill for various reasons maybe I feel sick maybe I've got a terrible migraine maybe my blood pressure's horrendous so I'm just I'm on the floor to

day it's just all I can see is ceiling but I'm never bored because my brain is it's running a mile a minute there's so much going on in there so much all the time um yeah yeah it's a lot a lot so that's good that is a positive about EHD I am I am very busy very busy in there and another positive then is my medication which I have found a lot of you come asked from my last video I did speak about it in my previous video which you can click the link here or the in the description down there to wat

ch about the impact of my medication on my physical health how did that affect things and I've actually found that taking stimulant medication which is what I am currently taking I sort of said I'm not going to really go into like the different types of meds that I specifically take or have tried because every single body is different and I don't want to accidentally sway you into trying something or thinking something's really good just because it works for me because of my notebook for you and

the type that I take I've found has had a really positive impact on my physical health because it's helped push my blood pressure up a little bit and really to help stabilize it in a way which is great because I have I have pots postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome it's not a long one um again if you don't know what that is I have an explainer video where it can click here but that means that my blood pressure tends to be all over the place very much to kind of stand up and whoop blood pre

ssure goes down and I'm falling over and painting but with my medication it's been a lot more stable I've found my swelling has produced less I used to get like a lot of big my joints swelling a lot my medication has reduced that don't ask me why not a doctor I'm going to talk to one though and find out more about this I I found that I have been able to do more physically a bit um whether that then like has a great after effect is debatable I feel more able to do things physically so I do more t

hings physically does that then mean that I was actually able to do more things physically not sure because I do then need more time to recover afterwards so I don't know it's it's interesting I feel more capable um whether or not I am is is in question uh what strategies have you developed to cope with ADHD oh my goodness um so many so many so many firstly I have found that using Google Calendar is probably one of my absolute favorite things for coping I'm sorry if this makes a noise it's not b

ash them together um but yeah Google Calendar is probably one of the best ones creating different calendars within Google Calendar are then different colors that's a really good one because then you're better able to understand what it is that's actually uh going off so for me the way that I work I have sort of a calendar that is the color for writing a color calendar is the color or filming a calendar that is the color for editing a calendar that is the colorful lifestyle just so I kind of I ca

n work out what it is that's going on where and I can look at that in my day you can also do things like color blocking or it can be a whole day event that type of thing it's always really helpful for me and I'll actually leave notes to myself within my Google Calendar as a whole day event because I know that I'll check it in the morning the next day so if I want to leave myself note that's like reminder to send flowers to friends I will put that in as a whole day event on the next day just to g

ive myself that note um reminder to tell Claudia that you'd like to do this I'll leave it as a calendar notification to myself you could just text your wife or something or tell her because she's sat next to you but no calendar event the next day so that's always a great one and pieces of paper for me I have a whole video about how I have a memory board which is like a mind board where I just sort of uh write stuff down so that's quite a good one lots of people have different ways of using their

mind some people it's obviously a more visual thing that they need pieces of paper are just a joy for me a joy I I can't really do everything online it very much has to be um I have to use pieces of paper that has to be one of the things um I guess another coping mechanism is also my hands moving my hands yeah as a child I used to do um I became obsessed with uh symmetry um in order to cope with my like being really hyper I I taught myself to do everything symmetrically so I would write forward

s with my right hand and backwards with my left hand so that I could write at the same time that was a way to calm myself down your face you yeah I guess that makes sense um I also used to fold pieces of paper and that's another really good thing so if you get an A4 piece of paper and you just keep folding and folding and folding and folding it and and you make the lines really precise until you fold it into the smallest possible number of lines it can be I was a very strange child I suppose but

this was how I used to calm myself down to cope with being hyper I just used to like film maths books with with oi I used to put alarms on my phone for things like medications and time to go to bed and I would ignore them ignore them hard so I don't do that anymore because it's pointless I will just turn it off so now it's people I mean people do it I get someone else to tell me that it's time to take my medication that's what helps that most of what works brilliant thank you other humans um an

d I I know if I'm gonna because I pre-medication I did have an issue with my um emotional emotional dysregulation and I would get to I would sometimes can get too deeply like upset about something or not even upset but just too intensely emotive about a thing so I would connect my attention to something else like find something else to be obsessively interested in whether it's a mobile game or a book series or a type of baking something that I would just become very very obsessed with whilst I k

now something highly emotive is about to happen or is ongoing um and if I knew that that was coming up I would just find something obsessive as a way of preventing myself from going off the going off the emotional plank is any of that helpful I shouldn't maybe I should look into some more actually like tips when you signed in videos did it help give you stimming relief and the answer is yes yes it did yes it does um it still very much helps me to sign with Rupert I'm with Claudia so yes said yes

it does were you nervous to reveal your ADHD diagnosis yes yes I was um yes I guess it's like an interesting it's an interesting thing right to be like why why I'm supposed to be all and I'm yeah I guess I'm I'm an advocate for Disabilities right I shouldn't be nervous about it but also I am because it's a you know personal thing my personal feelings but I definitely felt it it felt really lovely to get diagnosed I I felt a great sense of relief um and that's something that I also saw in commen

ts particularly on the sort of reel that I made and Instagram people like why why is it a nice thing to be diagnosed why would you feel good about it what does it matter I'm like well because because it's a sense of relief right because my brain has been the same way whether I have a diagnosed label or not it's just that now I know why my brain is different to the brains why I react differently to these situations and why I there are things that I can't comprehend in the same way um as other peo

ple or as I have been told that I should um it's really lovely to be like oh yeah that's why and it was such a a fulfilling experience to sit through my diagnostic process and be told by a doctor like yeah I know wow as a as a child as a teenager as a young adult that must have been really hard for you to do as someone who has ADHD I'm like yeah yeah yeah it was rather than just that must have been hard full stop or all the kind of like um yeah most people are able to do that yeah down most peop

le are why could I but to instead have it recognized as right yes that was that was a difficulty so it felt lovely for me but as someone who already has physical disabilities like I've got two of them as well like I've got two genetic disabilities and I'm like wow cool here's my here's my third um it's um not that not that everyone's ADHD is uh genetic it's not it doesn't necessarily worked out bad but not something that everyone necessarily understands the way that um if you have if you have on

e thing wrong with your body you are more likely to have other things wrong with it as well because that's the way bodies and and brains work as well we are um like clocks with theories of cogs right and if one chord goes wrong or is out of step out of beat then the elders are also more likely to be so and that is very much the case with me the series of funny-shaped cogs is it helpful to tell someone who's showing clear signs of ADHD no I don't really think it's great I dare to necessarily tell

someone straight out um I think you have X um unless you are like this person's absolute nearest and dearest and they are expressing to you you know I'm really struggling with my brain I think I might have a neurodivergence I'm not sure what it is I'm not sure which one it might be and then you can be like I mean have you ever considered it could possibly be I don't know like could it be ADHD something like that and you're just like maybe putting it out there because you know you're just giving

options because they've asked for options that's fine I think if you're it's a bit different if they are just being a bit a little bit messy today you're like I think you've got ADHD friend that's not not quite the same thing not quite the same thing much like telling people you think they're gay it's not it's not really the done thing there house how does ADHD affect your parenting well I think in some ways this definitely goes back to back to the start of the video in terms of parenting books

like we are quite aware that due to compounding factors we need to be more prepared there needs to be more planning more prepping more schedules so we definitely keep a routine um where a lot of our baby friends uh friends who have children we sort of say you know well what what books do you follow what kind of what's your routine for this business and they've been like uh nothing Jessica we don't it's not really how we it's not how we roll we just do things as it happens and that is not possib

le in this house absolutely not we could not allow things to just have to just be because things would rapidly get out of control I suppose if I'm left alone without Claudia without Paige hey page um and without any assistance I will forget to eat I will forget to take my medication I will probably either spend the entire day like cleaning one area of the house or like moving up and down up and down up and down up and down the house or I just won't move at all brilliant just generally doing thin

gs that aren't great for me unless I have a real structure and a plan and the same thing is true of our parenting where we need a good routine so from the age that Rupert was really little we had a structure in place and it wasn't a kind of to the minute the baby has to eat right the second and has to fall asleep right this second because babies aren't like that but it was very much this is when we start preparing the food this is when we start winding down this is when we make sure that we have

everything ready to do the next step whether that be like bath time or going out to the park making sure that each day had a regular flow to it which was really something that was very helpful both for him as a little baby and for us as parents and our days are still very much like that we still need to eat at the same time do the same thing in the evening having ADHD as a parent makes you a lot of fun I think he has a great time um with me like I think it's great for kids to have parents who w

ill randomly dance in the kitchen and I mean dress like a fairy princess is that related to ADHD maybe not I don't know but his his school friends like it so how yeah he has a he has a sense of fun into his life for sure love playing with him I have no issue uh doing repetitive games with him forever and ever and ever his current favorite thing in the moment is sticker books really into stickers especially they're like Dolly Dressing ones where it's a series of people on the page and then you pu

t their clothes on them he loves to know their names and things about them and he will go what's this one's name what's this one's name what's that one called what's this one's name what's this one's name what's that one called over and over and over again and you just need to repeat their names and give one identifying piece of information about them over again over again and again and again and again and again and um and I find that having ADHD I I don't really get bored very easily because ag

ain I've got very many different streams of information going on in my head all at once it's fine I just divert one of them to saying the names of the character on a page repeatedly okay well thank you so much everyone for watching all the way to the end of the video uh it's it's been lovely uh sharing some more things with you let me know what else you would like to see in the kind of ADHD vein I would love to make some more videos about ADHD um I think I'd like to make some collabs with ADHD Y

ouTubers that's weird YouTubers who have ADHD also just look into different topics and areas um about the conditions so let me know what you would be interested in seeing from me down in the comments below again thank you so much to everyone who left such really warm and lovely messages on my uh coming out about ADHD video it I was genuinely quite nervous um to talk about it so it is really lovely to have had such a positive response so thank you really thank you very much thank you um that was

very kind and if you're new here and this is your first ever video or you've been watching a number of videos for a while and just haven't remembered to subscribe then my goodness do so the buttons right down there it's clearly marked hit subscribe I'm so close to a million subscribers now come on um hit it and then I will think of something very exciting to do for my 1 million subscribers yay thank you again to better help for sponsoring today's video don't forget you can get 10 off your first

month if you click the link in the description to betterhelp.com that's better and then help help.com Jessica calgrenfosard I know it's a difficult move to say again thank you so much for watching and I will see you in my next video bye foreign