Earlier this week, a doctor made headlines after diagnosing Prince Harry with attention deficit disorder during a live Q&A. Dr Gabor Maté, an expert in trauma and childhood development, made the claim while the pair were speaking to each other at an event to promote Prince Harry's memoir, Spare.
Speaking to the Duke of Sussex, Dr Maté said: "Whether you like it or not, I diagnosed you with ADD. It takes one to know one, so I share that diagnosis."
ADD is known more commonly today as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is a condition that affects a person's behaviour, leaving them restless, unable to concentrate, and impulsive.
READ MORE: What is attention deficit disorder as Prince Harry diagnosed with ADHD
It is usually diagnosed during childhood, but some people don't received a diagnosis until later on in life.
Robyn Clarke was told she had ADHD in November last year at the age of 25. Before her diagnosis the Salford-born freelance social media manager thought she may have had ADHD when she started deeply resonating with TikTok videos about the condition.
“At first I just kind of brushed it off as a coincidence." She told the MEN.
"It was things like being unorganised, being forgetful, forgetting what you’re talking about halfway through a sentence, not being able to focus on work, not being able to focus on relationships, all these things.
“I struggled with mental health my whole life, so I always just put it down to that and then I just couldn’t get it out of my mind that maybe it could be something else. I spoke to my doctor, we went through everything and it took over a year and a half for me to get diagnosed, it was a very long process.”
Robyn says that she believes the long wait was due to other people like her seeking help after coming across similar videos about ADHD on social media during the pandemic.
“I think people were waiting even longer than I was to be honest," she explained.
"The process was kind of like, you get put on a waiting list and get forgotten about until it’s your turn. Some days were kind of really hard for me because I wanted an answer and some days I would just completely forget about it.”
Now living in Withington, Robyn says that looking back she now notices things in her past that may have indicated that she had ADHD but thinks that she may have ‘flew under the radar’ due to her being a smart girl and the stereotype of young people with ADHD at the time being “hyperactive little boys that couldn’t sit still”.
Speaking about her struggles in the education system that seeped into her adult life, she said: "The main things for me was just really struggling at uni and work.”
“When I was at school I kind of flew under the radar because I was smart but I would also get things on my report card that would say like ‘she would do so much better if she could concentrate or just stop talking for five minutes’. Which is obviously a clear indicator of ADHD.
“When I got to uni I really started to notice that I couldn’t manage my own time, I couldn’t turn up to things on time, I was missing my coursework deadlines, just things like that.
"Obviously, I finished uni and went to work and had the exact same problems, just amplified, and obviously there’s a lot more support at uni whereas when I’m at work, if you can’t do you work you get fired.”
But what does it actually feel like to have ADHD? “Honestly, it’s a mixture of emotions at all times." Robyn said.
“I’m really up and down with my emotions, I can either be really hyper-focused on something and that’ll be the only thing I’ll do, I forget that anything else exists basically.
“On the opposite side, I’ll feel very overwhelmed, really anxious. It’s like I’m very aware of the fact that I can’t manage my time and things but no matter what I do, it just doesn’t seem to get better.
“It’s hard as well because I didn’t realise I had ADHD until I was quite older, I always just thought I was lazy and it was my own fault and it wasn’t a neurological thing.”
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Robyn says that the day she got her diagnosis was a ‘mixture of emotions’. Since then she has taken steps in her life to help her cope with conditions like going freelance to set her own work schedule and use social media to connect with others in the ADHD community.
“When I got my diagnosis I got the biggest sense of relief. It was like ‘wow I have an answer now, I can go out and learn about my brain and put some processes in place to help me’.
“On the flipside I felt a lot of resentment for the fact that I had been in and out of the child mental health services until I was 14 and it had never been picked up on. I did kind of feel disappointed that I could have had extra support put in place had they noticed.
“But at the end of the day I’m just glad that I know now.”
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