I am too much Pt 2 - I am enough

A follow-up to "I Am Too Much", written five days after receiving a formal ADHD diagnosis at 55.

The letter that changed everything

On Tuesday, a letter arrived. Three pages, clinical language, addressed to my GP.

It confirmed what I think I've always known but never had the words for: I have ADHD. Combined type. Inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity — all three.

I'm 55 years old. 56 in a few weeks.

Fifty-five years of not knowing

When I wrote "I Am Too Much" a few weeks ago, I was still sitting in the question. Still wondering. Still piecing things together through my son's diagnosis, through books and research and late-night rabbit holes.

Now I have the answer. And the thing nobody prepares you for is how strange it feels to have it.

Not devastating. Not even surprising, really. Just… clarifying. Like someone finally turned the lights on in a room I'd been stumbling around in my entire life.

How was this missed for so long?

During the assessment, I completed a QbCheck, an objective test that measures activity, attention, and impulse control. It's recommended by the NHS.

My total symptom score was 96, with me being in the 99th percentile for activity and inattention and 94th percentile for impulsivity.

All of this and nobody spotted it. Not a single teacher. Not a GP. Not a therapist. Not one person in 55 years looked at this restless, emotional, impulsive, people-pleasing, project-starting, friendship-losing, self-berating woman and thought: maybe it's not a character flaw; maybe it's ADHD.

I don't say that with anger. I say it with disbelief. And sadness. And a fierce determination that other women shouldn't have to wait this long.

"Everyone has ADHD these days"

You've probably heard it. Maybe you've even thought it yourself. With so many adults - particularly women - being diagnosed later in life, it can look like ADHD has suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

It hasn't. Yes, diagnosis rates have risen significantly — in some adult groups, they've increased twenty-fold since 2000. But the estimated proportion of the population with ADHD has remained relatively stable. NICE still puts it at around 3-4% of adults and 5% of children — figures that haven't shifted dramatically. What's changed isn't how many people have ADHD — it's how many are finally being identified.

For decades, ADHD was understood almost exclusively through the lens of hyperactive boys in classrooms. Girls who daydreamed, masked, people-pleased, and internalised their struggles were overlooked entirely. They didn't disappear. They grew into women like me — carrying decades of self-blame for something that was never a character flaw.

So when someone says "everyone has ADHD now," what I hear is: we're finally catching up. We're finally seeing the people who were always there but never had a name for what they were experiencing.

That's not a trend. That's progress.

The goals I didn't know I needed

As part of the assessment, they asked me to set goals, things I wanted to work towards. I didn't overthink them. They just came out:

I want to be able to see things through from start to finish.

I would like to have less "chatter" where I berate myself or beat myself up. I am learning to accept myself the way I am.

I want to be better at focusing on something that needs doing even if it bores me.

Reading them back now, I realise these aren't new wishes. They're the same things I've been fighting with my whole life. The difference is that now I understand why they've been so hard. It was never about willpower. It was never about trying harder. My brain is simply wired differently.

What the clinician saw

The assessment listed traits I've carried since childhood. Things I'd normalised. Things I'd blamed myself for:

• Starting tasks but quickly losing focus and getting sidetracked
• Working in a messy, disorganised way and losing time searching for things
• Talking when it's not appropriate and giving answers before people finish speaking
• Tiring quickly of workplaces and hobbies, leading to many short-term jobs
• Intense reactions to criticism and a fear of failure when starting new things

Every single one of these has shaped my life. My career. My relationships. My sense of self.

And every single one of them was there in childhood too. The teachers noticed. They just didn't know what they were looking at.

From "too much" to enough

In my last post, I wrote about reclaiming "too much." About starting to see my intensity, my empathy, my emotional depth not as flaws but as part of who I am.

This diagnosis doesn't change that. If anything, it deepens it.

Because now I know that the woman who cared too much, talked too much, felt too much, started too much, she wasn't broken. She was undiagnosed. She was unsupported. And she was doing her absolute best with a brain nobody had explained to her.

I'm not too much. I never was.

I am enough. I always have been.

What this means for my work

I've been training as an ADHD coach for several months now. I started because of my son, because I saw how hard it was to find the right support, and I wanted to be part of changing that.

But this diagnosis has added something I didn't expect: a deeper understanding of what it actually feels like to live with ADHD. Not from a textbook. Not from observation. From the inside.

I don't just understand ADHD. I live it.

When a parent sits across from me and says "I feel like I'm failing," I know that feeling, not theoretically, but personally. When a teenager says "everyone thinks I'm the problem," I've lived a version of that story.

That doesn't make me a better coach than anyone else. But it does mean I bring something to this work that can't be taught: lived experience, late-diagnosed perspective, and an absolute refusal to let anyone believe they're "just not trying hard enough."

If you're still wondering

If you're reading this and something feels familiar, if you've spent years blaming yourself for things that never quite made sense, please hear me.

You're not imagining it. You're not making excuses. And you're certainly not too late.

I was diagnosed at 55. I wish it had happened sooner. But I'm grateful it happened at all.

Whether or not ADHD turns out to be part of your story, you deserve to understand how your brain works. You deserve compassion, from others, and from yourself.

And if you need someone in your corner who truly gets it, I'm here.

If this resonated and you'd like to talk, book a free discovery call — no pressure, just a conversation.

You can also take the quiz to explore whether ADHD might be part of your story.