Name: 'I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult' | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2025-07-17T08:53:09.000Z
Duration: 5 min 35 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

When I left school I did a course on hotel management.

I nearly got thrown off it because I was caught riding on the cleaning machines down the corridor when we did the housekeeping.

After that I went and worked for solicitors.

My late dad, I remember him saying to me once, Joe, you're like a butterfly.

He said, well, you go from one thing to another.

When are you going to actually settle on something?

I just thought I was rubbish at a lot of things.

I thought that just, I was forgetful and that was, I was a bad person.

I tried medication and that worked and then things started to sort of calm down.

I'm still quite angry about a lot of things.

I'm angry about what I could have maybe been.

I remember my mum and dad being called in to see the headmaster and him saying, Joe could absolutely achieve, but she just needs to concentrate and get on with it.

So I do feel really sad for that girl now.

Back in the seventies, I've never heard of ADHD.

Headteacher said she could absolutely achieve.

That panic and that guilt and that worry.

Even though there's no one to blame, doesn't mean I can't feel angry about it.

I want to let myself shine, but I'm still working it all out.

Give me time, some understanding, and I'll get there.

And now I know why my dad used to call me a butterfly.

I just wanted to spend more time with her, and now I understand.

It's quite a relief, actually, to be able to finally say all of that.

It's a bit like, if you want to have a difficult conversation with someone and you don't know where to start, you never do it.

Well, I've just done that with lots of people closest to me in one go, which is really scary to start off with.

But now it's done, I feel a real sense of relief and feel that people then understand you. to get a notification each time we upload a new video.