'I was diagnosed with a 'kids' illness' at the age of 42.'

I was sponge child, born with a babble and a love of learning. Advanced at language, reading and writing, they gave me extra work at primary school to stretch me. I remember positive feedback and even the word ‘gifted’.

Later, there was also this:

“Loud, excitable. Distracts others.”
“Talks frequently in class.”
“Ms L, What does ‘interject’ mean?” “What you just did.”
“Would be an excellent student if she learnt to truly apply herself.”

And, from a classmate:
“Head like a sieve.”

Not uncommon for many of us, I suppose. I was coasting without trying too hard.

But by mid-high school things, had changed. Assignments became harder to submit on time. Tests and exams that needed dedicated study were more difficult to perform well.

Time management skills did not come naturally – then, hardly at all.

Notes shuttled between parents and teachers. Something was up and I didn’t know what. My track record and decent intelligence left everyone to deduce typical teen stuff and a growing social life were the culprits. I was a gold medal procrastinator blowing my best efforts on avoidance.

Then a rising sense of anxious dread took hold, along with mind blanks and average performances.  An inability to start things. Patchy follow through.

Everything took longer to process. My lethargic but stressed brain failed to engage its clunky gears, and they were left revving nowhere at each new task. Increased effort yielded ever less. Students I routinely outdid achieved greater academic returns than I could.

My final year was torturous. What I handed in (late) was alright, but productivity and exam scores continued to slide. Long-held anticipation about my place at uni was crushed by my mysterious academic decline. Crippling assessment phobia skewered any love left for institutional learning.

In the end, formal education and I parted ways at the end of high school with a narrow pass and a near breakdown for six months during which I simply could not physically read more than a few lines of text. I dived straight into a stimulating ad internship. Exam stress-dreams followed for years.

Leap forward 15 years. I’m the mother of a delicious little stuntman in early childcare; a busy little guy who’d been trying to escape since attempting barrel rolls off a change table.

My blessed young tike stood out soon enough, missing the point of many a protocol or sitting still. He took his world in in a way of his own and we had to work hard to keep him in his seat, off the bookshelves or indeed, in the classroom and not up a tree.

By five-and-a-half my boy had been diagnosed with both ADHD and what was then Asperger’s Syndrome (now ASD; Autism Spectrum Disorder). It was quite the shock and an extreme learning curve.  An avalanche of medical and anecdotal ADHD research formed an outline expectant of fidgeting, noise, hyperactivity, disorganisation, weak general focus, over-focus on detail. Impulsivity, lost belongings…

Neurology can be rather genetic. So it might have been the SOS calls from the principal’s speed dial that prompted me to trawl back through my own schooling.

In 2013, at the age of 42, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD.

My own diagnosis, though not really a surprise, was still a massive personal watershed. Blessed answers. It wasn’t a choice. The beginning of an ongoing, retrospective healing and reframing process. My confidence was shot, not so much by ADHD itself but the lack of access to any explanation. Sometimes answers to big questions are more important than solutions to big problems.

It explained all this and more: Mental disarray, streams of focus-splitting thoughts; book reading a chore with low retention; the assertion I was not applying myself when I knew trying didn’t work. I never understood it, yet I’d learnt to cover a great deal because I was smart. Hey, I somehow passed Year 12 without truly knowing what was in those blasted books.

For girls, ADHD can be less physical and therefore overlooked. There are still the mental inattentiveness and processing flaws - even indications exam conditions blank the mind further the harder it tries to focus. Ouch.

Those with ADHD vary but typically they:

• Are visual learners: Visually distractible with acute attention to movement and detail; ineffective reception and retention of auditory information/instruction.
• May have a weak working memory: (The area fragments of mind processes are held while you work through them, such as mathematic equations or “Why did I come here??”)
• May have overlap with some strong spectrum traits, such as sensory sensitivity.
• Have acute response to stimuli, sometimes working best under pressure and yet may be surprisingly calm in a crisis.
• Are challenged with prioritisation, time management, punctuality and executive functioning.

I cook dinner plugged into an ipod because multi-tasking stops dead with interference. I struggle on time for anything and it’s not because I’m rude - I simply cannot seem to factor in how much time it really does take to get from A to B - and parenthood ups the ante there.

By the time most of us with adult ADHD discover we have it, we’ve already acquired a lifetime’s worth of personal strategies (good or bad) to handle or avoid trial. Countless clever creatives and professionals have struggled and adapted under cover. In adults, medication success is mixed and polarising.

There are support groups, strategies and medication available and in the end there are more things to like about the way brains works differently to how they don’t. I notice things others don’t. I can’t help but be entranced by intricacies in movement, colour or beauty and the way things work. I’m a creative thinker and quick to visualise or draw association through perspective that makes things my own.

I will also say the ever-decreasing attention span of modern society is a great leveler.

And it comforts me no end that when peers begin having their senior moments, I’ll already be more than well-accustomed to mine.

Sharon Silverstone is a mum and former adland chick, living with kids, cats, chickens and a whole lot of colour and noise. Life is short: be kind and make art. You can visit her blog here.

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