To celebrate Neurodiversity Awareness Week, Sarah and Paul unpack what ADHD really is—and Paul nervously, (over)shares that he joins the 1 in 7 people with his ADHD diagnosis. They cover the three ADHD presentations, whether VAST is a better description, a plain English look at dopamine, time blindness and hyperfocus, and they myth-bust the classics: “everyone’s got ADHD now,” “everyone forgets things,” and “it’s just social media.”

You’ll get practical tips for supporting experts by experience, colleagues, friends and family living with ADHD, plus a short, honest section on safety and life expectancy. It’s psychoeducation with questionable humour. Come for the learning, stay for the highly caffeinated squirrels that keep trying to take over the show.

References

Barkley, R.A. & Fischer, M. 2018, ‘Hyperactive Child Syndrome and Estimated Life Expectancy at Young Adult FollowUp: The Role of ADHD Persistence and Other Potential Predictors’, Journal of Attention Disorders, 23(9), pp. 907–923.

Community Care 2026, ‘ADHD in social work: the hidden strengths and costs’, Community Care, 10 March.

Frye, D. 2020, ‘Children with ADHD Avoid Failure and Punishment More Than Others, Study Says’, ADDitude Magazine, 6 November.

MacDonald, H.J., Kleppe, R., Szigetvari, P.D. & Haavik, J. 2024, ‘The dopamine hypothesis for ADHD: An evaluation of evidence accumulated from human studies and animal models’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 15, article 1492126.

NHS England Digital 2025, Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, England, 2023/4 — Chapter 9: Attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 27 November.

Partridge, A. 2025, Now It All Makes Sense: How an ADHD Diagnosis Brought Clarity to My Life, London: Sheldon Press.

RowneySmith, A., Sutton, B., Quadt, L. & Eccles, J.A. 2026, ‘The lived experience of rejection sensitivity in ADHD – A qualitative exploration’, PLOS ONE, 21(1), e0314669