00:00
Richard Pasco on 1395 Adelaide's 5AA

00:08
151 here on 5AA. Remember we've got some Wallace movie parsons, we've got three of them to give away. Ring me up, talk to me about anything that is on your mind. One of the big things that I keep hearing about and especially I'm going to say on social media is ADHD. So I thought I'd get along somebody today who hopefully can answer some of the questions. Rachel, how are you this afternoon? Yeah, I'm well. How are you? Very good, thanks.

00:37
You're from Adelaide adult ADHD, aren't you? Yes, that's right. You are. First of all, Rachel, I get lots of people trying to self-diagnose ADHD on there. Yeah. You know, it's, it's.

00:55
But I've had other people come along and I mentioned this at the beginning of the show that have been what they claim are properly diagnosed and I paid about $1,500 to be diagnosed. Where is that in the scheme of things is because so many people seem to self-diagnosis. Well, look, there's a lot to unpack in that, probably too much to cover in the time we have now. So the three most important things that I'd want to say about self-diagnosis.

01:23
in adults and I'm particularly talking about adults here, is that we all know that for children ADHD diagnosis is long and hard and expensive and for adults it's arguably more so because there are fewer services and there's no subsidies and you're usually doing it alone. So as you said if you can manage that, if you can actually be formally diagnosed within 12 months and under a grand you're doing incredibly well which means that self-diagnosis is often the only option. The second thing I'd want to say is that

01:53
AVHD diagnosis for an adult is not actually a ticket to any sort of benefit. You don't suddenly start getting special treatments or financial support or subsidies or services or anything else. So no one is self-diagnosing to get a free ride anyway. What they are getting from self-diagnosis is a ticket to understanding themselves better, to self-awareness and to finding more effective ways of living well.

02:21
So once you have come to understand that ADHD is part of the neurology, formally or informally, you start changing the way you manage your life. So for example, instead of Googling, why am I so stupid? Why am I always late? Why do people like me? You can start Googling late diagnosed adult ADHD and suddenly you're finding suggestions for coping strategies that work for the neurodivergent mind rather than trying to...

02:50
exist in a way that doesn't come to you naturally. So self-diagnosis is valid for a number of reasons, none of which have anything to do with getting a free ride. The people that I know that have got ADHD, they're all on medication for it. They're very fortunate I would say because well fortunately in the past few years the rules for medication for adults with ADHD have changed

03:20
Because of course, ADAC medication is a stimulant. It's a schedule eight drug so it necessarily needs to be managed carefully. But it's also very expensive, hard to come by. It can only be prescribed by psychiatrists and that's where those huge things come in. So while medication is very effective, it's not effective for everybody and it's actually

03:47
not very equitably available. Do you think it would be, wouldn't you? Look, our mental health system is not perfect. It does its best. Yes. But mental health is certainly an area that we have a long way to go and it's why these self-diagnoses are very valid because you can reach out to people. First of all, simply not feeling alone in itself is therapeutic. Gosh, I'm not the only one experiencing this. I'm not mad.

04:16
I'm not lazy. That in itself is a therapeutic experience. But then you can reach out to people who say, look, I couldn't afford medication, but here's what I do to cope with living with ADHD. So that's one of the other benefits of self-diagnosis is that it's opened doors to ways of living well when you can't access medication, for example. Are there many around that go along and do that?

04:45
Look, it's actually a really tricky thing to answer, partly because, again, in adults, it's not very well, the statistics out of ADHD aren't great because most of us, you know, we're kind of Gen Xers. We spent our whole life masking or even not knowing that this was a thing. We just thought we, you know, we kind of absorbed it and blamed ourselves. And so we don't know how many people out there.

05:14
think they're just lazy or unsuccessful and are coping, finding ways to cope without realizing that what they're actually doing is finding ways to cope with ADHD. So it's very hard to say what are people out there doing to cope because we can't really get a good picture of who they are, where they are and what they're doing. What I can say from the very small sample of people that I've engaged with through the website is that people are kind, they're creative, they're supportive.

05:44
When you do find people experiencing things similar to you, there are lots of different ways that you can support yourself and each other if you can't access medication. Which is, I mean, to me, you know, with, with, um, cause I got to get my words right. I see it posted all the time on social media.

06:07
And that's one of the reasons why I wanted you on today, because I know I'm friends with people who've got ADHD and they've paid all the money for it. But sometimes for the behaviour of people who are posting on social media gets me concerned about that. I agree. And look, there was a report done by Deloitte in 2019 that attempted to put some numbers around this. So there's approximately, let's say, 40,000 people.

06:35
4.2% of Australian kids are diagnosed with ADHD. Rough guess is about 4% of adults. So it's around about the same. It's no less prevalent which when you think about it is hardly surprising because a kid with ADHD is going to be an adult with ADHD. So you would expect that the percentages are about the same. When it comes to those symptoms, one of the tricks is that like any other condition, you pick any medical condition whatsoever,

07:04
There's a period of time in which it looks like no one has it. Because for whatever reason, with left-handedness, because it was considered wicked and evil and no one wanted to admit they had it, it looked like no one had any. Then suddenly you were allowed to say, oh, I'm left-handed. And it looks like if you look at the statistics of the next, I don't know, 50 years, it would look like a massive rise in left-handedness. Why is everyone suddenly left-handed? What's going on? Well, it's not that more people are left-handed. It's just that suddenly people are able to identify as left-handed.

07:34
and then that plateaus at the natural prevalence of left handedness in the community. So I think at the moment we're in that steep rise for adult ADHD. It's not that there were any fewer before or that there are any more now but we're in a period of time when people are allowed to acknowledge and to identify that that is part of their lived experience so it looks like there's more of them. It will plateau probably at that 4% prevalence but we're not there yet.

08:03
And what you do have is that misunderstanding at this point. So you have say with symptoms, it's really tricky. Say what are the symptoms of ADHD in adults? Partly, we've been faking it for so long that we're really good at it. So it's hard to see them. Also, like any condition, every individual experiences it differently. And you do have these things that people think, oh, you know, I lose things all the time, but I don't have ADHD. So you can't have ADHD. We know it's vague sometimes, but I don't have ADHD.

08:32
So you don't have ADHD. What it's about is the combination of enough symptoms happening often enough to significantly affect how you live your life. That's the difference between, Oh God, I always lose my keys. And I actually have something that makes my life more challenging to live well. It's a very interesting subject. And I've got to say, Rachael, you've explained it so well this afternoon and I appreciate you coming on. Absolute pleasure. No worries.

09:02
Now, have you got a website, Rachel, we can go to? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, um, I think all this is very ADHD website name. It's www.adadadhd. ADADHD. Yeah. It basically stands for Adel Um, it's a lived experience community. So I'm not a medical, I work in a completely unrelated profession. It's just a lived experience.

09:32
place where people can come along and hopefully find some community, find some ideas, share some suggestions and not feel like they're doing this alone. Rachel, thank you very much. We might talk to you again here on 5AA. You've done a great job this afternoon. Absolute pleasure. Thanks, Richard. Thank you. Bye. Rachel from Adidas.