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The Lost Girls
How I braved facing my biggest fear to raise awareness of late ADHD diagnosis in women!
Once I received my diagnosis, I suddenly realised that it was probable that many of my close friends also had ADHD and/or were autistic and I felt I could suddenly understand the connections in our brains. It was pretty incredible and I know a lot of other people who are late diagnosed notice the same. One such woman was Sue Jennings, who runs the wonderful venue ‘Left Bank Leeds.’ Sue, having watched my ADHD journey unfold via my jewellery brands, Instagram and the late diagnosis ‘Congratulations on your ADHD Diagnosis’ cards that I have for sale through Thortful cards, reached out to me to ask whether I would like to join her in hosting an event all about late diagnosis in women. Would I?? Of course I would! An article in the Guardian many months ago titled ‘The Lost Girls,’ had always intrigued me and it just felt so fitting for this event.
I designed the graphics and promotional materials for the event using the ‘Lost Boys’ film (a 1980’s ‘Bratpack’ vehicle) as the inspiration for the Lost Girls logo. And when Sue asked me if I’d like to book a keynote speaker I instantly thought of Sam, Mrs ADHD (now Mrs AuDHD). I reached out to her, as we had met in real life a few months before and asked how she felt about coming up to Leeds to talk at my event. To my delight, Sam agreed to do it although she'd never been a Headline Speaker previously [and was absolutely popping herself!] I assured her that both myself and Sue were also very nervous, as we would both be taking to the stage to tell our stories, too.
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I've got ADHD. I always have and I always will. However, I spent the first 43 years of my life not knowing this. Rewind to 2019, when a friend of mine gently suggested she thought I showed a lot of the symptoms. Shocked and confused (and a little drunk!) I decided to have a quick Google and before I knew it, I was sending links to my sister and my best friend, absolutely convinced my mate Susie was right!
Although this was before the pandemic, when I put in my request for an assessment with the GP, I still had to wait 18 months to get assessed and diagnosed. Whilst waiting for my assessment date, I did what all ADHD people do at this stage in their journey - I hyper focused on reading and listening to everything I could about ADHD, to try and understand my own mind better. During my research, I stumbled across ‘The ADHD Adults’ podcast and instantly fell in love with ‘Mrs ADHD’ - I just thought she was so honest, open and vulnerable and I knew I'd love to meet her one day! As the pandemic rumbled on and we went in and out of lockdown, many, many more women were increasing their knowledge of ADHD via TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms.
Next, Sue took to the stage and told her story of her own late diagnosis. Then, our keynote speaker Sam, took the floor and she was just incredible!!! She was witty, funny and knowledgeable and took us on a journey where she made us laugh and cry. But most of all, she made us all feel incredibly seen and understood. Following an interlude and after the second half of Sam's speech, we had a panel discussion with, among others, Sam's brilliant husband, Dr James ADHD, one of the panel members.
Honestly, what a night! My only complaint was that it all went too fast and after the mammoth effort of getting such an incredible and varied bunch of people all under one roof, I just wanted it to last longer - or at least become a regular event! Unfortunately, even now, ADHD is still stigmatised and often receives bad press, so being in a room with that many fellow ADHD’ers just felt incredibly empowering!
The event was a sell-out, with 250 (mainly women) in the audience. A few days prior to the event, we decided to offer a live stream as well, to enable those who couldn't get tickets to watch online. We had a pop-up photo booth, a small craft market run by people with ADHD and a bar. As our venue started to fill up, my nerves started to set in, especially as I was the host of the event and knew I had to be up on stage first, to welcome everyone. But somehow, I knew I was gonna be OK, as I had so many wonderful friends there to support me.
I walked out onto the stage and looked out onto a sea of women wearing colourful clothes. The incredible venue that is The Left Bank looked like a rainbow… women with ADHD seem to really like colour! I started my speech with the words “Woah, we called this event ‘The Lost Girls,’ but tonight it looks like we've all found each other!” My words got a laugh and I felt tingles of excitement about what an incredible night we were all about to have…
