For a long time I worked in the luxury jewellery business, but as I progressed and spent more time involved in the corporate world of spreadsheets, I found it difficult. 

One of the symptoms of ADHD is that you have hyper-focus. When I get interested in something I can devote all my energy to it, I don’t need to eat or sleep. I can get six months worth of work done in a week. I’d come up with all these ideas on how we could increase sales or advance the business, but it wasn’t my job to do any of that. It was immensely frustrating to have all that passion and not be able to execute it. 

Most people find it difficult to do the things they don’t enjoy. Living with ADHD is like a stronger version of that. It’s an immense internal struggle. It feels like you’re fighting back against a natural force within you. You have to get these ‘boring’ things done but it feels like you’re concentrating on the wrong thing. It’s like being hungry and instead of making a meal, you’re forcing yourself to go for a run. 

Over the years, I came up with a lot of coping mechanisms. I am quite a creative thinker so I do things like colour-coding tasks, rewarding myself with regular breaks, giving myself tiny bite-sized targets with rewards. That’s very much an ADHD mentality – you either reward yourself or beat yourself up. We give ourselves a million things to do and then criticise ourselves for not being able to do them all.