A woman has revealed how she felt isolated and suicidal before she was finally diagnosed with ADHD.
Annushka Sims, 25, was diagnosed with ADHD in October 2022, and has been posting about the disorder on TikTok to help other people like her, which has gained her over 50,000 followers. She said she knew she had ADHD for a few years before doctors confirmed, but not before being misdiagnosed with other mental illnesses.
The average person has to wait around two years on the NHS for an official diagnosis, which Annushka says can be dangerous. More and more people are also being diagnosed with the disorder later in life, and it can be harder to find support as an adult.
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Annushka said: "I couldn't understand why I was struggling when no one else was. I was diagnosed with a few different things, including depression and anxiety, and my doctors were looking at diagnosing me with Borderline personality disorder (BPD) as well, so there was a lot of confusion because nothing really fit.
"I got prescribed sertraline, which is an antidepressant, before my ADHD diagnosis, and it's well known in the ADHD community that sertraline has a really bad impact on you. ADHDers know that it completely numbs you to the point where you can't feel happiness or sadness.
"It got to the point where I was really struggling, and I started to feel suicidal because I was just almost numb all the time. That's when my mum stepped up and said she really thought I needed therapy, and I was able to find a therapist to see.
"By chance, she specialised in neurodivergence, I wasn't on the lookout for that, but when I started to see her she recommended I look into ADHD because she thought I might have it."
From there, Annushka worked towards getting an official diagnosis and learning as much as she could about the disorder. To hold herself accountable, she started sharing video on TikTok about what she had learnt, but the loss of close friend made her re-examine what she wanted to do with her account.
Annushka said: "I started my TikTok at the beginning of last year, and it was just talking about mental health. I mainly wanted to hold myself accountable and make sure I kept learning about it, but then I had loads of people messaging me and commenting saying 'this is just like me, I didn't realise there were people out here like me'.
"That made me realise that my account could actually help people, so I wanted to start taking it a bit more seriously. And then in October last year, one of my friends passed away because of his mental health.
"From that point onwards I thought that the way I could give back was to really put more effort into TikTok and try and reach as many people as possible and help in any way that I can."
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Annushka has combined type ADHD, meaning she has both internal and external symptoms. She said: "Without medication I think the thing I struggle with the most is sensory issue, like I can freak out really easily at things you wouldn't expect, like people brushing their teeth in front of me makes me nearly throw up.
"I also really struggle with emotional regulation, I'm never in the middle it's like I'm either buzzing and really happy or I'm really down, and there's nothing in-between. But my medication has really helped with that, before that I was struggling to hold down a job or be consistent at anything, so that was the thing that affected me the most.
"Another thing that came up in therapy was that I used to lie a lot, like I'd say things and then afterwards think 'why have I lied about that' and my therapist said that's ADHD and that's masking where you're trying to fit in and pretend to be like everyone else. That was something that I wanted to make a video on because it's not one of the obvious or stereotyped symptoms, so there must be other people out there like me who are doing this and don't know why.
"There's loads and loads of things to ADHD on top of that, like struggling to start tasks, sleep paralysis, and struggling to get to sleep, I average about four hours a night of sleep, so there's loads of symptoms to it and it impacts every aspect of your life."
Annushka has joined a small community of creators on TikTok posting about ADHD. She said: "Part of what we're all doing is trying to discard those people who are just posting about ADHD for the clout and not to actually help people. I want to make the narrative that if you need the help just try and find it.
"It can make a huge difference if you suspect you have ADHD to research it yourself and help you to understand yourself a bit more, because otherwise it can feel like you're just alone and different from everyone else and you don't know why, which is really isolating.
"It's more the funny element people try and push quite a lot. Don't get me wrong, I love to have some banter and lot of my videos do have banter in them even as I'm trying to educate people, but there's just not enough balance of people making jokes and trying to have the serious conversations we need to have."
Her advice to people who suspect they could have ADHD was to seek out someone trustworthy in their life to confide in. She said: "Find somebody that you really trust, whether that's family, friends, or a professional, and speak to them about how you've been feeling. Unfortunately the killer of ADHD, and there's a lot of statistics about ADHD and suicide, and it's because people haven't understood themselves.
"That's why my main goal now is to get people to talk about it. This is an actual neurological condition it's not something you can bring yourself out of with willpower, so without help you won't be able to navigate it, so speaking to someone else about it is key."
Since starting her TikTok page, Annushka has built up a community of people with the same goals, and hopes to start a group on Facebook or WhatsApp soon for people to join and ask questions. She also a partner for with Attentive Apparel, who make sensory friendly clothing.
She said: "My mum, dad, step dad, siblings Nina, Elena, Emily, and Nathan, my therapist Jules, and my TikTok following have helped me gain confidence to talk about this so openly, and their confidence and knowing I'm helping people on a national scale means the world."
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