08/09/2026
A little bit of reality from behind the scenes… 🫣❤️
This is probably one of the biggest things I’ve ever shared on my professional page, and I’m genuinely quite terrified to press POST.
So first: please don’t pity me. I don’t want sympathy, sad faces or anyone lowering their expectations of me. That is precisely why I’ve kept this private for more than 30 years.
But today has absolutely fried my nervous system, and perhaps it’s finally time to explain a little bit about why.
My day started at 4.40am.
Misty pi**ed and shat on my bed. 💩🤦🏼♀️
Woody threw up.
I eventually managed to get a tiny bit more sleep, only for 13½-year-old Misty to get out of her cuddle chair completely non-weight-bearing on her left hind, struggling to stand and dropping back to the floor.
As a therapist with an elderly dog, my brain immediately produced the entire differential diagnosis list from hell. Neurological? Orthopaedic? Cruciate? Something sinister? Do I need the vet today? At her age, what investigations would I actually put her through?
I was absolutely cacking myself.
Then I opened some Giant Wotsits.
Misty apparently heard the packet and decided she had made a miraculous recovery.
Up she gets.
FULLY WEIGHT-BEARING. 😳
Apparently Giant Wotsits are the rehabilitation modality we've all been overlooking. Clinical trial pending. 🧀🤣
Then came my Occupational Health appointment for university, which I'd been ridiculously anxious about.
And…
I'M CLEARED! 🎉🎓🐴🐶
Fit to start my MSc in Veterinary Physiotherapy & Clinical Rehabilitation.
That should have been the point at which today became lovely.
Unfortunately, I start in less than two weeks and, until today, I still didn't know exactly which days I was required to attend.
I live nearly 300 miles away. I run two businesses. I have clients to organise. Dogs to organise. Accommodation to book. I can't really turn up in Lancashire and work the rest out on vibes. 🤣
After another phone call today, I finally know I'm definitely required on the Monday and it appears I'm also required Tuesday and Wednesday.
Unfortunately, my full timetable still can't be released until my Occupational Health clearance has worked its way through the system, which should happen within 48 hours.
Nobody I've spoken to has been unpleasant or deliberately unhelpful. In fact, people have been lovely.
It's simply been one of those administrative situations where all the individual cogs are presumably doing exactly what they're supposed to do while the human standing underneath the machine is quietly losing her bloody mind. 🫠🤣
I'd booked a lovely hotel two days ago, based on the information I had.
Two nights. Dinner. Breakfast. Spa. Lovely. 🥰
Except now I potentially need four nights.
The same room isn't available.
I can change rooms halfway through. I can upgrade. I can book different rates. My new corporate discount appears to work on one search and disappear on another. Prices seem to change every time I blink.
And, critically, WHY CAN NOBODY GUARANTEE ME A BLOODY BATH? 🛁🤣
At some point this evening I just sat here and cried.
And that brings me to the thing I've never really talked about publicly.
I have ADD.
There.
I've said it. 😳❤️
I was diagnosed at 17, more than 30 years ago, at a time when ADD was far less widely recognised or understood.
My mum, bless her heart, knew something wasn't adding up and took me to Harley Street to see one of the relatively few doctors specialising in it at the time.
My assessment score was exceptionally high. In fact, he told us it was the highest he'd ever seen and was rather amazed I'd made it to 17 without everything going spectacularly wrong.
Apparently I've always enjoyed exceeding expectations. 🤣
And then I largely hid it for the next 31 years.
I learnt to mask it.
I developed my own coping mechanisms.
I found ways around the things I struggled with.
And most people probably just concluded that I'm slightly quirky, eccentric, intense, occasionally chaotic and spectacularly good at disappearing down rabbit holes.
Well… now you know why. 😂
I was diagnosed with ADD, and that's still the terminology I use for myself. Today it falls under the ADHD umbrella, but diagnostic terminology changes over time.
I haven't.
I also struggle with some of the labels we now use.
Neurodivergent.
Disabled.
I'm just me.
This is the only brain I've ever known. My normal feels normal to me because it is my normal.
Today, Student Support asked me a completely routine question:
“Did you disclose your disability when you applied?”
And that word hit me like a tonne of bricks.
No, I hadn't.
Because when I applied and was asked whether I considered myself disabled, I didn't tick the box.
I don't personally consider myself disabled.
And I want to be really careful here, because I feel an enormous responsibility in saying that publicly.
That is my experience, not a judgement on anybody else's.
Another person with ADD/ADHD may absolutely experience it as a disability. Someone may need considerably more support than I do. Someone may have been diagnosed at 8 or at 58 after spending decades wondering why certain things were so bloody difficult.
Their experience is every bit as legitimate as mine.
I would never use what I've achieved to write somebody else off.
Because I am extremely capable.
I run two businesses.
I manage complicated clinical cases.
I study complicated subjects.
And at 48, I'm about to start a bloody Masters degree.
I am so far from stupid.
But give my brain uncertainty, contradictory information, moving goalposts and multiple things that I cannot bring to a conclusion?
Eventually it goes:
NOPE. CAPACITY REACHED. EVERYBODY OUT. 🧠🫠🤣
That's what today has looked like.
And perhaps one of the hardest parts of starting university isn't actually going to be the MSc.
It's going to be learning, at 48 years old, to say:
“Actually, I need some help with this.”
I don't do that.
I'm usually the person people come to for help.
So having Occupational Health encourage me to put a Student Support Plan in place — even if I barely use it — feels much bigger to me than it probably sounds.
And perhaps there's an irony here.
If being placed administratively under a label of disability means that, more than 30 years after my diagnosis, I can finally access some of the educational support I didn't receive during my core education, then perhaps I can learn to live with the label on the paperwork.
I don't have to make it my identity.
I'm still just me.
There are other things about my health and my life that most people don't know. Some fairly significant things, actually. Perhaps I'll talk about those another day...
But fundamentally, I consider myself an incredibly lucky, happy and healthy person.
Today, ADD is the relevant bit.
Because I've been awake since 4.40am.
My elderly dogs have collectively tried to destroy both my nervous system and my bedding. 🤣
I've been officially cleared to start my Masters. 🎓
I've chased university logistics.
I've dealt with Student Support.
I've spent several hours apparently attempting a postgraduate qualification in Best Western Hotel Pricing & Advanced Bathtub Procurement. 🛁
My duvet is FINALLY in the washing machine.
And tonight my nervous system has simply said enough.
So yes, I've cried.
But please don't feel sorry for me.
This isn't a pity post.
For me, telling you this is actually an enormous act of courage.
I've spent more than 30 years making sure most people didn't know.
Perhaps I don't need to hide it quite so fiercely anymore.
The capable bits, the eccentric bits, the ridiculously determined bits, the chaotic bits and the bits that occasionally become completely overwhelmed?
They've always been the same person.
Now you just know a little more about why. ❤️
Right.
If someone could now please provide me with a timetable and a hotel room with a bloody bath, I'd be eternally grateful. 🛁🤣🎓❤️ xx
