Media Storm - The Great ADHD Media Myths

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Care about independent and ethical news? Support Media Storm on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! This episode contains discussion of suicide and self-harm. If you are struggling you can call the Samaritans for free, any time, on 116 123. ADHD is recognised as an established neurodevelopmental condition by the world’s most respected medical and health organisations. But as diagnoses have risen, a narrative has formed: that people with ADHD are simply lazy, not trying hard enough, addicted to social media, or just want benefits. Or even – that ADHD is just not real.  These narratives about neurodiversity play perfectly into binary culture war clickbait, amplified so often by our right-wing media. This is possibly why there has been an even greater backlash to a recent ‘documentary’ released on Channel 4 – a broadcaster usually committed to diversity and balance. ‘The Great ADHD Myth?’ claimed it was a “science-led” documentary, seeking to determine whether ADHD was a “genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct”. Yet the documentary plays more as an opinion piece, in which every anecdote, interviewee and quote is cherry-picked to suit the presenter’s original hypothesis. The presenter, as it turns out, writes ADHD-sceptic columns for The Daily Mail and The Spectator. There is only one person who actually has ADHD featured in the entire programme – a 10-year-old boy who takes part in an absurdly unscientific “experiment” concerning his medication. The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of GPs have criticised the programme, and one scientist has said publicly that her interview was “truncated and presented out of context”.  The programme sums up the state of our media when it comes to reporting on ADHD – oversimplifying complex neuroscience, debating clinical consensus, panicking about rising diagnoses, leaning into the worst stereotypes and scapegoating social media. How do we change the narrative?  Joining us on this episode is journalist and author of ‘It’s Not a Bloody Trend’, Kat Brown, and the founder of ADHD Works, Leanne Maskell.  Buy AuDHD: Blooming Differently here. Buy ADHD: An A to Z here. Buy It's Not A Bloody Trend here or find Kat’s books as part of the Reading Well programme in libraries around the UK. This episode is hosted and produced by Mathilda Mallinson (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@mathildamall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠) and Helena Wadia (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@helenawadia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠)  It was edited by⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Christy Callaway-Gale⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The music is by⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @soundofsamfire⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow us⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠@mediastormpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Media Storm is supported by Open Britain. A grassroots campaign group making democracy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Hello, Matilda, fresh off of a flight. How are you today? Very good. Thank you. But speaking of the flight, and speaking of the rich and powerful. Oh, okay. Yeah, I have some rage to share. I wouldn't have thought that this was worth sharing. But I did post about it on my Instagram story and never have I ever had so much engagement. Alas, on our media storm episode stories, you know, it's like tumbleweed. But then I post about the injustices of Ryan Ayers hand luggage policing.

And turns out people have a lot of pent-up rage about this. I posted it sort of like, sorry guys, I know that there are greater hardships out there. And also, sorry for flying in a climate emergency. My husband's family are from Germany. But basically, yesterday, they were. charging people whose bags fit in the little slot thing. And they just forced people to queue up. They had them put it in the slot. It fit. And then they were like, well, you can't get on the plane if you don't pay us 60 quid. And I just couldn't understand that. Anyway, I started

taking my photos. I started taking photos of the bags that they were charging. And then they were like, you're not allowed to do that. We're going to call the police. It's an instant flight ban if you take photos. And I got like my press card outside. I'm a journalist. Oh my gosh. Yes, wield that press card. And it was just this huge job. But I just couldn't understand. The only way I can make sense of it is if they are, if they're paid commission or if they're like given a quota to, but it was just extortion in live action.

Honestly, the injustice of it. I couldn't. See, don't say on Media Storm, we don't have range. We cover injustices big and small. Although I do understand what you mean. This feels big. Does anyone have intel into how it works? Ryanair, our staff paid commission on those bank fees. Explain. Yes, if anyone has any

intel as to why, if bags fit, you're still charged 60 quid. Please get in touch. Okay, now you've got that out. I'm sure we have something much more important to talk about today. Tell me what it is. The Telegraph published an article the other week, which I really feel sums up the modern media narrative about disabilities. The headline, How having a disability became cool. I'm already angry. You should be. It's an article that perpetuates all the worst myths about disabilities,

whilst also throwing in a little bit of transphobia and some promotion of Farage's Reform Party while we're at it. And why are you making us read it? Okay, I promise you there's a point as to why I'm talking about this. Because there's a trend here. Media outlets have become more and more brazen about questions, the authenticity of disabilities, chronic illnesses and neurodiversities. The article basically says that young women are turning chronic illnesses into a lifestyle

trend and entrenching a culture of economic inactivity. The Telegraph journalist dubs these young women as sick fluences. And honestly, from this article and quite a few more like it, I think we need to do a whole episode on how chronic illness has been invalidated by the mainstream media. and I'll get working on that. But this article isn't specifically about ADHD, which is what we're talking about on this episode. But it does mention it and it does sum up the dismissive attitudes

that are perpetuated about conditions like it. So this article basically laments how so many people are now claiming sickness or disability benefits and then goes on to say, and I quote, that over-diagnosis of minor issues that 20 years ago would have resolved on their own can be ruinously costly. And it's not just immediate welfare costs

that are placing a strain on public finances. The number of school children receiving Sen, which has special educational need support, has soared and is straining school budgets to the limit. Many of these interventions, for example, extra time in exams and private tuition, have shown limited returns for mild sufferers of chronic diseases like autism and ADHD.

Right, so from that one paragraph, alone I'm hearing overdiagnosis is a problem. ADHD is a mild or a minor issue. And those who need help like extra time and exams are the reason educational funding is struggling. And disclaimer, maybe unpopular disclaimer, I'm not 100% dismissive of all of these concerns. I personally have a lot of questions about diagnosis rates and how we should respond to them as a society. But judging from the headline framing, I'm already sure that my questions won't be answered by this kind of media. Bingo. There may be reasonable questions to be asked about many aspects of ADHD, but these concerns have been commodified by right-wing

corporate media as yet another opportunity to blame, fearmonger and generally spread misconception rather than address it. But before we get into the media critique, let's go back a bit. What is ADHD? It stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Children and adults can have ADHD. It's a disorder that is defined through analysis of behaviour and people with ADHD often show a persistent pattern of inattention and or hyperactivity and impulsivity that interferes with day-to-day functioning or development. It manifests in different ways in different people, but often symptoms include being easily distracted, finding it hard to organise your time, making quick decisions, feeling restless, those sort of things.

ADHD is recognised as an established neurodevelopmental condition by the World Health Organisation, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of General Practitioners, and NHS England. Having ADHD can severely impact a person's quality of life. But as diagnoses have risen, a narrative. has formed, that people with ADHD are simply lazy, not trying hard enough, addicted to social media, or just want benefits, and even that ADHD isn't even a real thing. And like the article from The Telegraph, it plays perfectly into binary culture war clickbait.

It's easy for hard right media to say, look at these blue-haired, nose-pierced, lefty, vegan, lazy people who just want an excuse to not work hard, their social media profiles to quote the Telegraph article decks out in acronyms. We expect this from The Telegraph, which is why I think there has been a big backlash when Channel 4 aired a documentary recently along the same narrative lines. Now, I watched this production after you briefed me on the episode, and I have to say it should categorically not be called a documentary. That is just like fundamentally not what it is. My husband, right, a medic who joined me to watch it, he was so infuriated that he refused to finish

it, by the way. And he more accurately described it as a video opinion piece in which every anecdote, every interviewee, every quote was cherry-picked to suit the presenter's original hypothesis. It's very true. That's spot on David Mallinson. This pseudo-documentary, let's call it, is called the Great Adi-Dictory. And I say myth like that because there is a question mark at the end, though as the charity ADHD UK has said, its question mark does not serve as a get-out-of-harm free card.

Channel 4's press release claimed the documentary sought to determine whether ADHD was a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder or a social construct. Keep in mind the list of health organisations I gave earlier who all treat ADHD as an established neurodiversity. developmental condition. Yet the press release also described the documentary as science-led. Again, science, not cherry-picking only the evidence that serves your hypothesis. It's like the opposite. This is immediately frustrating to me because there are hard questions that need to be asked about ADHD or neurodiversities in general. For example, I think it's worth asking whether assessments are good enough or whether we need a wider range of labels or sub-diagnosis. or whether schools demand too narrow a range of behaviour from children,

which it's sort of touched on but failed to get into properly, how privatisation affects healthcare diagnosis. Again, the documentary could have touched on it, but instead of actually interrogating it, it just subsumed it to its single-minded agenda of proving ADHD isn't real and therefore eradicated any intelligent conversation around it. And so my first question is, why a whole documentary about whether something is,

real or not, rather than any of the issues I've just listed here. This whole piece felt like more of a provocation than a necessary investigation. Yeah, it set my alarm bells ringing too. And a swift search of the presenter of this programme, Max Pemberton, gave me an indication as to why. Pemberton has written many articles about his ADHD skepticism, mostly for right-wing outlets. An article he wrote for the Daily Mail last year was headlined, This is the real reason why there's been an explosion in cases of ADHD

and why we should all be scared of the consequences. In the article, he includes the line, Can I, as a doctor, suddenly not show up for clinic and blame my ADHD when patients in need are waiting to see me? The real reason is, by the way, according to him, TikTok and YouTube. But not only has Pemberton written the internet, articles. He is currently a weekly columnist for The Daily Mail and the editor of Spectator Health, which is a quarterly supplement from The Spectator. He was also a columnist for the Telegraph for 12 years.

And I think it's fair to stay that the style of these columns came through in this documentary, a documentary which was labelled as giving both sides to a question but materially failed to present more than one side. For example, the presenter says that the current understanding of ADHD that it's a neurodevelopmental disorder is not supported by the evidence, according to some of the most respected experts in the field. Yet, the respected experts picked for the program include a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, granting them this institutional authority with no mention of current roles. And both Royal Colleges have since criticised the programme saying that it could

fuel stigma and discourage people from seeking support and treatment. Additionally, one of the scientists who appeared on the programme, Professor Katia Rubia, who has a long history of work within the ADHD field, she said publicly that her interview was cherry-picked, truncated and presented out of context. Also, in the central experiment of the of the documentary. A 10-year-old boy with ADHD has taken off his medication because his mum feels like the medication may be masking the real version of her son. But the experiences of one child with ADHD is hardly a controlled experiment or a representative case study, especially because during the experiment, other variables are constantly changed, like screen time

and diet and exercise. This, sorry to interrupt, but this was just probably like the most absurdly unscientific part of the documentary. Again, not an experiment by any stretch of the term. As you say, in experiments, other variables are controlled for. This was absurd. This was like a diverse, holistic, and frankly judging by the woman selling it, probably expensive treatment plan, from which it was impossible to discern anything at all about the impact of the medication, like to pull a child off their medication at the same time as cutting them cold turkey from any screen time and sugar and then pretending you know the source of any behavioural changes. This is just flat out dishonest.

Yeah, absolutely dishonest. And in any case, at the end of the program, a brief on-screen message appears and the boy has decided to go back on his medication and that improves his schoolwork. Side note, ADHD medication in this program is described as a chemical cosh and slow-release cocaine. And this is a real issue because framing a neurodiversity as a myth undermines a condition already so shrouded in stigma. UCLA-led research shows that adults with diagnosed ADHD die on average around seven years earlier for men and nearly nine years earlier for women. Research funded by Ireland's National Office of Suicide Prevention found that 20% of adults

with ADHD had attempted suicide, and a further 61% had experienced suicidal ideation. The same research found that half had self-harmed, starting at an average age of 13. Yet a national broadcaster invites millions of people to file all of this under a myth. It allows parents to doubt their children, and it allows employers to doubt their staff. And perhaps the most media storm criticism of all, Of all the experts featured on this show, the only person in it who actually has ADHD in this entire program is the 10-year-old boy. Are we really making whole documentaries with little to no lived experience in the year of our Lord 26? Well, apparently we are.

Oversimplifying complex neuroscience, sensationalising the issue and debating clinical consensus, is this the state of our media when it comes to reporting on ADHD. Between a panic about rising diagnoses and a scapegoat of social media, we ask, why do these stereotypes form and what can we do to change them? Current understanding of ADHD is not supported by the evidence. The new Channel 4 documentary, which is being described as the most controversial show of the year. A lot of people with ADHD are accustomed to hear, Just try harder.

If I see one more right-wing thing piece of how women are faking disability, I'm going to lose it. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Malinson. This week's Media Storm, the great ADHD media myths. Welcome to the Media Storm studio. Our first guest is a journalist and author who writes for The Independent and the Times,

among others, and regularly appears on BBC Radio 4, Times Radio and LBC. Her books cover ADHD and Infertility and are stocked in libraries around the UK as part of the Reading Well programme. Love that shout out to libraries and welcome to the podcast, Kat Brown. Where would we be without libraries? Poorly read, poorly informed. Our second guest is the founder of ADHD works, which trains ADHD coaches and

organisations including Google, Microsoft and the NHS. She's the five times bestselling author of books, including ADHD and A to Z and AUD and AUDB blooming differently. With a background in law, she has worked as a mental health and disability policy advisor and has presented two directors of the World Health Organisation on ADHD Global Reform. Welcome, Leanne Maskell. I'm trying to think of something equally as clever to say. Or like me, where would we be without the World Health Organization?

Well, let's get into it. one of the most pervasive narratives about ADHD is that everyone has ADHD now. Rising numbers of adults and children receiving diagnoses has led to a narrative often picked up and spread in mainstream media that ADHD is being overdiagnosed, overmedicated and is just a trendy fad fuelled by social media. Kat, can you tell us why does an increase in diagnosis not necessarily mean an increase in the condition itself? I find it so amazing, first of all, that I'm still having this conversation, and that's no shade to the podcast at all. It's just literally when I was writing my book, it's not a bloody trend in 2023. I put in a load of media literacy stuff into my introduction, sort of explaining, you know, pushes glasses up nose, the wider context of why people are talking about ADHD in this way. And I'm sort of looking around the papers now. And I say that as a working journalist. And it's by no moment. means just ADHD. It's pretty much anything that is a distraction from actual issues at hand.

So I think it's also that a lot of people with ADHD have managed to get to this point of midlife potentially, and that might be 40s to 60s. Got a terrifying point of being midlife in your 60s, but still. But they have got to a point where they've managed to sort of, you know, get through life so far with a load of systems and structures in place. And this is key. Nobody gets to the point of having an adult diagnosis without having those structures and systems in place. But it may be that their children have recently been diagnosed and they're looking at all the criteria and the questions and the forms and going, this really does explain quite a lot about my deep problem holding keys or something similarly flippant as that. But also it really just

ends up sort of explaining these layer upon layers of how your life has essentially been totally effed up under the surface. A really well-known meme for ADHD is the ADHD iceberg. And the idea being that on top is what people think ADHD actually is. And underneath is all the unsexy, unpalatable, unpublic stuff that we all keep hidden. I marked last month seven years of sobriety from booze. And, you know, nobody thought that I had a problem, quote, unquote. But that's because I made damn sure that I was drinking in public or with friends, that I tried to keep a lid on it. But I couldn't really keep a lid on it or anything because I didn't know I had ADHD and I had all of these mental health issues that I tried to have

treated over the years. And it just sort of felt like, I don't know, playing whack-a-mole, but with, you know, more visits to the GP going, oh, God, am I one of those people that the papers keep wanging on about? Yeah, and congratulations on your seven years of sobriety. But just to add to your point, there are actually several studies and reviews that have come out to say that ADHD actually may be underdiagnosed in England. For example, a landmark government review was launched by West Streeting in his former role as Health Secretary under Kirstama's government, and that was to examine

soaring patient demand for neurodiversities. But the eye paper has actually recently revealed some of the findings that are expected in the report. And those include that ADHD and autism are not being overdiagnosed at scale in the UK. And it's a greater awareness of these conditions, meaning that higher proportions of people who would meet the diagnostic thresholds are coming forward for support. And this report is likely to be the subject of fierce media debate in the coming week. So we can all keep our eyes peeled for that one armed with media literacy. If I may just pop in just one second there is that it's ridiculous that we've got this West Streeting report because it came barely months after NHS England delivered their own

independent review into ADHD. Lots and lots of people who surprisingly enough know more than either West Streeting or the government or opposing politicians or even, God forbid, journalists are coming together and saying, look, this is actually underdiagnosed. Our first adult ADHD clinic in the UK opened in what, 1994? And sadly, we're just massively behind with everything. Absolutely. One thing often unmentioned in these overdiagnosis fears is to do with women and ADHD. So for decades, women and girls were a group that clinical guidance now shows can be underrecognised

and underdiagnosed when it comes to ADHD. Primary care data also shows a sharp acceleration in diagnosis. after 2020 with incidents among women aged 20 to 24 more than doubling compared with pre-pandemic trends. Leanne, can you tell us why there was a surge in women receiving ADHD diagnoses and to what extent this explains the overall rise? Women have learned to speak to have people listen to them and I think the pandemic marked huge change. I was convinced I had a million other conditions, took it to the psychiatrist eventually. He was like, no, you don't have any of this. You have ADHD. And then my life

changed so dramatically after that point that I ended up collecting all of this information together because, believe it or not, back in 2020, I could not find any information out there that was relevant to me as a 26-year-old female who had a law degree. In fact, doctors told me that I was fine because I had a law degree. It's amazing to think that I was only six years ago. And I think a huge part of this is the pandemic meant that women were no longer having to do everything by themselves. If you have both men and women in a typical household at home, where all of the roles and all of what we took as normal has suddenly changed overnight. I think it just opened up so much of the world to everyone that we didn't normally see. They've always been there hiding in the shadows,

but maybe they have been forced to hide those parts of themselves over time and just to cover. hope and mask until they can't cope anymore, but they would be labelled with something else or something different. So I think it's just a changing culture and a real discomfort from people who have traditionally benefited from, you know, conversations like this, just not taking place at all because they're too shame-inducing. Can I get your guys' thoughts on something, the impact of private diagnoses of ADHD? As a share of overall diagnoses, private ADHD diagnoses are increasing. and are increasing rapidly.

And obviously there are valid concerns around financial incentive for diagnosing. Can I ask, how do you feel about private diagnoses? Is there a risk of profit incentive or is this sort of a necessary evil in light of NHS waiting times? Leanne, do you mind if I jump in with this one? Because I'm just trying to imagine these questions,

which are totally fine, by the way, but being applied to something like Wagovi or Manjaro, which have come out of nowhere in the last few years, but because they're about making people thin, which is a socially acceptable thing, everybody's like, no, quick, quick, private providers, come on, come on, come on, come on. And we've literally had news stories

about people dying through dodgy injections that they have got, but it's still like, well, we do want the public to be thin, though, because that would be better. We don't want to deal with poverty or food deprivation or any of the actual issues. We said God knows we don't want to work on education or anything, but let everybody be thin, even if a few people die along the way. So it is still that thing that there's this weird emphasis that private healthcare is somehow bad. And yet at the same time, there's also this side push to get the NHS to actually use more private healthcare.

But again, all of this came about because we as a country, and sorry, I mean that to use the whole of the UK, are woefully underprepared. when it comes to neurodiversity. And we mentioned or DHD at the beginning, that sort of unsexy portmante for a comorbid diagnosis of ADHD and autism of whatever support needs level. You could only start getting two diagnoses at once in 2013, and that's not just the UK, that's a global development.

So we're working at a time when not only is the world working in its advance of medicine and understanding of brains, which, spoiler, are monumentally complex, but also the UK is operating from a beyond standing start. Throughout the 90s when I was at school, it only seemed to do dyslexia and that was it. Wow. What kind of my mind was like,

I would love to have not paid for a private diagnosis. I mean it was that question of if you can choose not to pay, it would be great because the diagnosis and the assessment is like thousands of pounds and very long process. I ended up being privately diagnosed, but only because I didn't have a GP because my life was so hectic. I didn't even happen to GP to go to. And so I just Googled psychiatrist and went to the first psychiatrist.

That being said, that psychiatrist was incredibly dangerous in the way that they just stuck me on incredibly unhelpful medication. And, you know, I had to pay two hundred pounds to talk to this person. And I had a really bad time. I got really, really unwell at the beginning because it wasn't proper care. And that wasn't necessarily that person's fault because they were private. It's the model. And this is what I presented on to the board health organising. which is that if the systems that are already there to help people don't exist,

then markets are going to pop up in their place. And so people are just trying to get help. And I think instead of talking about the fact that that help doesn't exist, it's far easier to make up villains. Absolutely. Now, Channel 4's press release claimed that the great ADHD myth documentary sought to determine whether ADHD was a genuine disorder or a social, construct. Leanne, how does the focus by the wider media on whether ADHD is real or not

make you feel? And before your diagnosis, did you have an understanding of ADHD? It kind of reminds me when I was a model and I used to go to castings and people would say, we really want a real woman. I was like, okay. I'm sorry. And the same way. It's like, they kind of forget that people are at the bottom of this, human beings. It's really sad to see the real life impact that this has on people and how upset people get and to be part of this machine as well because, like, the fact is that we're even talking about this because that existed. And so it's a kind of monster machine that creates awareness and education,

which is great, but also it creates all the other things that we've already talked about, like capitalization, industry. And at the bottom of it, there are all these people that are just desperate for help. And Kat, could you? you do something for us that was entirely missing in the channel for production? Could you explain in what ways, if any, your ADHD diagnosis was helpful in your life? The one I keep coming back to is about ultimately why so many people get assessed for ADHD because there are things you can do to mitigate the effects of it. Like ADHD medication, it reduces everything from

teenage pregnancies to suicide. It lowers rates of heart disease. I think I just spent so much of my life feeling less than. And obviously being ginger in the 90s is a testament to being, you know, a criminal. And then I had what I only discovered well after I left school were anxiety and depression, partly from being bullied for being weird and ginger and tall and all of this sort of stuff. And so it literally wasn't until this fab thread on Twitter from an ADHD coach asking her followers, if you found out that you had ADHD as an adult, what happened? And I just read this thread. And it was like reading little bits of my life story coming out of men and women from so many different backgrounds. So loads of people whose symptoms had flared up when they gave up drinking. Problems with finances, which is a huge one. I mean, my God, thank goodness for banking apps now because I was just an absolute walking car crash. The biggest thing that this diagnosis offered me was an answer. and an acceptance. So it was almost like I was sort of walking into Narnia,

but instead of all the derangement of, you know, C.S. Lewis and everything, it was just a load of people going, ah, here you are, it's totally fine. And you can just now start getting on with your life and working on from there. When you asked what the ADHD medication did, like for me, all I know is that before I took the meds and had the diagnosis, I could not get a job to save my life. I really didn't want to do more. at all and was stuck in it and couldn't leave. And the same really struggling with alcohol, etc.,

and blaming myself for it. But I also became so suicidal because I just felt like I didn't belong in that world and I kept getting work experience. Things and struggling with these really easy tasks that everyone else seemed to be able to do fine. But the hard things, I could do great, which really confused people around me. They were like, where she must be making it up there,

and she's just lazy, even though she's been working all night. And then I would quit. And then I know that after taking the meds, that all change completely. So we've covered the everyone has ADHD narrative and the ADHD isn't real narrative. Coming up after the break, we'll look at social media, scrounging and solutions. But first, let's just take a few minutes. Welcome back to the Media Storm Studio. Now, when researching this episode, a trend I also noticed is the media loves to attribute

to blame to social media, as if social media, poor discipline, excessive screen time or modern tech addictions in some way causes ADHD. Kat, why do you think that that narrative occurs? Because it makes money, frankly. You mentioned before the break about scroungers. And to my mind, and not just to my mind, to so many people's mind, there is ultimately no bigger level of scroungers than media commentators and politicians who actively make money of bad faith arguments about people with disabilities, people who are in a poorer situation financially and socially than they are, go to Google Trends, just pop in ADHD, search in the UK, and it will just be flatline, flatline, whoa, from about 2020 onwards.

And, you know, that's no coincidence. That also lines up with anything to do with the transgender, population in the UK. Again, a tiny, tiny number of people in the UK. And I mean, the number that goes around people with ADHD is that there's estimated to be about 3 to 5% of the population that has it. Again, tiny, tiny, tiny numbers. But nobody cares. Because actually, the problem is now is that, as with the Channel 4 documentary, nobody fundamentally cares what the truth is. They only want to care what they feel like it should be. This is something that we have talked about before are the dangers around diagnosis based on social media.

We did an episode on bad science and specifically the issue that we talked about was in the UK it's illegal for pharmaceutical brands to market directly to consumers. But they are getting around that by using social media and influencers often who are not declaring themselves as being paid by farmer brands and are selling ideas. of treatments and sometimes selling ideas of disorders that they may not even have. So how, for people listening, how do you spot the educational from the exploitative or just plain ignorant when it comes to identifying potential symptoms of conditions like ADHD? The advice I could give to people with help was keep asking yourself why. Misinformation in general is literally being targeted at everyone all the time. And like if you then can ask yourself, okay, why, why am I seeing this? Like, why, who has written this article and what do they want me to do with it? Like, why are they having this conversation even in the first place? Like, when I have LBC, the charming trams there, they call me a lot. And they're like, do you want to come on and talk about the latest, whatever it is?

The ADHD is not real. And I have a lovely chat where they're like, don't you think that everyone's just making it up? And I'm like, why? I usually just ask them this question. Like, why do you think they're doing that? And I'll say, what do you think? And I think it's that thing of helping people to remember that they have agency and choice over what they do choose to believe. You know, I remember Nick Ferrari said to me, oh, he's like, you know, the problem is once you get off this call, he was like, I'm going to have all these people calling in and saying, oh, she's just lazy. He's like, what should I tell them? And I said, ask them why they can be bothered to call the radio about a girl they don't know who has ADHD. Like that's more a better question to ask yourself than like to complain about someone you don't know. We've got very limited time. So if you can be bothered to do that, there's a good reason behind that, which is usually that those people are also struggling.

And they don't feel able to get that help themselves. And so there's a lot of resentment there. And I think trying to be kind to yourself and trying to like build that relationship with yourself rather than like get dragged into fights on the internet. That is great advice. Well, before we move on to solutions, let's quickly look at one other pervasive narrative in the media. So between January 19 and April 26, the number of people in England and Wales claiming PIP, a personal independence payment, with ADHD listed as their main condition, has increased nearly fivefold. In June, government advisor Alan Milburn warned that the rising number of young people out of work because of ADHD

was contributing to a catastrophic failure of the system and adding to the UK's huge welfare bill. The headlines joined in. The Daily Mail wrote, ADHD is no excuse to not work or claim benefit. Rewarding ever higher numbers of people for being lazy is yet another way labor is failing this country. The Times said more than 100,000 get benefits for ADHD

with no need to seek work. And my personal favourite was from the Sun, which said, more Brits are receiving ADHD benefits than full-time soldiers serving in the British Army. Did you know that before 2024, people that were neurodivergent couldn't actually join the army? Because they literally excluded people on the basis of medical grounds. And this changed after it was revealed that nearly 60,000 applications to join the UK Armed Forces were rejected. on medical grounds over 18 months. And that led them to actually change their policies

because their workforce was the smallest size I had been since the 19th century and they couldn't actually get anyone to join the army. So there, the son. Kat, can you tell us why there has been an increase in PIP claimants and what these headlines say to you about the narrative being written about ADHD? I really didn't know much about PIP

until I had to write a piece on it for the eye paper in which I was interviewing a selection of people about their experiences of being interviewed for it. And very often the incredibly depressing ways of these sort of things go. One of them had had an incredibly intense stroke and was unable to actually fulfill part of the assessment process. and another was a girl who's at Oxford and basically needs her PIP so that she can pay for her power chair because otherwise we sort of can't get around. But even so PIP has now become a euphemism

for those people over there are getting something that I'm not and it's really unfair. And it's just like, the same with Motability. Again, a scheme that nobody had heard about until loads of papers went, you know, hell for leather on it earlier this year. And the Motability scheme gives you

an amount of money towards a car so that you can actually get around. And then they were like, oh, Mercedes and Rolls Royces and Jaguars and, you know, I don't know, the Batmobile are all being used for motorability vehicles. And it's like, yes, they're not paying for that. The person who is getting the car is paying for that on top of it if they want to sort of supplement it.

And so this idea that Pip is now something for people as like a lovely way that they can just sort of get, I don't know, increase their hobnob quotient at home and make sure their biscuit tin is always full, instead of which what it very often is is a way to sort of mean that they can actually be either in work or in study or just simply live and have to go through these incredibly invasive

and, you know, multi-sheet application forms to get into it. Like I said, I've not applied for PIP, but I did apply to access to work. And that in itself was such a bureaucracy hellscape that I spent about six months either in a queue or in tears. But again, you know, sadly, the Britons, well, actually I say Britain's, the English, just don't like the idea that somebody has got something that they don't have, even if that is a literal disability. Right. And if we

actually are worried about people being out of work, then maybe instead of demonising people, we should be looking at what's wrong with work and working culture that isn't accommodating everybody. Employers are required by the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments so that workers with disabilities or health conditions are not substantially disadvantaged. These can include flexible working hours, remote working, specialised equipment. Of course, this is not always the case. Stats from Scopes Work Without Barriers Report found that many employers still view workplace adjustments as a financial burden and underestimate their importance.

65% of employers say the cost of reasonable adjustments is a significant barrier to hiring disabled people, along with the perceived inconvenience of implementing them. Leanne, you have trained companies about ADHD in the workplace. Could you tell us a bit about your company ADHD works? And have you found that workplaces are generally receptive to making these adjustments? I've worked with amazing companies like Disney and Google and Yahoo. And the same is everywhere really, where it's more that it's an outdated system of work that doesn't work for anybody, but to help one person feels deeply uncomfortable because it challenges the whole

notion of, no, that's not the way that it works. You have to just do the job. You have to travel an hour to work and travel an hour home. We don't want to make exceptions for you because then everyone else is going to want that thing. But I remember working with a journalist who said that her daughter was asking why her friends were able to get breaks at school, like movement breaks, and she wasn't and she was like yeah well it isn't fair that you know they were only getting them because they have ADHD and you have to sit still for hours and end and it's like yes yes it isn't fair I agree like maybe we should change the system because it clearly doesn't work for anybody it's amazing what I have been able to do with ADHD works you know we've trained all these people and companies and coaching and

I wouldn't have got a job at any of those places 10 years ago and so I think it's it's a much bigger conversation around like flexibility and adaptability of the working world to people that think differently, which is all about us, we all think differently from one another. And whether that's because your brain is going to explode if you hear noises of people eating next to you and you can say, yes, ADHD, autism or not, maybe we should be able to have a society where people can all work in the ways that work for them. I think if you can allow trust and innovation and curiosity in the workplace that actually really benefits the company. Finally, to wrap up, Channel 4's The Great ADHD Myth program caused a lot of backlash within the community, rightly so.

So we'd like to ask if you had an hour-long documentary to present about ADHD. What would you actually like to explore? I'm so interested in how other people live their lives. And there's nothing like a documentary or something to just make us feel. feel about the subject. And so what I would love is to just rather than try and explain yet again that ADHD is real, because I mean, my God, I'm so bored of it. It's just like people are going to believe or not. That's fine. I just want a lovely hour showing people talking about the helpful ways that they live, that they manage, that they, you know, keep their lives on track,

things that they love, the things that they're interested in. And I think it's also crucially that reminder that people with ADHD, autism, different sort of ways of being. They're always around us and they always have been. It's just in the past, they were very often quite wealthy men who had a team of secretaries keeping them all together and going. And it's just not the case anymore. So something I think just bringing joy like a gardener's world for neurodiversity would be fabulous. I would watch that. I would watch that. I would love to personally watch a document. on neurotypical life. Like, I am just genuinely amazed at how people just know what to say.

Like, yeah, the therapist wants. She was like, when do you do nothing? I was like, do people do nothing? I was like, do people literally sit there on the sofa and just like do nothing? When they do the washing, like, don't they like just get all the washing out together? And like, you know, I'd love to interview them. Be like, what goes through your brain? I actually love that idea.

Channel 4, get on the phone. Friendships. I'd love to know, like, how people stay in terms. of the human beings and like what they talk about and how they define friendship and family and like work and how do they know what they're doing of their life and not have a nervous breakdown every day. I think it would be a great documentary. Again, I would watch that. That is all that we have time for but before we lose you, we would love to hear where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug? Kat, let's start with you. Oh, thank you. I'm Kat Brown-Rights

on Instagram where you can follow me, my dog, my cat and my incredibly mediocre attempts at horse riding. And my books are called It's Not a Bloody Trend, Understanding Life is an ADHD adult, and no one talks about this stuff, which is my anthology of stories about parents and non-parents and infertility. And Leanne follows and plugs. My name is Leanne Muskell and I run a company called ADHD Works. And you have a million things I could plug you and books and all of this stuff. But I would just say, just go and be nice to yourself. Thank you for listening. We're taking a one week break before coming back to you with an episode on patriotism.

What's the point of it? Is there such a thing as positive, progressive patriotism? And is patriotic media, just plain propaganda? If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout-out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. If you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow up.

podcast so please do tell your friends and obviously leave us a five-star rating and a review you can follow us on social media at matilda mal at helena wadier and follow the show via at media storm pod media storm is an award winning podcast produced by helena wadier and matilda mallinson it was edited by christie calloway gale the music is by samfire