Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick has opened up about her "incredibly affirming" journey of self-forgiveness after being diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADHD).
While the disorder is not uncommon, many adults find it difficult getting diagnosed and 80% of adults with ADHD struggle to navigate the health system to receive help, according to research by ADHD New Zealand.
Swarbrick, the Green Party's mental health spokesperson told Breakfast she was in attendance for a presentation on ADHD, the mental health system and misdiagnosis when “a few light bulbs started going off in my head”.
Swarbrick said she did “a few self-diagnosis tests and quizzes online … and then started the process of talking to my GP and my psychologist and getting quite freaked out about the fact that on paper and ostensibly, I look like somebody who is relatively successful and OK".
She added, however, that online tests and quizzes are not “in and of itself – in any way, shape or form – replacement for clinical diagnosis but still can help to affirm you in your journey”.
The Auckland Central MP said life before the diagnosis had been “an interesting experience and journey” for her loved ones “for whom there’s also been a lot of affirmation for their experiences that they have had” in “experiencing life alongside somebody who is experiencing undiagnosed ADHD”.
“My kind of sense of compulsion to interrupt things when there is a light bulb going off in my head about a contribution that must be made, my hyper-focus, the fact that I can become relatively irritable when interrupted in the middle of a task and obviously also the fact that I really find my sense of enjoyment in spinning a million plates at any given time.
“So I guess if you were to come up with a kind of job that was good for that, where you could pursue a lot of your passions and also have somebody help you with your admin, Member of Parliament works alright.”
Psychiatrist Dr Greg Finucane told Breakfast people with ADHD going undiagnosed is “relatively common”.
He said when he first began training in psychiatry, it was “sort of a general assumption that everybody grew out of it once they hit adulthood, once their brains matured … that people were generally fine”.
“It’s sort of really been the last 25, 30 years, people have figured out that’s not really the case and in fact, people are less likely to completely grow out of it than actually to keep demonstrating some symptoms in adult life.”
Finucane added while men with ADHD has gained awareness in the past 15 or 20 years due to going through the prison system, “the women have tended to be quieter and sit at home and wonder why things aren’t working out for them and that kind of thing”.
“There isn’t really a good system for supporting GPs and others to identify cases and get the diagnosis and find appropriate treatment.”
He said going undiagnosed can lead to the development of other mental health conditions over time.
“What the research seems to show is that if you take children about the age of 10 or 12 and look at their symptom profile, it’s mostly just ADHD symptoms. If you then look at people at around the age of 40, it’s all the ADHD symptoms but also anxiety and depression and all these other things that have built up over the years of trying to push through the day with bees in your head.”
Finucane called for greater education and support for primary care practitioners.
“We just need a program of trying a few things and seeing what works for Aotearoa New Zealand.”
Swarbrick said the diagnosis has given her “the ability to forgive yourself for the things you were blaming as deficiencies in the way that you operated and who you are”.
“Having gone through that journey and all of that rigmarole, being able to have those conversations with my family and kind of explain and unpack this stuff and have an element of forgiveness for myself, too, has been incredibly affirming.”
She added, however, that there are “massive challenges” involved in receiving a diagnosis “let alone even enabling yourself to believe that that might be something that you might have”.
“If you design a system that was navigable for somebody with ADHD, it would not look like the one we currently have.”
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