Jane Austen had ADHD and other lies

Did Austen have ADHD? Or would that be Emma Woodhouse?

It’s a little-known fact that a lot of novelists have ADHD (spoiler alert: including me). And it’s a still lesser-known fact that, recently, many more people are winning diagnoses — women over forty, especially. This is because, when we were young, we were almost always either (a) too brilliant at “masking” it to be diagnosed — ADHD having been wrongly considered an out-of-control-little-boy thing — or else (b) misdiagnosed with anxiety/depression.

I was personally diagnosed ADHD in my late fifties, only a couple of years ago. And the UK’s National Health Service, unlike private bodies, does not diagnose lightly. (Why? Because my medication is very expensive and I don’t pay a penny for it. Go figure.) Getting an NHS diagnosis also takes years.

Anyway, the upshot of these two facts is a worldwide shortage of ADHD medication, as the drug companies have been ridiculously slow to spot the zeitgeist. And the upshot of that is that even those of us on the priority list are having trouble getting — AUGH!!!!!!!! — our medication. So, please excuse me if this blog is about-as-nutty-as-peanut-butter.

To start with, the title. Austen in no way had ADHD. I only put that to get more of you people to read it, lol. (I know. I’m ruthless.)