ADHD Help for Adults in the UK: Where Do You Actually Start?

I think I might have ADHD

This is where many people begin.

Something has made you wonder whether ADHD could explain things you’ve struggled with for years. Perhaps somebody mentioned it. Perhaps your child was diagnosed and suddenly their assessment sounded suspiciously familiar. Or perhaps you stumbled across something about ADHD and found yourself thinking, repeatedly, “Hang on... I do that.”

You don’t need to decide immediately whether you definitely have ADHD.

Start by learning about it from reliable sources and thinking about your own experiences. ADHD isn’t simply being distracted or forgetful. It can affect attention, motivation, impulsivity, emotional regulation, organisation, time management and your ability to start or finish things.

Think about where you struggle and how long those difficulties have been around.

If you decide you want an assessment, your GP is usually the starting point in England. You can also ask about Right to Choose where it applies.

But assessment doesn’t have to be the first time you do anything about the problems themselves.

If you’re constantly forgetting appointments, you can work on that now.

If work is becoming difficult, you can start looking at what would make it easier now.

If you’re overwhelmed by everything you need to do, you can get help with that now.

You don't have to wait for somebody to confirm ADHD before you're allowed to make your life easier.

Start with what is difficult now

You do not have to solve the diagnosis question before you start making everyday life easier.

I’m waiting for an ADHD assessment

This is the group I worry about most.

You’ve done what you were supposed to do. You recognised there might be a problem, spoke to somebody and got yourself referred.

Then you were told to wait.

And wait.

Your referral might be sitting on a waiting list for years, while everything that led you to ask for help carries on happening.

Getting onto a waiting list isn’t support.

If you were struggling at work before your referral, you’re probably still struggling at work. If you were heading towards burnout, being given an assessment date several years away hasn't removed that risk.

I know something about this personally. By the time ADHD entered the picture for me, things had already gone badly wrong at work. I had burned out and spent months away from work.

That is one reason I feel so strongly about this.

While you’re waiting, start with the problems rather than the diagnosis.

What is making life difficult?

Is it starting tasks? Remembering things? Managing competing demands? Getting anywhere on time? Concentrating in a noisy office? Becoming overwhelmed? Working ridiculous hours because everything takes longer than it should?

Those are things you can begin working on without waiting for an assessment.

You can also look for peer support, ADHD groups, coaching and workplace support.

Your assessment matters.

So does the life you have to live while you’re waiting for it.

I’ve just been diagnosed with ADHD. Now what?

Diagnosis can be enormous.

Mine was.

There was relief in finally having an explanation for things I had struggled with for most of my life.

Then comes a slightly awkward question.

What now?

Diagnosis can explain why something happens. It doesn’t automatically change what happens on Monday morning.

You may be offered medication. For some people that can make a substantial difference. You might also need help understanding your ADHD, changing how you work, rebuilding confidence or untangling years of believing you were lazy, unreliable or simply not trying hard enough.

Give yourself some time with it.

You don’t need to redesign your entire life during the first week after diagnosis.

Learn about your own ADHD. Notice where you struggle and where you don’t. Pay attention to what makes things easier or harder.

There is no single correct way to “do ADHD”.

Diagnosis is a beginning, not an instruction manual

If you want more detail, read ADHD Diagnosis: Now What? The Adult Support Gap.

ADHD is causing problems at work

This can become frightening very quickly.

Maybe you’re missing deadlines. You can’t keep track of competing demands. Meetings disappear from your head five minutes after they finish. You’re working late every night just to keep up.

Or perhaps you're actually doing the job well, but the amount of effort required to keep doing it is becoming impossible.

I’ve been there.

Please don’t wait until everything collapses before you start talking about it.

Think about the actual barriers you’re experiencing rather than starting with a list of generic ADHD adjustments.

Would written instructions help?

Would fewer interruptions make a difference?

Do you need clearer priorities when several people are asking you for things?

Would regular check-ins stop problems building unnoticed?

Would assistive software help?

Could changes to your working environment make concentration easier?

Workplace support should be about what makes it possible for you to do your job, not about forcing everybody with ADHD into the same set of adjustments.

It may also be worth looking at Access to Work. Depending on your circumstances, it can fund practical support related to disability or health conditions at work.

And you can talk to your employer about difficulties and possible adjustments before you have an ADHD diagnosis. A diagnosis can be useful evidence, but the problems you're experiencing don't suddenly become real on the day somebody diagnoses you.

I’m overwhelmed and I think I’m burning out

This is not the moment for another productivity system.

If everything feels impossible, adding seventeen new habits, three apps and an elaborate morning routine may simply give you seventeen new things to fail at.

Start smaller.

What can stop?

What can wait?

What are you doing because you genuinely need to do it, and what are you doing because you've spent years trying desperately to prove you can cope?

Sometimes support isn't about squeezing more performance out of yourself.

Sometimes something needs to give.

If your health is being affected, talk to your GP or another appropriate healthcare professional. If work is contributing to it, talk to somebody at work before you reach the point where you simply can't continue.

Burnout isn't a productivity problem to hack your way through.

I want help, but I don’t know what kind

Fair enough.

The world of ADHD support can be confusing, particularly when everybody offering something naturally thinks their particular something is useful.

Different problems need different kinds of help.

You might need:

• medical assessment or treatment
• help from your GP with another health problem
• changes or support at work
• Access to Work
• ADHD coaching
• counselling or therapy
• practical help with organisation or daily life
• peer support
• an ADHD support group
• information that helps you understand what is happening

You might need more than one of those.

Coaching, for example, isn’t medical treatment and it doesn’t replace assessment, medication or therapy. What it can give you is somewhere to work on the practical problems ADHD is creating in your life and find approaches that work for you.

Sometimes the first useful question isn't “What support should somebody with ADHD have?”

It’s:

What am I struggling with right now?

Start there.

I’m looking for ADHD support in the North East

ADHDaptive is based in Northumberland and I work with adults across Newcastle, Northumberland and the wider North East, both in person and online.

There are other sources of support too, and it is worth looking locally for ADHD and neurodivergent groups, charities, NHS services and peer communities.

You don't have to choose one thing and declare allegiance to it.

Take the useful bits.

You don't have to wait

I care about diagnosis. Mine changed how I understood myself and eventually changed the direction of my life.

But I have become increasingly uncomfortable with the way diagnosis can become the front door to everything else.

People can spend years waiting outside that door.

Meanwhile they're losing confidence, burning out, struggling with relationships, getting into difficulties at work and wondering why ordinary life seems to require so much effort.

We can do better than telling them to wait.

If something is making your life difficult today, start there.

Find out what help exists. Talk to people. Ask awkward questions. Try things. Keep what helps and file away what doesn't.

Get assessed if that is what you want or need.

But don't put your life on hold while you wait.

You don't need an ADHD diagnosis to start getting help with your life.