A new start after 60: I was diagnosed with ADHD – and stopped hating myself
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After decades of self-doubt and depression, I’ve finally found my place in the world. Jean Ward always wondered if there was something wrong with her, and hated herself for it. The feeling started at school, where she could see a stork in a knot of her wooden desk, but the blackboard failed to hold her attention. Her sense of shame and displacement grew until, at 71, she learned she had “severe ADHD”, and finally began to accept herself.
“There’s an empowerment that comes with diagnosis,” she says. “And confidence. Maybe I’m not as awful as I thought I was.”. It was Ward’s partner, Derek, a retired GP, who initially raised the subject. He was reading the Sunday papers. “Look at this,” he said, showing Ward an interview with an author with ADHD. “It could be you.” Ward wrote to her doctor, and, after an assessment, was diagnosed in April 2023.
Ward, 72, describes herself as “all over the place” – “I butt into Derek’s train of thought” – while Derek is “a well-organised person with a superb memory. I get rounded up and pulled back into the world. We dovetail together.” They have been together for 20 years, and the relationship has given Ward a longed-for sense of compatibility and belonging.
As the daughter of teachers, Ward’s school struggles stung. She even missed her art O-level exam because she forgot about it, but after an audition was accepted at Dartington College of Arts in Devon to study music. Within a few years, she had gained qualifications, a husband and a teaching job.
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