Mum says 'it finally makes sense' after getting diagnosis, aged 45

A mother who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 45 thanks to a perceptive grief counsellor who was helping her come to terms with the death of her mother said she felt like she “didn’t fit in” throughout school but now feels like it all makes “sense”. Lydia Berman, 46, who lives in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, with her husband Russell, 48, and her three year-old son Harry, struggled in education, getting grades C, D and N at A-level, and always assumed people were “much brighter” than her, rather than her “lacking” something.

She found exams especially difficult and anxiety-inducing as sitting still for a set amount of time, not being able to fidget and having to constantly concentrate was “the polar opposite” of what worked for her. Lydia went on to study design at Camberwell College of Arts in 1996 and became a graphic designer – but, even when out of education, something still did not feel right, and she thought it was her personality.

She then went on to launch her business Creative Stripes in 2019, a brand and marketing agency, and later qualified as a business strategist. One year later, she launched a sub-brand of Creative Stripes, Mapper Cards – visual planning tools for business owners and “a different way of thinking for people that think differently”.

Through this, alongside Creative Stripes, she found that she could help and support other business owners, particularly those who were neurodiverse. But, when going through grief counselling in 2023, after her mother, Maureen, died of cancer aged 76 in 2020, her therapist pointed out her patterns of thinking were characteristic of ADHD.

This was also confirmed by her doctor, and Lydia began to realise why she found school difficult and why her cards worked so well for her. Lydia told PA Real Life: “(In school) exams just put me under pressure, forced me to concentrate for a fixed amount of time, and (did) not let me get up and walk around and fidget.

“It’s literally the polar opposite of my world and you force yourself to fit a model, and then you don’t do that very well, because it’s just not you. All it did was raise my anxiety and make me feel completely alien and so stupid… I felt like I didn’t fit in.”

Growing up, Lydia always assumed she was “not academic” and struggled to understand anything mathematical. She felt as if she could not grasp concepts as quickly as her peers, and was often told she was “not good enough” to progress.

“I suppose I’ve always known that something was different between how I work and how I process things,” she explained. I was always aware that people, when I was growing up at school and college, were much brighter than me… and they had a longer attention span, and I really did fail miserably.

“I just thought that that was my lacking, rather than there was a reason for it.”

But, at age 12, she was diagnosed with dyslexia, and believed that was the reason she was struggling. She continued to find education difficult, especially when it came to exams, and ended up getting grades C, D and N in her A-Levels.

However, she always excelled in art, so went on to study design at Camberwell College of Arts in 1996. After she graduated, she became an in-house graphic designer, but despite being in a field she was comfortable in, she still felt like something was not quite right.

She added: “I was conscious that I didn’t fit in, but I just always thought it was my personality.” On the side, she tutored art and design students, and found that teaching them lessons in confidence and creative learning approaches really helped them – she even helped one pupil go from failing to getting an A* in one year.

In 2020, she decided to become a freelance graphic designer, and two years later, launched Mapper Cards, visual planning tools for visual thinkers. Each deck of cards comes with “everything you need to visually lay out” a social media plan for the month, a marketing plan or business idea for budding entrepreneurs or people building their business.

She said: “The products are creative, they’re literally a different way of learning, because I find it stunning that you’re still having to follow the same model of learning when we know most people (have) slight (learning) differences.”

In 2020, when five months pregnant, Lydia lost her mum, and three years later she began having grief counselling. She said: “We basically closed the door on her in March 2020 (because of lockdown) and I didn’t see her properly again until she died.

“I found that very upsetting, most people would find it really difficult. It was very difficult to process and understand.”

In the counselling sessions, she finally understood why alternative learning styles were working so well for her and the neurodiverse pupils she was tutoring – her counsellor pointed out she was presenting clear signs of ADHD. ADHD came up because of the way that I was processing information and the way that I was dealing with emotion, and the brain fog I was struggling with,” Lydia explained.

“I hadn’t really thought about that so I looked into it more as (the) sessions went on. I’ve used it as something which has helped me understand (myself) and how (to) think and work better.”

A few months later, Lydia’s GP agreed and said she was presenting obvious signs of ADHD, but she decided she did not want to “go down the route of taking medication” and the long formal diagnosis process. She said: “I would jump between like 10 different topics in a sentence, I am constantly forgetful but at the same time, I’ll remember minute details about certain things.

“I can either hyper focus or have zero focus – there is no in between.”

After this moment, Lydia felt like she suddenly understood her behaviour patterns and why she struggled in school.

Lydia said: “It all made sense. I can see quite clearly… that my brain thinks differently to other people now. I think I just think in a creative way, so I’m very good at problem solving.

“I think my ADHD traits became more obvious when I worked for myself because I had to do everything across the business – it was so hard to be organised. The diagnosis meant that I could better understand what I can do well, and what I should not be doing – I allocate tasks to other people now.”

Looking back on her school life, Lydia is unsure whether she would have benefited from an earlier diagnosis. I was bullied because of how my brother was in my primary school… he had severe dyslexia and learning difficulties and went to a specialised school after that,” she explained.

“I think how we thought of people who learn differently was just so bad – the way that teachers spoke to him… was really horrible. I think your parents don’t want you to have labels unnecessarily and I still don’t really need the label, it’s sort of no use in that sense.

“But what the diagnosis has done, and what it could have done when I was younger, is encourage me to look at different ways of learning things.”

Lydia also thinks the concern about ADHD being over-diagnosed is unwarranted especially if a diagnosis “helps someone find a better way of learning or working – it can only be a good thing”.

She explained: “I think for a long time, people just thought only a very small percentage of people have different ways of thinking but I think (that is) slightly narrow-minded. We’re all wired differently… and I think it is only logical that we learn differently and process things differently.

“It’s never been just about telling people to get diagnosed, I think it is about finding ways to improve your ways of working.”

For more information about Lydia’s business visit: www.creativestripes.co.uk and www.creativesupporthub.com.