Chef Orla McAndrew on her adult ADHD diagnosis and what needs to change in the system

"And then came the diagnosis: ADHD. Not a shock, not a hammer blow, but a kind of quiet revelation. A frame placed around the picture of my life. The noise, the sleepless nights, the tornado energy, the self-doubt."

Orla McAndrew: "And then came the diagnosis: ADHD. Not a shock, not a hammer blow, but a kind of quiet revelation." Pic: Darragh Kane

I have always been full of energy. Talking fast, laughing loud, rushing headlong into the next idea before the last one was finished. From the outside, it looked like confidence. Inside, though, there was a quieter story. A sense that everyone else was somehow more capable, more entitled, more deserving of success than me.

It was never envy. I have always been the first to champion others, to cheer their wins, to celebrate their brilliance. But deep down, without ever really naming it, I believed their place at the table was earned while mine would always be provisional. I carried this unspoken belief that I had brilliance in me, but I never quite trusted myself to prove it.