Graham Herterich: 'The day I was diagnosed with ADHD at 46, it was like everything clicked'

Until two years ago, baker and cookbook author Graham Herterich had spent his life grappling with, and being exhausted by, constantly overlapping and competing thoughts. A diagnosis of ADHD in 2024 marked a sea change

Graham Herterich: 'My primary school days were tough. I couldn’t expel my energy through running around, so it was all internalised very much in my head and in my toes; I’d scrunch my toes an awful lot to expel energy.' Pictures: Alf Harvey

I’m 48 now — I was diagnosed with ADHD in November 2024. I’d started counselling a year before — one of the best things I ever did. Something had come up about the way my brain worked.

I described it to the counsellor: 20,000 competing tabs open at once; my brain feels like that, constantly thinking four or five things at one time.

One day she asked when I stop thinking, what happens? I said: “I don’t know. I never stop thinking; my brain never calms down; it’s going constantly. I honestly thought this is the way everybody’s brain works. I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was at college. I used to think everybody saw words back-to-front.”

The counsellor said it sounded like I could possibly have ADHD. She advised on how to go about getting a diagnosis. I went on TikTok, looking at people who’d recently been diagnosed.

I could identify with a lot of what they were saying. It took five months before I got the diagnosis — different appointments, assessments, a long full-day interview. I had to bring my sister as someone who could give her opinion on what I was like as a child.

My primary school days were tough. I couldn’t expel my energy through running around, so it was all internalised very much in my head and in my toes; I’d scrunch my toes an awful lot to expel energy.

As a child, I was described as a daydreamer.

The day I got diagnosed, a Thursday, a lovely mild day. I walked out onto Leeson Street and I just didn’t know which way to turn. It was like life just clicked — it made sense.

I was so relieved. I walked the whole way over to Rialto, 3/4km to my home, in a little daydream, thinking: 'You’re absolutely fine.'

Everything making sense ... this is the way my brain works. That walk home was probably the calmest my brain had been in years.

Graham Herterich at the Shackleton Museum in Athy. 

There was an acceptance; I could accept I have this. I stopped being so hard on myself because I’d have been annoyed with myself for overthinking too many things at the same time and everything getting confused. I realised that day it wasn’t me, it was the ADHD.

How had ADHD hindered me ... it had caused me to constantly second-guess myself. I had an awful lot of self-doubt, no self-belief.

I’d think of an idea, and something completely different would come in. This constant overflow of thoughts. I’d start a thought and never finish it.

All the Ws about it — what, why, where — were constantly going on about every thought. It was exhausting.

I’d had myself convinced I’d be going on medication, but I didn’t.

Graham Herterich: 'When you can put a name on something, or understand a reason, things become a lot easier to control, to look at, to fix.'

Because of the diagnosis, and with some counselling, I’ve been able to step away from the constant thoughts and to prioritise them.

When you can put a name on something, or understand a reason, things become a lot easier to control, to look at, to fix.

I use certain mechanisms to cope. My Filofax is my life. It’s my thought process; everything is there. I can box things off. So if I have an idea in my head, I write it down. It’s a tab in my file then, not in my head.

It’s quite a physical process, and it’s old-fashioned. Physically writing it down on paper in my handwriting is a process of taking it out of my head and putting it on paper, and I can work on it from there.

Graham Herterich: 'Being diagnosed has been massive. The acceptance and the realisation that this is who I am and there’s nothing wrong with it.' 

Whereas, if I put something on a laptop, it still feels like it’s in my head or that it doesn’t exist.

Another coping mechanism was to share the diagnosis with friends and family. Even my husband, who’s also my business partner, has a much clearer idea of me.

He knows to give me space and time to work through things, and to use the creative side of ADHD.

Being diagnosed has been massive. The acceptance and the realisation that this is who I am and there’s nothing wrong with it. I love the way my brain works. I’ve learned to embrace the mad little thoughts in my head. If I had an idea before that I thought was crazy, so many other tabs in my brain would say: “No, you can’t go down that route; you need to be more serious.”

Now, if a mad little idea comes, I write it down instead of just letting it fester away and being annoyed at what I’d have described as a silly thought. Now I say: “It’s ok, how can I use this?”

It means I’ve extra energy in my head to actually do something, as opposed to thinking about it.

I wish I’d been diagnosed earlier, that I didn’t spend so much of my life thinking I was weird. But there’s no point in thinking that way. Instead, I look at what I’ve been able to achieve in the last few years.

• Dublin-based baker, cookbook author and entrepreneur Graham Herterich, aka The Cupcake Bloke, hails from Athy, where he recently opened Ernie’s @Shackleton, the onsite café at the Shackleton Experience, the world’s only museum dedicated to Kildare-born polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.

• Graham and the team won Local Food Hero and Best Newcomer at the 2026 Leinster regional final of the Irish Restaurant Awards. He previously opened The Bakery by The Cupcake Bloke in Rialto, Dublin.