Denise Welch details impact of late ADHD diagnosis

She describes being diagnosed around two years earlier after a process connected to her work on Loose Women, and says she hadn’t previously considered ADHD because depression had been the dominant “lens” through which she explained her thought patterns and life for decades.

She recounts trying prescribed ADHD medication once and says it rapidly triggered cravings for alcohol and cigarettes for the first time in 11 years, which she experienced as frightening and potentially dangerous given her sobriety; she chose to stop immediately.

She explains that depression for her isn’t “sadness” but an absence of emotion and intense psychological pain, and describes masking while working through severe episodes, including using vomiting as a brief distraction from the mental pain before going to work.

She repeatedly connects ADHD traits to people-pleasing, intense sensitivity, spiraling over small incidents (like a perceived queue-jump), interrupting due to fear of losing the thread, overcommitting, and feeling responsible for managing social dynamics in a room.

She says she experiences loneliness even among groups, describing times in dressing rooms where she hoped a show would be cancelled, and she links neurodivergence with feeling different and masking to fit in while “dying inside.”