The Only Red Moon

A week ago today I received an email from Tumblr telling me my blog had officially turned 3, and although it shouldn’t matter, my heart began to sink. This was because for 2 years in a row I’d started fresh and re-attempted my blog, only to get fed up with my lack of interesting content and admit defeat. 

Now for anyone who knows me personally it’s old news that just under 2 months ago (on the 8th of November) I was given something truly life changing. After 6 years of pushing I’d officially been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Now if you’re wanting to hear more about ADHD and my personal experiences then don’t worry, I will go in to this at a later date. However for the time being all that matters is that when I revisited my currently empty homepage, I saw an opportunity.

ADHD is seemingly over-diagnosed, but when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture you’ll see that during their lifetimes, boys are nearly three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (13.2%) than girls (5.6%)*. On top of this I found out that only 1% of ADHD research is focused on the disorder in females*, which is vastly unhelpful if you fall into the 50% of the population who aren’t male. Un-diagnosed ADHD made my life a misery, I dropped out of school and experienced multiple severe emotional breakdowns with ADHD lurking at the centre of it all. Please listen to me when I say I wasn’t the only one, and this needs to change. ADHD from a distance seems friendly, and believe me it can be. But ADHD can also be misery, and complete despair. ADHD is a whirlwind of crazy in an already insane world, but it can be so much less than scary if the help you need is accessible. My aim for this blog throughout the future is to try and shine as much light as possible on ADHD, specifically in girls and women. I’m not a psychologist, and all my experiences aren't studies, but rather personal observations shared in the hope of emotional ease. This might not seem like much, but at the moment it’s the best I can do.

I’m currently writing this from the comfort of my boyfriend’s family home on the lovely seaside island, Mersea. At the moment my resources are limited to a few photos here and there (the one above I snapped quickly whilst on a walk 2 days ago), however when I’m back home I intend on making a detailed video on my personal experiences with ADHD and getting my diagnosis.  Lastly I hope you all had a lovely New Year, and that this year treats you better than the last. For now all I can ask is that you stay tuned for my future posts and continue to talk about and bring awareness to the parts of life that can be scary. You’re not alone, and you really can get through anything.

All the best Scarlet-Luna x

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