In the Loop: Chlöe Swarbrick on her ADHD and inequities in the mental health system

Green Party list MP Chlöe Swarbrick. Photo / Dean Purcell

Chlöe Swarbrick doesn’t usually hold back.

The MP, known for tackling prickly topics in Parliament, brought the same energy last month when she first shared her adult ADHD diagnosis.

In doing so, she used her platform to highlight the issues many with neurodiversity face in getting a diagnosis.

Today Swarbrick speaks on the New Zealand Herald in the loop podcast about her ADHD journey and why things need to change.

This began after years of grappling with depression, when she says it felt as though something was coming unstuck and had to give.

“I realised that these underlying feelings that led me to depression, medication and treatment weren’t necessarily really resolved. There was still something else there.”

By virtue of having the mental health portfolio, she heard a presentation about the barriers people with ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face.

Eventually she found that a lot of what one of the speakers, Rory, spoke about was also what she experienced.

As a diagnosis she told the Herald that ADHD wasn’t something that necessarily gelled with how people had perceived her in the past.

Retrospectively, she puts this down to her “masking” her symptoms.

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This concept is common with women who have ADHD and describes when neurodiverse people try to cover up their symptoms by copying the behaviour of neurotypical people to fit into the “neurotypical” world.

“If, as a younger woman like myself, you were sat in a corner trying to read something but you were reading the page 100 times over and absorbing none of that information. You fit the bill of someone that looks studious but, you know, nobody’s necessarily seeing the things that are going through your brain.”

Throughout her first few years at school Swarbrick says she was relatatively decent, but she says the wheels “fell off” in her later years.

Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick. Photo / File

“But then I very weirdly ended up jumping through doing a BA and an LLB in four and a half years while trying to run multiple different businesses.”

On paper, some may look at this as someone achieving a lot, but she sees this as very much the hallmarks of many ADHD symptoms.

“Trying to find interest in a bazillion different things, dropping the ball on some of them, is generally [being] quite terrible of time management.”

Had she known more about ADHD back then she says she would have arranged things differently and had a higher level of wellbeing.

Before getting a diagnosis Swarbrick says she spent a lot of time gathering “evidence” to support her belief that she had ADHD.

“I was terrified to sit in front of my psychiatrist or my GP and try and say I have this thing which has so many stereotypes attached to it which didn’t necessarily seem congruent to how I am necessarily perceived.”

Getting a diagnosis can end up becoming a “really expensive” process and Swarbrick noted that there are a number of people out there who have self-diagnosed but can’t afford to get a formal diagnosis.

“That lack of formal diagnosis then stands in the way of, and is a barrier to, what for some people is massively helpful medication.”

Part of the reason she decided to participate in the conversation surrounding ADHD is because of the privilege she holds as an MP.

“I have a job to do as a representative that I take really seriously, in representing myself with my flaws intact, and people can kind of take it or leave it. If they’ve got these assumptions about ADHD in the context of what I’ve recently disclosed, then come at me.”

Green Party MP says the system for diagnosing ADHD needs to change. Photo / Alex Burton

Swarbrick’s announcement was welcomed by many in the neurodiverse community, including ADHD New Zealand chief executive Darrin Bull.

“I was just wrapped that someone so young and accomplished was able to talk about it so publicly.”

Bull says Swarbrick’s korero about her ADHD was really going to encourage people to talk about their own ADHD.

“She’s such a beacon for hope and she’s young, I just think it’s amazing, I really do think this is a great thing.”

He told the Herald stigma surrounding the diagnosis still exists.

“Younger people in their teenage years, in their 20s are more and more coming out and talking about it more as a badge of honour. And I think that speaks to attitude change somehow in our education system, which I criticise a lot to be fair but a lot of people leaving secondary school are being powered by being neurodiverse.”

Swarbrick, he says, has gotten where she is based on her talent; powered by ADHD.

“Not only are her solutions quite different, she’s quite focused on them as well, so I think it helps make her a politician of the future. She’s not a normal politician.”

Recently Bull’s daughter has been diagnosed with ADHD and he says knowing Swarbrick has ADHD has shown her she can “do it too”.

“Having a role model like that is just massive. Oh goodness, it’s a little bit emotional when you think how brave Chlöe is, full stop.”

Swarbrick noted when she first spoke of her ADHD online that the growth in people self-diagnosing is a consequence of the mental health system in Aotearoa.

“But if it wasn’t for social media talking about all of this, and the pockets of community on here, I never would have gone on to get my relatively (27) late “official” diagnosis,” she wrote then.

The Ministry of Health has been aproached for comment regarding ADHD diagnosis in Aotearoa.

Psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald told the Herald he supported her comments and we have to recognise this in the context of the tremendous wait lists people face looking for an official diagnosis.

“Even setting aside costs, the main problem in New Zealand now is we don’t have enough workforce.”

He says often people who struggle with these things are “high functioning”, which means they won’t qualify for public funding.

“So it does mean that often people battle on feeling like they’re distracted or can’t focus. Or, you know, otherwise beat up on themselves rather than actually getting some clarity around what’s going on and what might help.”

People with ADHD can be highly adaptive and he says people with it can be incredibly diligent and obsessive about things – in a good way.

When it comes to ADHD there’s also a gendered difference in how it can present – with many women falling outside of the stereotypical perception of what ADHD looks like.

Psychologist Kyle MacDonald. Photo / Supplied

Data from the New Zealand Health Survey shows that in 2020 4.2 per cent of boys aged between 2-14 had been diagnosed with ADHD, whereas only 0.5 per cent of girls in the same age group were diagnosed.

“I think having a role model who isn’t the stereotype also really shakes it up in a useful way.”

Traditionally, MacDonald says ADHD and other conditions exist on a continuum, and although people may be able to focus in the workplace it doesn’t mean they won’t struggle in other areas.

At the same time, it’s also highly correlated with alcohol and drug abuse issues, which people use to “quiet” themselves down, he said.

“There’s a big conversation to be had about how we can recognise it in a way that’s helpful and how we can validate people’s experience in a useful way. I think Chlöe’s probably done a great job of starting that in a really positive way.”

What is ADHD?
• Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that can cause hyperactive and impulsive behaviour, as well as attention difficulties.

• Both adults and children can be diagnosed with ADHD.

•Not everyone with ADHD has the same symptoms and there many are benefits to having it, which include some people being more creative, energetic and spontaneous.

• ADHD affects two to five per cent of all children. A third of children outgrow it by the time they’re a teenager.

In the Loop is a New Zealand Herald podcast.

In the Loop is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes come out every Friday morning.

You can find more New Zealand Herald podcasts at nzherald.co.nz/podcasts or on iHeartRadio.