Presenter Zoe Ball has revealed her and her kids have both been diagnosed with the same condition – and it's caused "chaos" at home. Speaking with pal Jo Whiley on their Dig It podcast, Zoe said that her lodger had been a catalyst for “calm and order” in their home.
“I always wang on about having ADHD,” she said, adding that it was only after her teenage daughter Nell was diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental condition that Zoe herself realised she might also be among the roughly 5% of people living with ADHD.
Zoe said that Nell, who she shares with her superstar DJ ex-husband Norman Cook, had been prescribed with medication to help keep the condition under control. “It's really helped her to focus,” she said.
“But it's been learning about their situation and how they deal with things that I've learned about my own [ADHD] and the carnage and the mess.”
Zoe – who has been hotly tipped to be one of the new Strictly Come Dancing presenters – went on to say that it’s only when things reach a crisis point that she buckles down to tidy he house up. She explained: “I can be like a whirlwind, but what I do need is a bit of order. And sometimes things can get really messy and then you get to the point of I've got to sort this out. And when you've got ADHD, you're so easily distracted.”
She revealed that her 25-year-old son Woody also has ADHD, which can lead to the three of them having quite a chaotic home life. Zoe went on: “There's three ADHD-ers … three quite gregarious people… and then there's the lodger who's quite ordered and very regimented. That’s the way he survives and he gets through his stuff.
"He’s bought a bit of calm and order into this house of chaos. Which I never realised would be so appreciated. I'm like ‘Thank you. Thank you for bringing calm and and order into a house of chaos because it makes such a difference’.”
But despite finding help for Woody and Nell, and appreciating the additional stability that their lodger brings, Zoe admitted that she still struggles from time to time. She continued: “It can be really tough… I think if you have ADHD you take things so personally and so to heart and those extremes of emotions can be quite hard to handle sometimes.”
She added that her notorious party reputation during the 1990s had probably been driven by her undiagnosed ADHD. She recalled: "I would never let anyone leave the party. This is probably why I partied probably for 10 years too long. and I just hated the party being over and I hated everybody leaving. And then I would see Woody. Woody would cry when people left to go home, even when he was little.”
She added that her daughter is very bright, but being so strong-willed makes her hard to manage sometimes: “I love my daughter so much, she's amazing. She's sassy as hell and I know she's going to be okay out there in the big wide world, because she's strong-willed and she's tough.
“But, oh lordy, there is no telling her! I think her brother was the same when he was young. As a mum, you have to work out different ways of approaching things.”
