Richard Bacon: ‘Why I quite like my ADHD’

Former BBC presenter Richard Bacon has said he quite likes having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), after being diagnosed as an adult.

The former Radio 5 Live presenter, who now works in the US, was diagnosed four years ago.

Bacon, 46, said he had “huge amounts of energy” and “fell in love” with whatever he was doing.

But he also said the condition had brought challenges, and that it affected people in different ways.

Charity ADHD UK said people were increasingly being diagnosed as adults.

Bacon, from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, was advised to seek a diagnosis by a therapist.

“I went to a place in Orange County, California which specialises in ADHD,” he said.

“I filled in a very long questionnaire, which is a very hard thing for people with ADHD to do – it’s very counter-intuitive.

“I had a brain scan and even on the brain scan you can actually see a physical manifestation of it.”

He said he had welcomed the diagnosis, having not previously realised he had the condition.

“When you find out about it, you understand yourself a bit better and how you conduct your life,” he said.

“I quite like having it really.

“The downsides are my chaos and disorganisation. But there’s a spectrum with all these things and they can show themselves in different ways.

“What I’ve liked about having it is that I’ve got a thing called hyper-focus, which you can get with ADHD.

“We all have that moment when you are doing something creative and you really, really love it and you focus more on it.

“Every single human has that capacity but I think with ADHD it’s beyond that.

“You fall in love with whatever you are doing. You can create stuff with ADHD. There’s an element of a superpower to it. I have huge amounts of energy.

“But I would caution that it does affect people differently.”

Mr Bacon, who has taken medication since his diagnosis, said ADHD had also brought him challenges.

“In my job, you have to actually pitch a show, produce it, liaise with the team, plan it,” he said.

“Having the idea is great but the bit where you have to manage a production of people is a challenge for me because it doesn’t move at that pace my brain really enjoys.”

He added that he was enormously grateful to his wife Rebecca.

“She’s had to deal with me and my passions and relative chaos. It’s been challenging. She’s a very steady person,” he said.

Mr Bacon, whose early career saw him sacked from Blue Peter over his cocaine use, said it was “difficult to say” if that would have happened had he received his ADHD diagnosis earlier.

“Back then, [ADHD] wasn’t talked about as much,” he said.

“Maybe then I wouldn’t have got into drugs when I was in my late teens, early 20s. It’s very difficult to say. The counter-factual is hard to know.

“Maybe [the Blue Peter sacking] wouldn’t have happened but frankly, it happening changed the course of my career in a way that turned out to be good.

“I don’t know where I’d be, but I quite like where I am now.

“But it is better to find the diagnosis, better to find the right medication with a really good ADHD doctor.”

Henry Shelford, the chairperson and founder of ADHD UK said people were increasingly being diagnosed as adults but support remained patchy nationwide.

“One of the things that can be so great about the diagnosis is that you feel enlightened and you can understand your strengths,” he said.

“Without that, people can really, really struggle to understand what they are dealing with.”

You can hear more from this interview on BBC Radio Nottingham.

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