My ADHD is a gift: The Voice winner Tarryn Stokes opens up on her late journey to diagnosis
The Voice winner Tarryn Stokes was only diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. Now she wants teen girls to understand how getting help can transform their lives.
When The Voice 2023 winner Tarryn Stokes was in high school, a teacher quietly gave her one-on-one lessons in organisation. “They didn’t think it was ADHD, just that I was hopelessly disorganised,” she says.
As a child she’d coasted through primary school, but the demands of her high school in the east Melbourne suburb of Ringwood exposed a deeper struggle.
“Things you don’t have dopamine for are almost impossible to start. You wait until the last minute for the adrenaline to kick in, then think you’re lazy or not smart enough,” she said of her time at Yarra Valley Grammar School.
Like many girls with ADHD, she masked her struggles, excelling in music and sport while battling disorganisation, impulsivity and self-criticism.
“I was living a double life. People think ADHD means you’re just an unorganised person, but a lot of us are high achievers who can hyperfocus on what we love,” she said.
Stokes, who didn’t find fame until she was in her 40s, comes across as someone very genuine, who has lived many different faces of life.
But it took her diagnosis to reach her potential – and she can’t help but reflect on her earlier life and how it’s mirrored in so many other teen girls quietly struggling with ADHD.
There are a lot of them Port Macquarie-based paedatrician Dr Sarahn Lovett said that “The average age of diagnosis for a boy is around that seven to nine sort of age group. For girls, it’s probably around 11.
“Some of that reflects their presentation is different, but it also reflects that we just don’t get it as early.”
Dr Lovett, who is also the vice president of the Australasian ADHD Professionals Association, said that because girls with ADHD are more likely to be “quietly inattentive” rather than hyperactive and boisterous like boys, their diagnosis often gets missed altogether.
According to the Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, boys are diagnosed twice as often as girls (10.9 per cent v 5.4 per cent). Among 12 to 17-year-olds, the gap widens further (9.8 per cent v 2.7 per cent).
“If you’re having to cope through school, not understanding and taking on board what the teacher is saying, it’s much harder. And if you are not getting the marks or making the friendships or maintaining the friendships, which is actually one of the biggest things that could be causing that is ADHD,” Dr Lovett said.
These missed ADHD diagnoses in teen years can increase the risk of mental health problems later in life.
Dr Lovett describes inattentive girls as often “quietly suffering” – not asking questions in class, losing belongings, struggling to follow multi-step instructions, and requiring repeated reminders at home. While boys with hyperactivity may be flagged quickly, girls can mask their difficulties by copying notes, relying on friends, or quietly falling behind.
“A 10-year-old I saw explained it this way: ‘When the teacher asks me a question in class and I haven’t had my ADHD medicine, it’s like I’m in a library and none of the books have got their title on the spine – I know the information is there, but I can’t find it’,” Dr Lovett said.
Stokes, who now lives on the Sunshine Coast, wasn’t diagnosed until two years before winning The Voice.
“Life would have been so much easier if I’d known earlier. Without tools or medication, you’re trying to function in a way that doesn’t work for your brain. You lose confidence,” she said.
“For years you feel different, so you start masking – behaving the way you think you’re supposed to.
“ADHD kids are often corrected more than others: ‘Don’t do that, stop that, what are you doing?’ That sticks. You learn not to be too much. So it takes a lot of confidence to be truly seen.”
Her counsellor’s ADHD-specific strategies helped her manage the lights, crowds and chaos of the show. “I learned to protect my energy and focus on what matters.”
She can’t take medication due to heart palpitations, so she leans on lifestyle tools: high-intensity exercise, magnesium, “body-doubling”, and self-understanding.
Now, she sees ADHD as a gift. “I can read a room instantly, hyperfocus on music for hours. Once I understood it, I saw the strengths – and how to use them,” Stokes said.
