I’ve always worked too hard. It took an ADHD diagnosis and a breakdown to change that

I’m about to share something I’m afraid I’ll regret. That I’ll limit my professional opportunities by sharing what sometimes goes on in my brain. But, at a time when study after study tells us our collective mental health has never been worse, the purpose in telling you feels more important than the cost.

As long as I’ve had a job, I’ve worked too hard. I’ve been profoundly anxious my whole life and have channelled that nervous energy into every role: often at the expense of my mental and physical health and usually when no one had actually asked me to.

Sally Spicer accepts Mumbrella’s Journalist Of the Year Award from Dr Brittany Ferdinands in September.

It took a later-in-life ADHD diagnosis and a full-blown breakdown – which came shortly after winning a prestigious industry award – for that to change. At a time when my career had reached new heights, I spent three profoundly unwell months away from everything and everyone. It’s the kind of crushing numbness you only really know if you’ve been in it. And it led me to finally re-evaluate my relationship with work. For me to reframe, reset and gently create for myself some boundaries that might just stick.

In June 2024, I was diagnosed with ADHD, something I’d suspected for years but had struggled to confirm officially because of the executive dysfunction that comes with actually having ADHD. For me, the impact of being medicated was instantaneous – and magnificent. My brain has always been home to hundreds of angry bees. But now? It fell silent. Amidst the quiet, I could follow a train of thought uninterrupted. I could plan and take action without getting distracted by something else. It was life changing.

But as a workaholic, my focus immediately turned to how I could use my new quiet brain to become more efficient in my work. Putting an overachiever on a controlled stimulant turned out to be a surefire way to guarantee both superhuman performance and superhuman burnout. Within nine months I was well beyond my usual point of collapse. Even with a lifetime of experience, the episode of mental ill-health that followed was ferocious. I had crashed through my usual warning signs and shattered myself at speed.

Sally Spicer with her cat Nina during her illness. “I spent three profoundly unwell months away from everything and everyone.”

For two weeks, my worried husband barely left my side. I remember the “oh shit” look on my counsellor’s face when she realised how profoundly unwell I’d become. My manager divvied up all of my work, contacting me only to reassure me I was doing the right thing. The best and worst part of arriving at the point where you feel like you want to die is that everyone who cares for you makes a point of frequently telling you how much they love you. It’s a good thing and I’m grateful. It’s also very annoying because that love forces you to do the work. To try and get better.

Over those three months I oscillated between four moods: depressed, panicked, angry and distracted. There was a lot of sleeping, crying, and apologising to my husband who cared for me like his child, not his partner of 13 years. I had a stack of prescribed sedatives that I probably didn’t take often enough because I was afraid I’d become addicted. The only word which feels even a little bit adequate to describe my brain at that time is “broken”.

A week after my mental health crisis began, my husband travelled to Cairns for the biggest week of his working year. Too nervous to leave me home alone and unable to cancel, he brought me with him. “My prescription for you is tropical fish,” my psychiatrist said, agreeing wholeheartedly with my husband’s decision. I fulfilled my lifelong dream of swimming in the Great Barrier Reef and even saw a cassowary in the wild on a day trip to the Daintree Rainforest.

The prescription was sound. I wasn’t better but I was distracted. When I had the energy, I travelled more to try and recreate that feeling. I threw myself into thundering waterfalls and glassy pools and eventually something unexpected happened. I’ve travelled before when my brain and my body were sick, but I had never travelled with a quiet brain. Even in the midst of a depressive episode, I noticed the difference.

By stepping away from day-to-day deadlines – something I hadn’t done since I got my first restaurant job at 16 – I was able to reset. My newly quiet mind gave me space to reconsider my beliefs about myself as a person. I thought about how I see myself as a worker, and reflected on the consequences. I realised I’d never believed I was smart enough to be in the jobs I had. The way I worked was like an ongoing apology to everyone around me.

I had worked myself almost to death because it never occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t the price of having a job. That no one except me had ever asked me to be perfect. That sometimes good enough was good enough.

I’ve finally started to realise who I am outside of my work and to accept that that person is worth something too. I’m back at work now doing a job I love with people I love. I’ll probably always be a workaholic. But I also love how much there is to do outside of myself. How much there is to see.

And oh my, how I love the quiet.

In Australia, support is available at Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, and at MensLine on 1300 789 978.

Sally Spicer is FW’s Future Women’s communications director and a multi-award winning journalist and podcast producer. In 2024, she was named Journalist of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.