I’m turning 36 next week. I’m a wife, a mother to three beautiful boys – 12, ten and two – and I finally feel like I know who I am. For the first time in my life, I believe I am a good person.
But not so long ago, I didn’t think I’d even make it to this age.
I was suicidal for years – in and out of mental health units, trying different cocktails of medication, crying in hospital bathrooms and planning to end my life. I truly believed the world would be better without me in it.
I had thought the conditions driving me to the brink were depression, PTSD or even postnatal struggles after my sons were born.
In reality, it was ADHD – a diagnosis that no one thought to look for until I was 35. When I finally got the right treatment, it was like stepping out of a storm into silence.
The eldest child, the helper, the achiever
I grew up in regional Western Australia, the eldest of six in a family where the house was spotless and responsibility weighed heavy. We lived 800km from Perth, almost closer to South Australia than our own capital, so everything – shopping, medical appointments, emergencies – meant flights, long drives and longer days.
Corrina Rawlinson shares her raw and honest account of being diagnosed with ADHD at 35 and the pharmacological treatment that transformed her life
By the time I was old enough to sweep a floor, I was getting up early to do it, hoping that someone would notice I was being helpful.
My sister had a genetic kidney issue, my youngest brother was badly burnt in a bath accident, and I made it my job to look after everyone.
At school, I was the girl who was always helping the teachers, always chasing good grades – not because I particularly loved learning, but because I loved the recognition that came with it. My report cards said the same thing year after year: Corrina is intelligent, but she’s easily distracted and talks too much.
It wasn’t wrong. Even when I did well, assignments went missing, deadlines slipped. I was anxious, restless, never settled. On the outside, I was capable, kind, helpful; on the inside, I felt like I was failing at life.
A life that looked perfect, but felt unbearable
By 15, I was done with school. By 18, I was managing a travel agency. By 20, I was running businesses. I married, had children, joined every committee going. From the outside, I was that woman people look at and say: ‘She does it all.’
But I wasn’t doing it all. Not really. I was drowning.
When my two eldest boys were six and four, I was running the family business – a newsagency – which made me responsible for the financial future of everyone I loved.
Corrina says dexamphetamine, commonly known as dexies, ‘completely transformed’ her life
This was on top of school committees, swimming lessons and endless domestic work. I was exhausted, burnt out and utterly convinced that every failure – real or imagined – proved that I was worthless.
I told my doctor I was fine. I smiled through gritted teeth. And when I did admit I was struggling, I was met with toxic positivity or useless advice: Why don’t you take a day off? Get a cleaner? Ask someone else to help?
But I couldn’t. Without me, everything would collapse. That was the story I told myself – and it nearly killed me.
The letter
On the outside, I was still functioning. On the inside, I was crumbling.
The newsagency was the centre of my family’s financial security, and I was supposed to be running it. But I couldn’t keep up. At first, I started avoiding the shop on the days I couldn’t face it. One day became two, two became weeks. Bills piled up, suppliers called, staff were left without direction – and still, I pretended everything was fine.
I became skilled at hiding it. I’d tell my husband or my mother that I’d been at work all day, but I wasn’t. I told myself that tomorrow I’d fix it, tomorrow I’d catch up. But tomorrow never came.
The longer I left it, the worse it got. Every unpaid invoice, every stock delivery I ignored became another brick on my chest. I started to believe I’d ruined everything – not just the business, but my family’s trust, our future, our name in the community.
When my brother, who knew retail inside-out, came to town and started asking questions, I panicked. He was talking to staff, checking stock, peering into the books.
I could see the truth unravelling right there in front of me, and I thought: It’s over. They’ll see what I’ve done. They’ll never forgive me.
That night, I wrote a letter. My last letter.
It said: ‘I’m an actual f**kwit. I ruin everything. Everyone is better off without me. Please don’t give me a funeral. I just want to go quietly.’
I bawled my eyes out, but there was also a strange kind of calm in writing it. I thought death was the only way to stop the shame, the only way to undo what I’d done.
I truly believed my children would be happier without me, that my husband would be better off with someone else, and that my family could finally move on without the dead weight.
My family had no idea. They thought I was sick with colds and chest infections. They didn’t know I was weighing up ways to make it all stop.
When they finally found out, it was because the business was falling apart. My mother called and asked me to come over. I thought: This is it. Tonight’s the night.
Instead, I walked into a room full of people who loved me, all asking: ‘What is going on?’
I broke down. I told them everything. I said I wanted to die. And they looked me in the eye and told me: ‘We love you. The business doesn’t matter. We’ll get you help.’
Hospitals, miscarriages and holding on
My first mental health admission came in 2019, after a psychiatrist listened to my story – including a traumatic event from my past – and told me I had PTSD. I cried with relief – finally, someone had named what was happening in my head.
But recovery was not neat.
After my first admission, I felt hopeful and even told my husband I wanted another baby. But when I miscarried, the grief and hormone crash sent me spiralling again.
I was admitted a second time after what felt like a complete breakdown – an argument with my husband ended with me walking barefoot for miles through town, dissociating, ending up at a bridge and weighing up whether to jump.
In the hospital, I was told I wasn’t safe and that I had no capacity to make decisions. I spent more time in a mental health ward, my days stripped back to the basics: when to eat, when to shower, when to take my meds.
For once, I wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s survival. Someone else was making the decisions. In a way, it was both terrifying and strangely peaceful.
By the end of 2020, I had been admitted three times. Each time, my medications were tweaked, my body detoxing from one while adjusting to another. Each time, I came home to try to piece together life again. I miscarried again, and again. Each loss chipped away at me further.
There were cruel moments too – like the emergency nurse who looked me up and down while I miscarried and said flatly, ‘This isn’t really maternity, because there won’t be a baby. This is more a mental health issue.’
By the time I finally held my rainbow baby boy in early 2023, I was raw, scarred, and terrified I would break again.
The three words that changed everything
By Easter 2024, I was back at breaking point. My psychiatrist had moved on, and I felt abandoned. But when I found another doctor in Perth, he sat with me, listened to my entire story, and said three words that changed my life: ‘You have ADHD.’
At first, it didn’t seem real.
I wasn’t hyperactive. My mother didn’t believe it. But when I looked back – the chaos, the distraction, the self-loathing, the decision fatigue – it was all there.
I started medication – dexamphetamine – last November. Suddenly, my brain was quiet. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t at war with myself.
‘For the first time in my life, I wasn’t at war with myself,’ Corrina says of her experiencing taking dexamphetamine (stock image)
Life after the storm
Medication hasn’t ‘saved my life’ – but it has completely transformed it.
Before, I believed my children would be better off without me. Now, I believe I am a good mum. I don’t scream at them anymore. I take them out. I’m present.
Before, I thought my husband deserved someone else. Now, I can give him affection, and let him go out with his mates without melting down.
Before, I worked myself into the ground trying to prove I was enough. Now, our business is thriving because we’ve learned to stay in our lane.
I even started a podcast – where I read out that goodbye letter in the first episode. Because silence nearly killed me, and conversation saves lives.
If I could tell my younger self
If I could go back and talk to the woman sobbing over that letter, I’d tell her what my naturopath once told me: ‘You are loved. You are perfect exactly as you are, exactly as you always have been, and exactly as you always will be.’
I don’t have to perform. I don’t have to do it all. I can just be me. And that is enough.
As told to Rebel Wylie
READ THE LATEST FROM DAILYMAIL+
Here are some great stories you may have missed:
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .