I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! viewers are used to seeing her cheerful nature and hilarious banter, but away from the cameras, Julia Morris is dealing with a secret health struggle that has cost her treasured relationships.
The comedian, 57, admits how challenging it’s been since being diagnosed with ADHD later in life, reflecting on how the disorder has unknowingly impacted her friendships over the years.
“One thing that I look back on, and I think having an earlier diagnosis would have helped with, is how much I’ve let my friends down over the years,” Julia told Leigh Sales during an episode of ABC show The Assembly.
JULIA MORRIS’ SECRET STRUGGLE
“Now, when I make a plan with someone, I’m like, ‘Let’s absolutely do it, but there’s every possibility I’ll pull out’, so I can do some pre-disappointment. That really helps because I don’t like that feeling of letting people down.”
ADHD, which stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, affects around 1 in 20 Australians, although it’s believed women are less frequently diagnosed than men due to them having more internalised symptoms that are easy to miss.
Julia first spoke publicly about her diagnosis during an episode of I’m A Celebrity… this time last year, admitting it had been “super confronting” to find out about at the age of 56.
During that season in the jungle, it was actress Sigrid Thornton and comedian Geraldine Hickey sharing their experiences with the disorder that inspired Julia to speak out.
Similarly to Julia’s relationship troubles, Sigrid, 66, admitted she also felt shame over “not really being able to follow through with the people I care about, not my family, but my friends.”
Julia said of the Wentworth star’s revelation, “I loved hearing Sigrid talk about her friends. Oh my God, the amount of friends I’ve got that have gone by the wayside ‘cause they just gave up on ever getting a return message.”
LATE IN LIFE DIAGNOSIS
Julia elaborated further on her journey in a candid chat with her friend Mark Bouris for his Straight Talk podcast, explaining how her teenage daughters, Ruby and Sophie, had actually been diagnosed with ADHD first after suspecting they had the neurodevelopment disorder.
“They’ve both been saying for a long time, ‘I reckon we’ve got ADHD, Mum,” Julia recalled. “Then the girls were like, ‘You have looked at yourself, haven’t you?’ And [I’d] be like, ‘I’m just a weird anomaly, I’m kooky or whatever’.”
Despite the hurdles she’s had to deal with, Julia admits that having clarity on her behaviour and particular way of thinking has made her life easier, in some ways.
“I think the diagnosis, kind of, set me free,” she says. “Life becomes slightly easier because then you start to build into your days the things that you need, whether that’s a little break or a lie down or whatever that is.”
