Guy Williams is worried about looking like an arsehole. He hasn’t seen all of the documentary ADHD: Not Just Hyper, but he knows he has spent a fair part of the documentary either denying to his sister Maria that he is ADHD like her, or making light of it.
“Because everyone is in the documentary talking about how it’s shaped their lives and what a big deal it is, right?” he says. “Then it cuts to me, and I’m there saying, not only is it not a big deal, but it’s not real. So, I do worry about looking like a bit of an arsehole. It’s my luck in having a career that is perfect for ADHD. I have been very blessed that I’ve managed to go through life, touch wood, relatively unscathed.”
Williams, 37, has been a professional comedian for 15 years. He got his break from the documentary’s producer, Rachel Jean, in her former role as TV3′s comedy queen. What made the aspirant stand out, she says, “were his ADHD traits, the fact that he does have no filter, the fact that he can rock up to anybody, the fact that he does care really deeply.”
Two years ago, Jean asked Williams if he wanted to be in the documentary – not in a paid gig, but as a subject. He wasn’t worried when his doctor observed that it would be publicly exposing. “I was like, well, why not? It’s going to be so interesting to so many people.”
But he did fret that, when so many people battle to get a diagnosis, “I had this advantage of just being able to jump the queue by being part of a documentary.”
In the end, what nails it for him is not the standard psychiatric assessment but going through a research programme at the Mātai Medical Research Institute in Gisborne, which aims to add empirical evidence to clinical judgment. Williams and his sister were placed in an MRI scanner that tracked their functional brain activity while performing a task, and then again after being asked to fidget.
“It showed the brain when doing a challenge. And for a neurotypical brain, it obviously kicks into gear and expands. But when I was given the game, my brain functioning actually went down. Which was so funny.
“That made us laugh so hard. But then when I was fidgeting, right up again. I think that really helped sell it. It helped me go, ‘Oh my brain is functioning in a way that’s different to how a normal brain is supposed to function. There is something different about me.’”
Since then, Williams has tried the standard psychostimulant medications prescribed to ease ADHD symptoms, methylphenidate (Ritalin) and dexamphetamine.
While some people (this writer, for example) can find their focus improves with even a tiny dose, Williams got up to quite high doses without experiencing much, if any, benefit.
“People talk about it being a miracle drug that all of a sudden allows you to focus and get your scripts done, or something. For me, that hasn’t been the case. Which is fine. I’m fine with the way I have been.”
The diagnosis, he says, “hasn’t really changed anything,” but “it’s a new perspective to look at the way my brain works, the way I function. It allows me to go, ‘Hey, be a little bit nicer to yourself, Guy. Admin is not your strong suit and yes, you’re going to be late paying your body corp fees every year, and that’s okay. Some people need a phone call.’”
ADHD: Not Just Hyper is something of a marvel, even in an era in which ADHD and other forms of neurodivergence are bankable media clickbait. It runs to a sprightly, informative, moving and amusing 107 minutes.
“Well, it had to be a watch that someone with ADHD wanted to watch,” says Jean. “That was totally key. I tested it on my children.”
Jean’s son and daughter, who have very different personalities and paths through life, are both ADHD, “as my husband would have been if he didn’t have every other health condition under the sun”. So – and this isn’t necessarily a hard ask in the screen production industry – is nearly everyone who worked on the documentary.
“We wanted to have as much representation in the crew as possible. My rule was, either you have ADHD, or you live with someone with ADHD, or you gave birth to someone with ADHD. Because that way you’re in it, it’s in your everyday life, and therefore you’re going to have a much greater inherent understanding for the people we were talking to.”
The film presents an appropriate range of experts, from neuropsychiatrists to a “biomedical engineer”, but the meat of it is given over to the personal testimonies of people who have been diagnosed with ADHD, as they attempt to explain what it’s like in their heads.
They’re a diverse bunch: there’s a lawyer, a university student, a retail stylist, a journalist (me), a music producer, an explorer. Some have adapted or found work that suits their wiring (several now employ their experience as ADHD coaches), but most have suffered mental health challenges or midlife crashes, one has attempted suicide and another, Tommy Doran, represents the substantial group of ADHD people in the justice system: before earning degrees in criminology and sociology, he was addicted to methamphetamine and spent time in prison.
“For every everybody out there in a prison who doesn’t think there’s a way out, he’s proof there is,” says Jean. “You’ve just got to learn to manage it, for you, and your version is not going to be the same as the person next door to you.”
More often, the challenge is simply meeting social expectations.
“A lot of the things we struggle with are often perceived as morality failures. You are a messy person, you are forgetful,” says Kat Hammil, the retail stylist. “Because if you cared more, you would remember. It’s an executive functioning issue, not a morality issue. I just get chronically overwhelmed.”
But the first person we see on screen is comedian Maria Williams. Their sibling relationship, which consists of her telling Guy he, too, is ADHD and him theatrically denying it, gives the documentary its narrative impetus.
“It just makes me sound like a comedian,” he responds after she ticks off a list of his traits.
A furiously busy head can be a blessing as well as a curse. Some of us are very good in the moment and not everyone wants to give up all their superpowers.
Ultimately, Jean says, “I’m just really hoping that it changes the discussion in lots of households. I’m hoping that families watch it, I hope people get the message it is genetic. Many of these people are living successful and interesting lives. They found their individual paths, they found jobs that work for them.
“But I wanted people to understand what the hurdles are for people with ADHD. If you’re a neurotypical person, you can help the person who’s neurodiverse beside you by not being a fuckwit when it comes to what their issues are. Hopefully, you get out of the documentary that there are interesting and strong characters there who are having good lives. It doesn’t have to take you down.”
ADHD: Not Just Hyper screens on Monday, December 16, as the final of Documentary New Zealand, TVNZ 1, 7.30pm, and will stream on TVNZ+.
