Neurodivergence, The Making of Me on RTÉ One: Moving insights with a heartfelt message at their core

Neurodivergence – The Making of Me (RTÉ One, 10.15pm) is two documentaries in one, and together they add up to an engaging portrait of living with neurodivergency in 21st-century Ireland.

The first is essentially a first-hand account by occupational therapist Hannah Daly of her experience as a person with autism and ADHD, which impacts a person’s ability to regulate attention and control impulses. We see her floating in the ocean, feeling free and unencumbered on a swing and explaining that she loves “the feel of stones” under her feet. “I find them very grounding,” she says. “I feel balanced.”

This is an almost dreamlike attempt to communicate a person’s experience of neurodivergence. Daly also talks about the negatives - how she finds sudden noises jarring and why she dreads coffee shops and public transport, where she can feel overwhelmed. She adds that, on receiving a diagnosis, her initial response was “one of fear and shame”.

Side by side with this diaristic account is a more straightforward factual exploration of the challenges facing people with neurodivergence in Ireland today. Here, we meet people from all walks of life - including 10-year-old Daniel in Darndale in Dublin, who has yet to receive the support that he requires from the State despite being diagnosed when he was four.

Daly then meets Mike in Cork, whose undiagnosed ADHD was so serious that he cannot remember the birth of his son. She also talks to Galway author Nuala, who says receiving an autism diagnosis in her 50s helped her make sense of her life.

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The documentary very briefly touches on the debate around over-diagnosis of ADHD. The topic was controversially broached by Channel 4 earlier this year with The Great ADHD Myth?, which asked whether the condition might be a social construct rather than a neurological condition.

In London, Professor of Neuroscience Ellie Dommett says that ADHD should not be regarded as a personality quirk.

“The problems we’re seeing today are with this idea ‘oh everybody’s a little bit ADHD’. Actually this isn’t necessarily a cool thing to have. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to have. But it’s important to recognise that to have a diagnosis there has to be some kind of impairment for that person.”

The argument that there is an over-diagnosis of people with neurodivergence is ultimately rejected by Daly, who points to the historic tendency to see autism as a “male” trait and to fail to recognise the symptoms in women.

Daly is an earnest and inquisitive presenter, and the stories told are moving and, on occasion, heartbreaking. It’s a documentary with a message, too. What we need to do, Daly says, is to “create a safe space, where we value difference - a world that is driven by kindness and not fear. And a world where we all belong and where we value each other”.