painting in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo,a human head made of fruits

SocietyApril 14, 2025

Do I have ADHD?

Guest writer
painting in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo,a human head made of fruits

Writer and theatre maker Jo Randerson on getting a diagnosis in their 40s.

How do you distinguish which parts of your personality are a “condition”, and what is genetic inheritance? Which aspects of self come from who you grow up with, and what parts do you make up yourself?

My life has felt like I’m an archaeologist digging myself up, piece by piece, and slowly stacking my bones together into a skeleton that I recognise. Sometimes I learn how to place bones by seeing how someone else has done it – “Oh! That wrist connects to the elbow!” But sometimes I have pieces that I don’t know what to do with. “Should I put these two lumps on my head? Are they extra ears? Or toes?”

Here are some of the identity pieces that I could never quite place:

  • I hate sitting down for more than 20 minutes, I don’t know how anyone would enjoy going out to dinner. Am I just really impatient?
  • When left by myself I start about 12 tasks at the same time and, if left alone, can finish most of them, if someone brings me a meal and no one interrupts me, which NEVER HAPPENS because I parent two young people.
  • I “go too fast”, people always tell me this. That includes how I talk, think, physically move through space, and how quickly I believe creative projects can happen. I’m also “too loud”, “too much” and “too intense”, apparently. Or is our society not great with strong-minded femmes?
  • The activity in my brain is relentless. I’d like to say it’s me having great ideas but it’s often really boring things like, “if I stacked all of the furniture against that wall, could we fit a trampoline in the living room?” My best solve is to physically exhaust myself, then when my body crashes out my brain has to follow.
  • I can find objects that no one else can. Is this mania? Narcissism? How come I can feel, as if by magnetism, where lost items are in the house, on a beach, in a forest?
  • I got wildly angry between the ages of 9-14, in a way that took over my whole body and to be honest freaked me out. I remember feeling possessed, and shocked to see myself punching or kicking someone. This is when I learned how to suppress a lot of my feelings, as many teens do. Is this just adolescence?

When I started reading about ADHD traits, many of these extra pieces of identity found a home. I felt the same feeling as when I learnt words like manaakitanga, or ennui: words that gave life to a state of being which was already familiar. Learning about ADHD helped me feel seen, and to see myself.

My son was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 8, which then led to my diagnosis in my 40s. Growing up alongside him has helped me learn more about myself and my needs: only by watching him did I realise how stressful I find social situations, especially in crowded rooms without any natural light or airflow. Now I use noise-cancelling headphones.

Since I was 20 I thought that many of these feelings were just part and parcel of being an artist. I know that not all artists feel like this. But the arts and nga toi Māori are realms which welcome diversity of thinking, in fact your unique expression is a strength here.

Promotional image for Jo Randerson’s show Speed is Emotional

Many Western words place ADHD as a “problem” or a difficulty. One ADHD trait is “Ordination Failure”, which means the inability to progress in a linear fashion from beginning to middle to end. That’s quite a negative framing. I enjoy my unusual ordering of events, and my dislike of binary categories. I mean, cryptic non-linear sequencing is LITERALLY the definition of poetry. Is it a failure to do things differently? Or a necessary response to a world which is in essential tremor?

One of my favourite words in relation to neurodiversity is tākiwatanga which has been explained to me as being “in one’s own space and time”. This totally resonates for me. I see my neurodiversity as a gift, not to say that it’s easy: it takes time and energy to manage this identity, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I feel lucky to be the way I am. Diagnoses are not for everybody, they can single people out or fail to account for other parts of our experience. But they can also help to give language to feelings and to access support.

Femmes may learn to mask more easily and slip through the cracks of our porous health system. I’m not worried about an “over-diagnosis” of ADHD: what’s important to me is that anyone who needs help can access it, which is sadly not the case right now.

I’m happy to use the label ADHD, but there are many other parts to me too. I want to keep exploring how to use this superpower/disability/whatever you want to call it, to keep making space for all folk to be in the fullness of our identities, and to be compassionate towards others (a challenge which humans have been struggling with for centuries).

Arts and ngā toi Māori can help us to communicate through and between our differences, and express the deep feelings buried inside us. If we aren’t able to do this, we will explode.

See Jo Randerson’s show Speed is Emotional with Silo Theatre at Q Theatre, from 16 April – 3 May as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival. Jo is also releasing their new book, Secret Art Powers, in July.

Keep going!
a black pixelated background with the circular logos of the NZ police and Peace action otautahi, a kereru with a fist raised, on green and blue backgrounds
How is privacy law used to ask entities to hand over footage? (Image: The Spinoff/supplied)

SocietyApril 14, 2025

Activists raise concerns over police obtaining CCTV footage of meeting at university

Contributing writer
a black pixelated background with the circular logos of the NZ police and Peace action otautahi, a kereru with a fist raised, on green and blue backgrounds
How is privacy law used to ask entities to hand over footage? (Image: The Spinoff/supplied)

Two members of Peace Action Ōtautahi, an activist group, were taken into custody after police requested CCTV footage from the University of Canterbury showing them briefly interacting, which contravened their bail conditions. 

At the start of March, two protesters from activist group Peace Action Ōtautahi chained themselves to the building of NIOA, an Australian arms manufacturer that supplies the Israeli Defence Forces and has an outpost in Rolleston, just outside of Christchurch. They were charged with burglary, which PAŌ spokesperson Joseph Bray, a 22-year-old who was one of the two protesters, said “was a surprising charge” (the legal definition of burglary doesn’t require a theft to have occurred). The offence carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and the choice of charge to Bray “felt like an intimidation tactic”.

As part of the bail conditions, Bray and the other protester, Jackson Duguid, were subject to an order of “non-association”: they were not meant to see each other. The non-association order also included Bray’s flatmate, who had been present at the protest but not involved in the action on the roof of the building. As a result Bray has not been able to live at his house since March 3. 

an image of a person on a roof with a pale blue background, from behind with their arms up and wearing a black and white palestinian kuffiyah
After the original protest, Bray and Duguid were given a non-association order (Image: Peace Action Ōtauhai via Instagram/supplied)

On March 19, Bray was asked to speak at an event called “A critical perspective on the police” that Peace Action Ōtautahi was hosting with the University of Canterbury Greens group. The talk discussed systemic issues with policing and “radical alternatives” to police power. Green MP Tamatha Paul was also speaking at the event; her comments about police making some people feel less safe were widely reported and criticised by other politicians. 

After arriving early at the event, Bray helped set up chairs. Duguid, 18, was there too – Bray said he hadn’t been aware that Duguid would be present. According to Bray, the two set up chairs together “for about three minutes”, then Duguid left. “We won’t deny there was a law being broken,” Bray said, but added, “we feel the police should have considered the nature of the crime, which was briefly setting up chairs together.”

PAŌ posted some footage of the event on its Instagram account. “We’re aware police might be watching our [Instagram] stories, whether I like it or not,” Bray said. But the group is adamant the footage posted did not feature Duguid, as he had left before the event began. “They had no suspicion to believe that we had breached the non-association order,” Bray said. 

So how did the police know the pair had interacted? “In late March, Police had received intelligence information via social media that indicated two individuals on bail, who had conditions not to associate with each other, had likely both been present at a meeting at the university on 19 March,” according to a statement provided to The Spinoff by NZ Police. The statement was not not clear about how the police knew Bray and Duguid had breached their bail conditions, only saying that “police intelligence staff routinely gather information from a wide variety of social media platforms during the course of their work”. 

“As part of inquiries into this, Police requested CCTV footage from the university – as we would from any entity that may have footage that could assist a Police inquiry,” the statement continued.

Bray said he had concerns about the process that was used to obtain this footage, which was requested under section 11 (1) (e) of the Privacy Information Principles in the Privacy Act 2020. He said he thought it was an opportunistic attempt by police to see what went on at the meeting and who was there, because the event had received attention for not portraying the police in a good light. “As we understand it, the police asked for this information while they were on campus for a different job,” he said. “To me, catching us out wasn’t the real reason to acquire the footage, and the fact that they found a breach was a lucky byproduct and a legitimisation of them obtaining the CCTV.” 

The police received the footage on March 31, and a police spokesperson said that while they didn’t have “immediate knowledge” of what the officers who requested the footage had done at the university that day, “they may very well have been conducting other routine business at the same time”. 

Steven Price, a media law expert who has given legal advice to investigative journalist Nicky Hager and was involved in a successful legal challenge following a police raid on Hager’s house, said the Privacy Act did not give police powers to extract information.

“It’s a legal mechanism that means if someone hands over information, for example to the police, and there’s a good reason to do so, such as a law being broken, they can’t get into trouble themselves,” said Price. He said the police choose to use the Privacy Act as if it’s an alternative to getting a production order from the court, which compels an entity to hand over information. A Privacy Act request, by contrast, is not a binding order. “My concern is that people may receive an official-looking letter and hand over information, without realising that they’re not required to do so.” 

The University of Canterbury said that they complied with the police’s Privacy Act request, and CCTV footage would be released under these conditions. “The University of Canterbury is a place of learning, discussion, and free expression, we encourage respectful dialogue while ensuring a safe environment for all,” a spokesperson said.

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As a result of police obtaining the footage, both Bray and Duguid were taken into custody on April 1. While they say the police had had evidence of them breaching their bail conditions for at least a day, they were taken into custody after the courts had closed, meaning they had to spend a night in the cells. Duguid was taken into custody at 5.40pm and Bray at 9pm. “I was asleep at the time, I woke up to the police in my room,” Bray said. “The fact that the cops are watching the every move of peace activists is frightening,” Duguid said in a press release.

In response to this statement, police said, “It is factually incorrect to suggest these arrests were due to surveillance and repression of peace activists. Police arrested them [on April 1] for not complying with court-ordered conditions, as we would for any person who breaches their bail conditions.”

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Peace Action Ōtautahi may change how it promotes events on its public Instagram as a result of this, Bray said. “We will look into the way things get advertised, to prioritise people’s safety.” But “the most important thing is to continue the work we do of peaceful protest”. 

There’s a history of surveillance of activists in New Zealand, both by police and the special forces, Maire Leadbeater, author of the book The Enemy Within: the Human Cost of State Surveillance in Aotearoa New Zealand, told The Spinoff. “It has a huge impact on trust when groups are worried about surveillance,” said Leadbeater, who has experienced extensive state surveillance herself. While in the past this involved groups being actively infiltrated and having their phones tapped, Leadbeater said that social media has changed the nature of surveillance. “In my opinion, spying on Facebook pages or Instagram accounts could be just as damaging and just as unacceptable.” 

This article was updated on 15 April to include comment from the University of Canterbury. A previous version stating that UC had not commented on the piece was incorrect and due to a journalist’s error.

Society