‘Call the Midwife’ Star Helen George Opens Up About ADHD Diagnosis

Call the Midwife star Helen George has explained the “lightbulb moment” she experienced over three years ago, which led to her ADHD diagnosis.

The 41-year-old actress, who plays Nurse Trixie on the long-running PBS period drama, appeared on the latest episode of the I’m ADHD! No You’re Not podcast and opened up about her history with the condition and how she’s learning to live with it as a mother to two young children.

George recalled a conversation with a friend with ADHD, who told her about women who are diagnosed with the condition later in life. “He was telling me all this, and then I suddenly went. ‘Oh s***, just like me.’ It’s like the lightbulb moment that I needed,” she said, per Hello.

She went on to say that she never considered she could have ADHD, joking, “I just thought I’m an actress and everyone’s f****** crazy… There’s a reason why there’s a lot of actors who have ADHD, I think because it’s got the skills that you need.”

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George was diagnosed after her second daughter, Lark, was born in June 2021, and said she is only now “really living with the consequences of finding it out.”

“For so long, I just sort of sat with the idea that I had ADHD and now I’m actually progressively looking at doing things, like taking the medication,” she added, noting how she wants to keep taking the medication “to see if that aids me.”

“I’ve got to work out how you can function best so that you can mother best, so that their lives can be the best that they can be,” George added. “So it’s a ripple of that without being self-indulgent.”

George shares two children with her former Call the Midwife co-star Jack Ashton: Wren Ivy, born in September 2017, and Lark, born in June 2021. George and Ashton separated in 2023.