Years after finding fame as Stephanie Tanner on “Full House,” Jodie Sweetin is opening up about a personal revelation that helped explain struggles she had faced for much of her life. The Hallmark star recently shared how a diagnosis she received as an adult changed the way she understood herself, bringing a sense of relief and clarity that the former “DWTS” contestant says she had been missing for years.
An ADHD Diagnosis for Sweetin
During an appearance on actor Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast, “Inside of You,” Sweetin shared an update on her life. Sweetin said in 2020 that she was struggling with anxiety and perimenopause at the start of the pandemic.
Sweetin said with a laugh, “I’m pretty sure somewhere in there, like a small nervous breakdown.”
To help alleviate things, she said she started going to therapy. That is when her therapist asked if she had “ever been evaluated for ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
The actress said she never considered that she had ADHD until her two daughters, Zoie, 18, and Beatrix, 15, “were struggling with it.” After looking at their evaluation scores, Sweetin started to think she likely also had ADHD.
Sweetin said, “I went to have [my daughters] tested, and I looked at all of the scores. I was like, ‘I would score myself higher on all of these things than I probably would them.’”
A Sense of Relief
Following her diagnosis with ADHD, Sweetin said she was prescribed a low dose of Ritalin. Once she took the medication, she said she immediately felt a sense of relief.
Before taking the medication, Sweetin would have a constant internal dialogue of shame. She would shame herself for not being able to do certain tasks, like making a dentist appointment or remembering to eat.
She stated, “It’s like your feet are frozen in concrete and someone is screaming at you to get up while simultaneously screaming at you that you won’t and you’re a piece of s–t because you can’t.”
The 44-year-old took the medication, and it was instant relief. She added, “And within an hour of taking my meds that first day, I cried because the noise in my head finally quieted. And I could go about my day without feeling like I’m having to, literally, haul my body through everything that I’m doing, in order to focus, in order to get it done, in order to like start something or finish. I called my psychiatrist the next week, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is life-changing. I can’t even believe that I waited this long.’”
Living a Sober Life
Jodie has been very open about her sobriety journey. She states she has been sober from alcohol for over 15 years. Sweeting has also been sober from prescription medication since 2011, after a brief relapse following a car accident.
While discussing the ADHD diagnosis, Sweetin believes that ADHD is the reason “stimulants were always [her] drug of choice” when she was having substance abuse issues.
She added, “What I realized is that was my brain looking for the thing that it doesn’t have in all the wrong places.”
