Love Actually star Martine McCutcheon opens up about shock health diagnosis as she admits she was 'in denial'
24 October 2024, 07:12
Martine McCutcheon has spoken out about a health diagnosis that she says has changed her life.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The Love Actually star, 48, was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) last year, but said she "went into complete denial" as she was dealing with the death of her brother as well.
McCutcheon, who also has chronic fatigue syndrome, said she struggled to get out of bed after her brother died for no clear reason in 2022, aged just 31.
She said her ADD diagnosis helped her understand why she approached "certain things" differently and "struggled" with some aspects of life compared to other people - but found other things "so easy".
"I realised, when I got my ADD diagnosis, that I had spent so much time trying to be a square in a round circle, and it was exhausting," she told the podcast A Gentle Start: The Showercast.
"It was so draining. It was just so hard. And in a way, I feel like I wasn't meant to find out, as sad as it was, because I did lose a lot of things in my life.
"I did struggle with a lot of things that I don't think I would have done necessarily. I think that if I'd have known before those four years ago that I had ADD, I don't know if I would have been able to have coped with it the way that I do now."
McCutcheon, who is also a former EastEnders star, said she is grateful that "people are being kinder and more knowledgeable about ADD and ADHD".
She said that "we all blossom in different ways, and we need different things to blossom".
But the star said that her diagnosis sent her "completely into denial", coming around the same time as her brother's death and her other health issues.
I just thought, I can't take this diagnosis on and whatever it means. I need to just keep going at life the way that I am.
"And in a way, I was kind of right. And then when I did finally look at it, I cried, I cried, cried and cried, I grieved, and it was just for if only I'd known how different things could have been, how much more with ease I would have been able to have done things.
"I do look back and see a lot of struggle with what I did. People just sort of think, 'oh, you know, she had the Midas touch.'
"She'd do this, she'd do that. But I was always told by agents, 'why don't you just stick with one thing, because then you could go all the way to the top in it and stay there.'
"Now I look back and I think, my God, it was a blessing that I couldn't, or didn't want to focus on the one thing."
