Mhairi Black has revealed she was diagnosed with ADHD while sitting as an MP.
Opening her one-woman show on the Edinburgh Fringe, the former deputy leader of the SNP at Westminster said was being prescribed Ritalin to manage the condition.
The drug helps those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder improve their focus.
Ms Black told the audience at her sold-out Politics Isn’t for Me show that she was diagnosed with ADHD in 2018, three years after being elected MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North.
As she was filmed by award-winning documentary maker Sarah Howitt, the 29-year-old said: ‘I’m not here to be a stand-up or anything, I’m here to perform what is essentially live therapy – or a live breakdown.’
Former SNP MP Mhairi Black takes to the stage at the Edinburgh Fringe
She went on: ‘I have ADHD. Part of an ADHD brain is that it needs stimulation in order to focus on anything. That’s why folk with ADHD are often prescribed stimulants like Ritalin.
‘So that’s what I’m prescribed because it tricks my brain into thinking, ‘Right, you’re stimulated’ and then I’m able to focus.’
Standing in front of a large screen showing a picture of her as a child, she joked that she had chosen it ‘Because it shows the madness in my eyes. That’s who I really am. You can see how tired my family are just being around me.’
Ms Black, who stood down as an MP at the general election blaming the ‘toxic’ environment in the Commons, said she also suffered from ‘panic attacks’ and ‘anxiety’.
The show was a mix of jokes, impressions, and rambling anecdotes about the Commons.
Ms Black, who boasted of her record for ‘the most swearing in parliament’, also cursed liberally through the hour-long performance and mocked Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s daily procession to the Chamber.
She also complained the division bell alerting MPs to votes was ‘annoying’.
She poked fun at former SNP colleagues Joanna Cherry KC and Alex Salmond, as well as Harry Potter author JK Rowling, with whom she disagrees about transgender rights.
And she compared herself favourably to a series of former SNP colleagues who had been found guilty of misbehaviour or convicted of a crime.
She debunked a social media rumour about using cocaine in PMQs – she was licking melted KitKat off her fingers, she said – and made a toe-curling attempt at a Nigerian accent.
She also accused the new Labour Scottish Secretary Ian Murray of ‘putting the boot in’ when she was signed off sick in 2017 with stomach problems and Norovirus.
She said he and then Glasgow North MP Paul Sweeney had been foremost in criticising her absence and voting record despite her circumstances.
Ms Black revealed she had been diagnosed with ADHD in 2018 and was prescribed Ritalin
‘They didn’t mind, they carried on just putting the boot in anyway,’ she said.
‘And it started basically giving permission for this narrative that I’m lazy, that I’m not up to the jobs and all the rest of it.
‘The truth is I’ve not got nothing funny to say about this.
‘It was really horrible to experience.’
Labour did not dispute her account but said the issue had been aired in 2018.
Ms Black denied she was a Nationalist, and said she wanted independence as a way of delivering a ‘progressive Socialist republic’.
She ended with a cliche, describing the deteriorating parliament building as a metaphor for a broken Britain.
She urged her audience to change it by getting involved – despite quitting politics herself.
