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Disney Star Connor DeWolfe Shares His Experience with ADHD on TikTok to 'Make People Feel Less Alone'
Nick Hagen
In less than two years, Connor DeWolfe has risen to social media stardom by making TikTok videos about his day-to-day life with ADHD, attention-deficit and hyper-activity disorder.
The 22-year-old actor — who stars in season 2 of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers on Disney+ — was 14 when he was diagnosed with ADHD, learning that it's hereditary and his entire family is living with the chronic condition.
In this week's issue of PEOPLE, DeWolfe explains that his parents taught him to view his ADHD as a "superpower of creativity."
Keeping that in mind, during the COVID pandemic he decided to share his journey managing his ADHD with others.
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"At a time where I felt so alone — in my room, locked in my house, not going to school — I just started posting on TikTok, making random videos about my wacky ADHD brain," says the actor.
On March 9, 2021, DeWolfe posted a TikTok video called "ADHD Superpowers," featuring some of the things he does when his mind becomes hyper-focused, like designing customized sneakers or solving a Rubik's cube. Overnight the video went viral, with more than 11 million views, boosting his 500 followers to 54,000.
"From then on I was known as 'the ADHD guy,' " says DeWolfe, who now has 5.5 million followers.
The social media influencer quickly became "obsessed" with making the theatrical TikToks and decided to dedicate his entire platform to normalizing conversations of mental health and educating others about the reality of living with ADHD.
"No doctor really explained it to me. They're just like, 'Okay, take these meds.' And that's what it is for a lot of people," DeWolfe says.
Courtesy Connor DeWolfe
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DeWolfe says he's received numerous comments from people who can relate to his experience, and he admits that the contact has been "healing."
"It was a perfect symbiotic relationship in which I was expressing my emotions through an art form on TikTok and, at the same time, helping other people," he adds. "It really formed a community that I fell in love with."
DeWolfe says he's continuously in awe of how big of an impact he's had through his viral videos.
"A lot of DMs I've gotten are people saying I've fixed relationships, helped marriages, and unintentionally trained parents how to approach and fully help their neurodivergent children," he says. "It's just been such a blessing to make people feel less alone."
As DeWolfe's TikTok following grows and his acting career picks up with The Mighty Ducks, he's hoping the two worlds can soon collide. "I definitely want to continue spreading mental health awareness," he says. "Whatever I do in the future will have that goal in mind—making people with ADHD feel they're not alone, because it's amazing what the Internet and an audience can do."
For more from Connor DeWolfe, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday.
