WTF is wrong with you

When I was at school there was a girl. Well, there were lots of girls. But there was one particular girl and she was perfect. No, not like that.  Let me explain.  We'll use a pseudonym (now, I've googled how to spell it) and Ermintrude is as good as any. Ermi was practically perfect in every way. Tall, slim, very attractive, great hair, a straight-A student, kind, respectful, good company, good at sport. By any commonly held success metric, she was smashing life. Now, Ermi wasn't a close friend, but she was in my circle of friends. Her grades were off the chart. I would bumble along hoping to get mid-teens out of 25 in my English Literature A-Level essays, but she'd be getting 23/25. I had no idea how to improve, she seemed to be hitting these heights from the get-go. I was chaotic, scrappy, dysregulated. She was cool, calm and successful. After school, she goes off to a top university, I hear she's working for a national broadcaster, then a national newspaper and b...

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the main problems with having ADHD are that you can't control concentration and/or you are hyperactive. Worse. Name. Ever. Not being able to concentrate can be hugely frustrating. It makes you feel annoyed with yourself. It even makes you feel 'less' somehow, compared to those who can just power through tasks from the get-go. Hyperactivity can be equally annoying - it's embarrassing to have little control over your impulse to chatter away...to be unable to shut up...and to stop interrupting. It can be a nightmare when you brain whirring away stops you from sleeping or keeping focus.  Then there's the other parts the name doesn't cover...appalling working memory...losing things...getting frustrated...difficulties following through on tasks. There are a million of these. These struggles with executive function are indeed annoying, embarrassing, frustrating.  For me though, the real damage done by ADHD is, literally, next lev...

"ADHD is your superpower!" No. It really fucking isn't.  Unless of course, I missed the The Incredible Adventures of   Self-loathing Man , or perhaps my local comic book store never stocked the graphic novel Sieve Head - he forgets EVERYTHING. I don't profess to be any kind of expert on ADHD - or neurodiversity more broadly - but from what I can gather, some studies (or limited scope and sample size) might point to certain areas where some people with ADHD appear to display an aptitude for certain skills around problem solving and creativity, perhaps a few other things. Hardly conclusive, even to a science dolt like me.  Let's not call a spade a carbon-based deposit relocation device. More often than not, ADHD sucks. It's an impairment...a disorder. We all know it. For every area in which it might help, there are half a dozen where it blows. Being half-decent at the guitar is kinda nice, but I'd swap it for not being a binge eater...for not having a ch...

 "So, I can tell you, that you do meet the criteria for ADHD." Well, fuck. That wasn't my actual reply, but it might as well have been.  I wasn't ready for that .  Let's rewind a bit... When my therapist asked whether I'd ever been tested for ADHD, I was pretty sure I didn't have it. Even though I didn't really know what it was. My wife agreed. And as a highly experienced teacher, who had inevitably come across a lot of neurodiverse kids, she'd know, right? Of course, my therapist was extremely professional about it. She was very careful to clarify that she was not making any kind of diagnosis and there was no requirement to further investigate it. I should do whatever made me feel most comfortable.  There was some initial reticence. I wasn't sure I could take another body blow at that time. For months I'd been sleeping for an average of four hours a night. I was scraping through each day at work, I was in grief and my mental health was in ...

One of the lowest points in my life was last autumn (2025). The thoughts got very dark. And I couldn't tell anyone. I kept it all in. I held my breath and pushed forward with life. People had no idea. When I needed a release, I'd lock myself in the bathroom, shove a towel in my mouth to muffle my gagging cries from my family. My daughter would see my red eyes afterwards and ask me whether I was sad, and I'd explain that my hayfever was terrible.  The trigger to things spilling out was a Teams call with a colleague. I knew she'd ask that question. It was inevitable: "Hiya...you alright?" And that broke me.  It was very clear that I wasn't. I explained a topline version of what had been going on - grief for a father figure, my sister's cancer diagnosis, limerence, trying to work out WTF is wrong with me etc.  I'd recently started journalling and asked her if she'd mind reading it. It was incredibly personal, but I wanted someone's independen...