I find myself ill-equipped to support a teenager going through their cool-tough-popular-rebellious phase, because I was never any of those things. My narrow, gaunt face did not allow me to be cool. My skeletal frame and inability to develop any muscle mass prevented me from being tough. Professing a love of reggae and hip hop …
I am stirred awake in the middle of the night by a singular thought: “Others knew there was something wrong with me long before I did.” And with this, I’m wide awake, hours before dawn. There will be no return to sleep now. The giggling girls. The boys on the bus. My harassers at school. …
I am having a morning I can only describe as “scattered” triggered by two interactions. The first, a training session first thing. I was the trainer, providing an interactive session via video call. The learner was based in a noisy office, and kept accidental leaving their microphone open, resulting in me completely losing my train …
Chromosomes do not necessarily determine sex. True, most women have XX chromosomes and most men XY chromosomes. However, some women, with full female biological characteristics — a natural uterus, womb, and breasts — have XY chromosomes. About 1 in 2000 females have a single X chromosome (45,X). As many as 1 in 1000 have triple …
For the whole of my adult life, I’ve excused myself from social gatherings, claiming my voice is the exact same tone as background noise. It’s my go-to one-liner, always destined to draw laughter and lighten the mood. It never occurred to me that my inability to filter out the background noise was the problem. I …
If it’s all you have ever known, how would you know that something is not normal? There have been many such incidences like this — surprises, we may say — through the years. During one particularly humiliating and invasive investigation years ago, a specialist asked me, “Did you never think this was unusual?” “What would …
Every now and then, you get a reality check which reminds you how things really are. Out delivering my car to the garage for its service, I encounter a pair who remind me exactly why I withdraw so often. Jeering mockery of the kind I have experienced all my life. Back home, I stare at …
Now and then, I have a complete blackout, and I can’t recall moments just gone at all. Mentioning this to my wife just now, she said, “Are you living in the matrix?” “Sometimes I think I am,” I replied. “When I consider all the coincidences.” “Yes, me too,” she nodded. Life is much too weird …
Today, I suffered a complete collapse in confidence, causing me to doubt my cognitive abilities as a whole. Is it just a glitch, which will pass in a few days’ time, or something deeper? Certainly, whenever I discover I misunderstood something, the effect is the same. I crash. Shut down. My whole life flashes before …
I need help. That’s my first thought upon realising I completely misunderstood an email my manager sent me. Have I got serious cognitive deficits, or was that just a temporary lapse? Certainly, this brain fog feels all-pervasive. My head feels permanently numb. At this very moment, I’m barely functioning. I want to curl up in …
We walked four miles yesterday. But it was at the halfway point, stopping at a café for a latte, that my energy levels first collapsed. Ever since my return home in the afternoon, I have been overwhelmed by the most extreme fatigue, begging me to sleep all day. Others would say to me, “This is …
Blues and anxiety strike again. This is the point at which the urge to extract myself from every group descends. Here, that voice which demands: “Disappear, back into oblivion.” On top of it, a kind of lethargy. A disinclination to do anything. But don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong. I now know this is just part …
I wish I had known about apprenticeships in my day. Or graduate trainee schemes. Or, well, career pathways in general. But, let’s face it, I was in no mental state to pursue any of those then, weighed down by bodily weakness and lethargy as I was. So let me forget about the missed opportunities of …
I have arrived at a juncture where I now question my interpretation of every single past interaction. It’s as if I need to brush my understanding of my entire life into the bin. If only I could rewind, reset.
I snapped today. I had to apologise afterwards. Explain that I get frustrated sometimes. Frustrated that I frequently get cut off before I’ve even expressed myself. Frustrated that whatever I try to say is immediately dismissed or discounted. There is a counterargument, always the same: “We thought you’d finished.” And so here I must acknowledge …
