Taking our lad to the local mosque this afternoon, another youngster addressed him. “Is that your dad?” Then: “Is he Muslim?” The kids get a free pass for asking such questions. Adults less so. But this is the reality of the mosque in our locality: it’s a Pakistani club. Our daughter absolutely hates going to …
It’s easy to feel very bitter about a late diagnosis and the lack of post-diagnosis support, but the reality is that most people — including most healthcare professionals — have never even heard of the condition. Even amongst specialists tasked with treating one aspect of its effects, there tends to be an abject absence of …
A confession: I have not played any sport for thirty years. That’s not to say I have done no exercise. I’ve periodically had spurts of fitness training, and for a time took up running until painful bones brought me to a halt. I don’t include a short archery course, or a kick-around in the garden, …
Now that it occurs to me that I probably misunderstood or misinterpreted nearly every interaction in my life, I wonder if I really should just stop writing altogether, and just become a hermit who speaks no more.
I jokingly refer to myself as an anti-social git, but the real reason for my self-imposed exile from social spaces is that I’m so frequently misunderstood that I find solitude safer. I suppose that’s why a decade of remote working suited me, even if it stunted career progression. If I can minimise my contact with …
To know or not to know? Where do I stand? The trouble is, our lives can really be split into two parts: our youth and adulthood. So, yes, sure: knowing in my youth could have made all the difference to my adolescence. Had I been able to access treatments then, it’s likely that period would …
Life is extraordinary. Consciousness is strange, beyond comprehension. Collectively we’re bound in ways impossible to explain. Consider those moments we think of someone, and suddenly they call. Consider those instances we’re just about to say something and our beloved blurts exactly the same words out instead. Consider how often our thoughts seem to collide. And …
While out walking yesterday, I was reminded once more that I was born two weeks late. It nearly presented an opportunity to broach the subject. Perhaps I would have done had our lad not been at my side. Were we alone, I might have said, “Yes, well, we now know why that was.” Babies with …
Note to self: before going all gung-ho, recall that you have weak bones. Every night: such a horrible nausea-inducing pain in my joints and limbs. Yes, I really overdid it this weekend. I never learn.
For the second time, after weeks of contemplation, I mustered the courage to join a support group for people with my condition. I briefly flirted with an online forum a few months ago, never having met anyone else with this diagnosis, but my membership only lasted a couple of days before I backed out and …
Reading research literature, I get a bit down reflecting on a common observation: It is a clinical observation that not only do many men with the condition have problems with accessing the job market and keeping a job, but already in the classroom many boys struggle. This seems to translate to affected socioeconomic status. For …
I’m a very apologetic person, especially when it comes to expressing myself. I can’t help taking things back, having second thoughts, deleting what momentarily seemed sound. I’m feeling very apologetic right now, after a day communicating at work. I put across ideas assertively, based on my area of expertise, then afterwards feel doubtful for having …
The last time I was in Tottenham, twenty-two years ago, I was set upon by a gang of youths, moments after leaving a close friend’s wedding. I had just called my wife on a dinky mobile phone to tell her I was on my way home, when I saw a group of a dozen young …
“Calm down, love.” Yes, I know, sorry: I’m being an irritable grouch again. “Is it your injection making you like this?” No, I’m just an irritable grouch.
I realised on Friday evening, during my first social with my new team after work, that I’m actually fine being an anti-social git. I don’t fit into those spaces at all. I can’t do the idle chitchat, nor do we have anything in common outside work. It was, thank God, a virtual gathering, given that …
