I remember a health professional telling me shortly after diagnosis that I was so lucky to retain my youthful looks. I guess she would have been in her fifties then, and so may have been yearning to discover the elixir of eternal youth. But for me? No sorry, to still look like a teenager at …
I won’t give a name to the condition or disorder I keep alluding to in my writing. I haven’t even told my parents, siblings or wider family about it yet, and certainly not our children. In fact, the only people who know are my wife, the close friend I walk with most Saturday mornings and …
Most people with my condition, I am told, are never diagnosed. They just go through like with an unsettling feeling that they’re not quite right. Others eventually find out, sometimes as late as at sixty, at which point something clicks and they sigh, “Now everything make sense.” I learnt of the very basics, aged twenty-seven. …
I was not raised a pacifist. Like many of my generation, I was brought up hearing tales of World War Two heroism, my parents having been born just after the war. There was no squeamishness about warfare in my upbringing. For us children, it was quite normal for us to spend our weekends clambering over …
WordPress asks me today, “Who was your most influential teacher and why?” That would be my English language teacher when I went to sixth form college. Influential because she was the first teacher who attempted to convince me that I wasn’t a dunce and actually had some potential. I suppose she was the teacher who …
We are all multifaceted, a product of many factors, composed of many parts. My character and temperament has to have been forged by my environment, upbringing and experiences. Being raised in a very religious Christian family — with strict expectations around behaviour, the third of four children — was no doubt as influential as biological …
I think we can credit treatment more than anything, but suddenly I find myself not just assertive in meetings, but also lucid and more fluent in making myself understood. Perhaps it’s also the feeling of liberation from the designs of a colleague now departed, who once seemed to undermine every effort. It’s possible, of course, …
The further we get from events the more we doubt our recollections, or at least our interpretation of them. Likewise, the more we understand about ourselves, the more likely we are to doubt the significance of events which once seemed all-important. By now I am willing to concede that my own understanding of events may …
I’m a firm believer that what has most impact on successful career development is not your level of education, qualifications or even actual skills, but rather your self-confidence. When I see the rapid trajectory of some I have worked with, from quite junior roles into service management and beyond, it’s clear that their greatest asset …
Just moments after penning those sentiments about attempting to arrive at some kind of normalcy, an email plops into my inbox at work. Neurodiversity describes the naturally occurring variations in human neurocognitive capabilities that exist in every culture, race and gender. Neurodiversity acknowledges that each person’s brain is unique and we all bring individual experiences, …
One day, I realise, I may have to become an advocate for others bestowed with this condition. To do so, I know that I will have to give it a name: to own it. To do that, I will have to rise above the stigma associated with it, to be unfazed by negative and embarrassing …
I think I have established that treatment has a positive impact on my mood, cognitive performance and self-confidence. Conversely, neglecting treatment has a detrimental effect, causing me to think negatively, generally feel despondent, lack motivation and exhibit heightened anxiety. This the thought that occurs to me ten days after my last injection, when I would …
In the past year I experienced a whole series of events which, if I had dwelled on them too long, would have sent me around the bend. Indeed, one sleepless night, I did have this recurrent thought: “Someone is pranking me, seriously.” But in the end, you just have to tell yourself to move on. …
If one day I finally felt moved to tell my family about my condition, I don’t think I would tell them what it’s called, or go into any details. That’s because — to my mind — the stigma is still too raw. While an internet search nowadays reveals significantly more helpful academic research than was …
Does a nerd see themself as a nerd? I certainly didn’t. I was into my thirties before I embraced this identity. Mine was a complex identity, anyway. Stereotypically, nerds are brainy, bright and intellectual, whereas I was none of those things. As a kid at school put it when another called me a square: “No, …
