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Hello everyone.

I thought I might post and tell my story with regards to ADHD and detail some of the challenges I’ve faced with the view to start a conversation about things that help and things that don’t.

I recently turned 46 in December. I was diagnosed with ADHD a few weeks before my 46th birthday. During the diagnosis process I was also told that I have a number of clear autistic traits and that I should consider a further diagnosis of autism.

For as long as I can remember I felt different from other people. I have vivid memories of childhood and school finding it super difficult to fit in and make friends.

I always remember feeling emotions so incredibly strongly. I remember struggling a great deal to understand the rules and dynamics of friendships. Still to this day I don’t really fully grasp what is required to be someone’s friend.

I muddled my way through school, I always remember it being incredibly difficult to sit still and keep quiet in classrooms. The urge to move in class was completely overwhelming. I found that in certain subjects where I had a deep interest I could hyper focus on tasks and achieve some success.

I learned at an early age to begin masking behaviours which I felt were not optimal to maintaining relationships with others. To begin with I found it easier to wear masks, changing myself into different versions of me depending on the audience. As I grew older I found masking more troublesome and tiring to maintain.

I was bullied at high school and this made my capacity for developing friendships harder still. I found a lot of solace in focusing on activities which I enjoyed. I spent a lot of time drawing and playing with Lego making different things.

I was super awkward in making friends. I felt rejection so incredibly deeply and still do to this day.

When I was 16 I was ready to escape home and school and try something new. I was finding it increasingly difficult to mask up with all the people I knew. I thought the best course of action was to leave home and join the army. A place where I could make some new masks with strangers who would be none the wiser.

My time blindness quickly lead to brutal punishments for both myself and my fellow trainees. I was quickly reminded that if I was late again I would be felt with physically by the others in my troop. I forced myself to be better with time and timings and for the most part I felt I did better after with being on time.

I can remember being stood on parade - where it’s expected that you keep still. Me sweating buckets moving my toes in my boots so at least one part of me could move!

When I came to learning patrolling I found identification of potential threats easy. I quickly learned that this was a skill which was valuable to leadership. From that moment on I spent the rest of my days in the army as point man up the front.

That was a good point for me because even though I had no inclining that I had ADHD - I leaned into my strengths and tried to make the most of them. I’ve tried to carry on this throughout my life.

I found socialising difficult and craved quiet solitude. This was the main reason I put myself forward for promotion. I wanted my own barrack room so I could be alone and recharge my social batteries in quiet.

I served 10 years in total and left in 2006. In my last deployment I went to Sierra Leone in west Africa. Unfortunately while I was there I contracted Malaria. Sadly as a result I was very unwell and ended up in hospital back in the UK.

This was the first time I was truly aware of my own mortality and was the first time I had a breakdown. I quickly got better from the physical issues around malaria but mentally I was broken.

My ability to mask was reduced and I really struggled with mental health from this point on.

I was medicated to deal with the symptoms of anxiety and depression. The main thing for me was my inner dialogue which I was aware of since I was able to speak. I just assumed that everyone had an inner dialogue going just like me.

It’s only recently I discovered this isn’t the case. I spend an inordinate amount of time practicing conversations I am going to have. A similar amount of time reviewing conversations I’ve had in the past. The inner dialogue gets hyper critical and when I’m feeling low it gets toxic at times.

Honestly for a long time I thought I was mad!

It was a couple of years ago I happened to listen to a podcast where someone was describing their symptoms of ADHD and everything they said applied directly to me. It was such a huge moment for me because I realised in short order that I have been living with ADHD my whole life.

This drove me to seek diagnosis and that journey has been so incredibly empowering. Learning who I really am has been the single most powerful thing to happen in my life.

I have spent so long masking to make others happy that I sometimes didn’t really know who I was. Now i do know who I am and that feels equal amounts of brilliant and terrifying.

It’s gonna take some getting used to but I feel now the sense that I must be true to who I really am. I hope to live an unapologetically authentic life for the second chapter of what will be.

I am longing so very much to make some friends with people who accept me for who I am. That is the last big thing for me. I want to spend 2026 making amends to myself and my ability to make friends.

I hope anyone who is reading this can understand what it’s like to live this life and hopes to join me in having a good chapter 2.

Andy