My loyal reader will not be surprised to learn that I cannot tell a noun from a verb, a verb from an adjective, an adjective from a pronoun. I no more understand them now that I did when I was at school. I don’t know any of the rules of grammar, either. What you read is what I write, written not on the basis of proper grammar, just my sense of feel. These are not excuses for the flaws you will see in my work: this is an explanation.
It’s not that I didn’t try to learn about the techniques of grammar at school. I tried harder, I reckon, than anyone else. The difference for me is that it went in one ear and out of the other. The same thing applied to every single subject. I understood none of the sciences and almost nothing about mathematics. Without a calculator, I am still lost when it comes to anything beyond simple addition. All of my life has been a bluff.
I have known since childhood that something wasn’t right. What I didn’t understand in classrooms, I later didn’t understand on work training courses and what I did understand I would usually forget before the course ended.
Everything was a struggle and it still is. Whether it’s working out bills, maintaining a bank account or simple DIY, I had not idea what I was doing. It was hugely depressing and caused dreadful anxiety. It still does.
My diagnoses of severe clinical depression and a variety of anxieties at least gave me an indication that something was wrong, yet I always wondered if this was the whole story. The possibility that I was thick was always there in my imagination. I would have no trouble reciting, track by track, in order, of a popular record album and I could see my way to compiling a complex travel plan for a seven day tour of Britain by rail. I could name the entire Gloucestershire county cricket team that won the Benson and Hedges cup in 1977, but simple division? It was never going to happen.
Having been furloughed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have had even more time on my hands to think about my limitations and what causes them. I was becoming increasingly depressed, too, and finally called my GP to ask if there was anything that could be done. Knowing that in the grip of a worldwide pandemic, the answer was going to be nothing, not even extra drugs, I decided to embark on a course of self-diagnosis on what I felt was wrong with me.
You can find on line tests for virtually everything and I started working my way through a number of them. Knowing that these on line tests do not, in any way, give a clear diagnosis, they can give an indication of potential issues. Some conditions were, I felt, ruled out, some were borderline and several were very close to home. The ones I did on Adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) made me sit up and think: that’s me, that’s totally me, that’s always been me.
I dropped off the results of the on line tests at the local medical centre. My GP rang me back and she confirmed that while such a condition required a professional assessment, a referral would be appropriate. There was only one proviso: there was a very long waiting list. As with all brain-related conditions there is always a very long waiting list. When I had a complete breakdown at the hands of the British Red Cross bullies and abusers in 2017, I still had to wait 15 months to get therapy. For all I know, this wait could be much, much longer but if I live long enough to be assessed, it could be that, at last, I might at least have an explanation for how I am and why.
Now, I’m getting obsessed with the possibilities of ADHD. It’s there not just in every waking hour, it’s there when I wake up during the night. And it’s not going away anytime soon.
Despite the lengthy NHS waiting lists, going private is not an option. I don’t agree with private medical treatment anyway, as a matter of principle, but just as important would be my anxiety at spending a large sum of money I can’t really afford on something that might conclude that there’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t think there is nothing wrong, but those two awful words, ‘what if’ stand out like a sort thumb.
So, this could explain my mangled grammar and clumsy writing style. All I can say is that it’s the best I can do. ADHD or not.
