Thumbing my way through a dog-eared copy of ‘The Bumper Book of Cliches’, I find a number of suggestions that fit my mood. How about, “Life is on hold”? Or, “Time has stood still”? There are plenty more and they all describe the same thing. The answer to my question, “What the hell is wrong with me?” could be just round the corner.
It is to my deep shame that I have “gone private” in my efforts to establish why life is, and has always been, so difficult for me. For so long, GPs, therapists, as well as family and friends, have said I really ought to get checked over for a variety of conditions. In no particular order, they include ADHD, autism, PTSD, OCD and all manner of things with lots of letters and words I don’t understand. I resent spending my own money, and quite a lot of it, with the vultures and parasites of the private health sector who get even richer off the backs of those who the NHS cannot treat, but what’s the alternative? One GP told me the NHS waiting list for ADHD assessments, which in 2019 was 18 weeks, is now closer to six years. Something had to give and of course that something was my savings.
For me, this is massive. Ever since my grandad told me, the pre pubescent version, to “stop fidgeting, Richard”, I knew something wasn’t quite right. “Can’t you keep still?” he would ask, as would other family members and teachers. The answer was that I couldn’t. In fact, I didn’t know I was fidgeting at all, or repeatedly making shapes with my hands and feet and the left and right numbers always had to match. As I move into the section of my life called ‘extra time’, nothing has changed.
A dear friend with whom I had coffee recently said, “You can’t keep still, can you?” as we talked about my ‘condition’, whatever that is. Again, I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t still. I must have gotten on so many people’s nerves over the years. Who wants to sit next to a serial fidget? I know I wouldn’t.
Then, there’s the concentration span, or lack of one. “Easily distracted” was one comment from my school reports. Another teacher said I had, “a butterfly mind” which I somehow thought was quite sweet. This carried on throughout school. I barely understood any of the subjects, with the exception of English, even though today I could still not tell you the difference between verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions and all the rest. I bought books on grammar, tried to teach myself what they all meant but in the end I continued to write by ‘feel’. I put to the back of my mind the mangled grammar that might infuriate people who read my work and just write. When I was at school, it was the only subject I liked.
How I got through a lifetime of work in the civil service, I will never know. I rarely, if ever admitted to the deficiencies that blighted me. For nearly 40 years, I somehow got by as a result of brilliant colleagues, great managers and hard work at the few things I was good at. That, I promise, is not self-pity. It’s how it was. Late in life, I was encouraged to discover why life was such hard work and now I am getting closer. Let’s hope I don’t die first. That would be a bit of a bugger.
My issues, whatever they are, went beyond school and work. Household finances are well beyond my level of understanding, as are following what appear to others to be simple and basic instructions. Combine all that stuff with severe clinical depression and a dollop of anxiety and you have a semi-functioning basket case who sees life largely in black and white, with few shades of grey.
I know there’s something wrong or something different about me. Actually, I think it’s wrong and different and these are semantics. In just over two weeks, I should know for sure.
The possibilities are straightforward. I am either thick and stupid – both are entirely possible, likely perhaps – or I have an underlying condition that no one noticed that has made me the dysfunctional fruitcake I am today. All I really want is to have answer. Is it something, or is it nothing? By the end of January, I shall probably know for sure and so, I’m sorry to say, will you. You pays your money and you takes your chance.
