BLOG: TODAY... I REACHED MY LIMIT

I’ve possibly got ADHD. Or ADD, or whatever you wish to call it.

That may not be a surprise to some of you. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, and a few of you have even asked me… because you’ve recognised the signs in our videos.

All I can say is… for now, it’s merely *probably*.

I’ve never been diagnosed. In fact, I’ve not even tried to get diagnosed. I know how hard it is to get that sort of diagnosis in the UK, and although Sanja managed successfully to get her ADHD diagnosed a few years back, I never really knew what benefit there would be in me receiving an official diagnosis.

It’s not like I’d get a blue badge or a bus pass or anything (I mean, I’d probably lose it anyway). It’s a disorder, not a disability. The main treatment seems to be various medications, and I don’t really want to go on medication for it, because there’s a whole load of aspects of living with ADHD which I fricking *love*.

It's the fuel to my creativity. I can hyperfocus like a laser beam, and get things done incredibly quickly. I can multitask better than anyone I know; contrary to what many believe, my as-yet-undiagnosed ADHD lets me work on multiple things at once, and keep them all in my brain at the same time. It’s in the entire DNA of my humour, my ability to recall obscure facts and details, my intuition, my compassion, and acceptance of others. I’m pretty fearless too.

Plus, it’s not like my ADHD – if that’s what it is – has prevented me getting through life for the past 50 years. I’ve managed a successful career that I’m proud of. I raised some amazing kids into amazing adults. I’ve got a pretty amazing relationship. Great friends. A wonderful audience in you lot. I’ve done alright.

But… today it felt like I hit a tipping point with my ADHD, and today – I’ll be honest – I hate it. I hate my I-think-it's-ADHD today. Really, really hate it, and I’ve had enough of hating it. I want to be able to love it. Or at least have some compassion for it, instead of being so utterly sick of it. 

Before I get to why, I suppose I should roll back a bit here: why do I (and Sanja, who obviously can recognise the symptoms) think I may have ADHD? Well, because of all of the above. Every one of the famous ADHD superpowers comes with the flipside.

I can hyperfocus… but at the expense of everything else. I multitask on multiple things at once, and then I’ll get burnt out. My humour’s a bit weird and alienating. I don’t take the time to read instructions properly. I’ll rush things that I find boring, or ignore them entirely. I’m outwardly disorganised; plans will all be stored in my head… but sometimes I won’t have the patience to explain them to people. I can be messy, chaotic, have a short attention span when it comes to things I’m not interested in or find tedious, and I can be impulsive.

These are all pretty classic signs of it. At the same time… there are lots of famous symptoms that I don’t display. If I do indeed have it, Sanja and I manifest it in very different ways, because we’re different people.

With all neurodiverse people, no two are alike – regardless of how the world insists on describing things as a ‘spectrum’. The way autism is often portrayed, you’d think all autistic people can be ranked from, say, 1 to 10 in severity, and those who share a ranking are all identical to one another. It’s total rubbish.

I BALLSED UP

So, why now? Why do I feel today like I’ve reached a tipping point, and I finally want to try for a diagnosis?

Well... because I ballsed up. Sanja says she ballsed up, but I’m not blaming her. She’s had Covid for the past week. And, y'know, she’s got ADHD, for heaven’s sake!

So… we were due to go to Poland on Thursday for the Marillion Weekend. We stupidly didn’t check our passports until today… and we saw that mine ran out… in March 2021. I know, I know, I know. But it didn’t even cross my mind. Or her mind. 

I just assumed I still had a couple of years on it, but I guess that’s the weird, time-compression, thing of the past two years. We knew where they were, so we figure they were fine. Our brains just didn’t slow down long enough to consider that they might not be.

We tried everything today to try and get an emergency appointment at the passport office, but with Covid they’ve changed their policy, and you can’t go to there without an appointment anymore. I spoke to four different people. I begged. I pleaded. And there are no appointments until next week. And even if there were appointments this week, you can’t make an appointment for the next day – it has to be in two days time.

So, we’ve no choice but to back out.

In our defence, even with this possible ADHD thingy… we’re still dealing with an emotional and mental backlog from two years’ worth of pandemic, and our life has been particularly stressful these past six months. We’ve had a *lot* happening in our family. We’ve been feeling stretched very, very thin. Heck, we’ve had to go out and do filming on location for Digi just to get some ‘us’ time.

When Sanja had Covid last week, we actually sort of saw it as a sort of mini holiday, because we knew nobody would be able to ask us to do anything!

However, when I did mention last week that we should check the passports… she was too ill, and I was too distracted by other things. But with everything we’ve had going on, as overstretched as we’ve been feeling recently, I’m not going to be too hard on us.

Fortunately, I was able to cancel the hotel, but that’s several hundred quids’ worth of flights and gig tickets down the toilet.

What then happened, once we accepted we wouldn’t be going to the Poland Marillion Weekend, is this: I booked us tickets to the UK Marillion Weekend which is happening next month. Fine, right? No. I was being impulsive. 

I then I got a text message telling me that the ticket purchase had taken me into my overdraft. I’ve moved some money around (thank you, my lovely Patrons), and we’re back in credit, 

With that in mind... although we'd already changed our spending money into Polish zlotys, it's probably best that we're not going away at the minute, and just put that money back in the bank. Silver linings, and all that.

Regardless, it highlighted for me that this wouldn’t have happened if I was able to be a bit more on top of things. If I could hyperfocus on my finances and passports and paperwork the way I can a script or a video or podcast edit. 

I don’t want it to sound like I’m making excuses - although, perhaps I am making excuses - but we’ve had a really, really challenging two years financially, and it’s only getting tougher. Covid absolutely kicked the shit out of my industry, and my career. I’ve been struggling to find paid work ever since the first lockdown. We’re in big debt because of that. 

I went from the best three years I’ve ever had in my day job, to losing tens of thousands of pounds of income overnight, and almost no work coming in. Now when I’m not doing BYAMPOD or Digi, I’m working flat out trying to find jobs, writing spec scripts, and trying to make myself visible. It seems absurd given I’m as experienced and successful as I am in kids’ TV, but it is what it is.

What does any of that – what does Covid – have to do with my maybe-ADHD? Well… when I said I had three really good years… If I had been able to be better with the money I earned in those years, and the years prior - instead of always playing catch-up with tax bills and whatnot - we maybe wouldn't be struggling like we are right now. We had a small safety net, but that only took us so far. If I'd invested, or put into savings... I dunno. Maybe it'd be different.

I just find it near impossible to plan for things that are unknown, or unspecific. Proper budgeting, falls into that category. I hate that I'm like that. It has probably been the biggest struggle of my adult life. Sometimes I think I would happily let somebody have power of attorney over me! 

NO SYMPATHY, NO PITY

I’m not looking for pity; it’s just a reality of where we’re at and who we are. I’m doing everything right in terms of trying to find work, but the longer it goes on… the hairier it gets for us, and we’ve sort of reached the hairiest end.

If you’ll excuse the expression.

I’m certainly not looking for sympathy either. When I write a big blog post like this, I’m using it as a form of therapy really. Trying to work through what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking. Making sense of myself and my life. But the fact is, people with ADHD find it harder to manage money, and I am fucking profoundly useless at it. Sanja generally handles all our accounts, which takes some of the anxiety off of me, but there’s only so much she can do. 

I pledge here and now - publicly - to find a way to do better. 

Anyway. So… today… those two things – the passport thing and the plunging into my overdraft, and realising we might run out of money… and that’s just day to day money (there’s a shit-tonne we owe from the past couple of years) – made me want to punch myself in the brain. I started beating myself up (not literally).

I blamed myself for both, but more than that… then I just felt like I’d had enough. I had enough of fucking up like that, and feeling I’m fundamentally useless for it. I used to think that everyone’s brain worked like mine, until I met Sanja and I realised how different she was to anyone else I’d met. 

Her ADHD mind is such a fundamental part of her… and – for me – a massive part of why I love her. She is SO different to everyone. Yes, she can be maddening – like I can – be somehow I love her more for it. She is, to me, a truly incredible human being. Unfortunately, I’ve rarely felt that anyone other than her loved, or understood, my whatever-the-heck-is-up-with-my-brain thing.

Quite the opposite. I’ve often been laughed at or mocked for being chaotic, or had people call me stupid, or useless, or been judged. That rolling of the eyes thing. “What an idiot”. All that. Parents, teachers, family, friends. I sometimes feel I'm seen as a bit useless. 

I think the reason why I want a diagnosis now is because I want to be able to say to people “I’ve got ADHD”, and I want to be able to go a little easier on myself.

Actually, maybe it’s just that. Maybe I want to be able to stop seeing myself as fundamentally at fault when I fuck up. I know how much it helped Sanja to be diagnosed; it made sense of her life. I don’t want to always end up telling myself I’m just wrong, or a bad person, just because I struggle so much with saving money and paperwork and organisation. I want to understand that it might be for a real reason, and feel less shame about it, I suppose.

And I’m a great believer in not being too hard on ourselves; we’re all doing what we can to muddle through this life. Some of us are wired in ways that are compatible with how society is structured. For the rest of us it’s a struggle. But we’re all good and bad at different things – regardless of any disorders we may or may not have.

Yes… I’m almost 100% certain I do display many of the common symptoms of ADHD… but that isn’t the same as having it confirmed.

Making that official, making that real rather than suspected, will change the whole way I see myself. And maybe if I know – maybe if I have it confirmed, even if it takes two years – I will be able to work with it better, and find strategies to finally get on top of this life.

So enough is enough. Tomorrow, I make the call.

Unless, y'know, I get distracted by something!!!!!!