I started this in 2012, and surprise, surprise, never finished. ADHD doesn’t do “finishing’’ and especially not when there’s another “Never Going Anywhere” business to obsess over. So, that was that… like everything, it landed on the “Unlikely To See Again” list.

Back then, it was full capitulation. With nothing left, I imposed a brutal sentence on myself. “This year I change my life, or this year I end it.” Drastic? It had to be. My life only swings extreme…and rarely the good kind. One year turned into two, and over a decade, I came back. Found myself, someone I’d never truly met, and moulded myself into the man I wanted to be. A long way off the person I once could’ve been…. Poor fucker…he never stood a chance.

And then somehow, twelve years later, I was back in the one place I swore never to return. Same floor. Same wall. Same spot. Only with thoughts darker, louder, and more menacing. Everything I believed, all the principles I lived by for a decade, was ripped to shreds.

Mental health has ruled me like a dictatorship I surrendered to. ADHD, child trauma, depression, anxiety, panic, phobias, addiction, self-harm, and self-destruction, to name a few.  It’s like I’d been selected for Mental Health’s “rotation program,” and continually relocated to gain a fully diverse experience. Yet amidst it all: Law Degree, Professional degree, Psychology Diploma, Health & Social Care qualifications… and where did it all lead me to in the end?… Personal Training….that’s…ADHD in a paragraph.

‘You don’t see other kids doing that, ' was a daily theme. It’s true, they didn’t, but with constant reinforcement that I was different, I didn’t feel like it or see it that way. In no way do I align with the narrative of an outsider, being isolated, or disliking school. Of course, things stood out. I didn’t watch cartoons or play with toys, watched TV upside down, never ran out of energy or felt tired, and my brain was always super active, especially at night. No idea what was spinning, but I never remained in bed long.

Insomnia has been ever-present, so has everything boring me. In primary school, before a race, I’d repetitively tell myself, “If I don’t win, Mum will die.” Winning wasn’t exciting enough. Done it. Boring. Sure, it’s dark for a kid…. but who won? That’s how it was. I wasn’t “different.” In my head, it was more like “playing the same game but not always by the same rules”, because I made mine up. When playing computer games with my hands reached boredom, I’d play with my feet.

Worryingly, this was absent of trauma, before abuse. That came as Mum’s boyfriend, also my deputy head… Lucky! … Two For One: home and school. Childhood after “closing” was a 50/50, the guitar and the same fucking songs, nights in white satin (turns my stomach), or his aggressive, abusive behaviour. Fucking Alkies. The worst.

Given the kid, it’s the perfect storm, and it must have shaped me. However, I’ve grappled with my dysfunctional childhood, and I know it had to heavily affect me, but honestly, there is no decision, behaviour, or breakdown I could even try pinning on it. 

And it’s not like there’s a… “Here’s What It Might Have Been” B side to Life’s album, so who knows the extent it defines you. I do know it was enough to take my first toy with me to bed, a bread knife.

When I had my first full breakdown, early teens, mental health was “man up, get up, shut up.” No internet. No resources. No awareness. Mental health was exclusive to loonies in strait jackets. So, for me, it was silence & shame.

I blundered to 33, never knowing anything different. I’d been like a Panini sticker album, but instead of footballers I collected disorders. Every appointment, I left with a new one. No explanation. That’s on me. I’d look at it and casually conclude… “this one’s nothing serious. I’m only ‘borderline.”. Labels never bothered me then, and it’s not hugely different today. It matters how I’m affected, not what it’s called.

ADHD wasn’t even recognised when I was young. And given how quickly I was awarded other labels, it couldn't have been a crowd favourite when it was, because I waited many years/. Officially diagnosed at age 27. It was worth the wait though. Not plain old boring ADHD, but the deluxe edition: ADHD with autistic traits.

I’d been 12 years in a system resembling one where the blueprint came from Gazza, me, and Ozzy Osbourne on day four of a bender. Crisis Team? So devoted they took the name literally. Therapy? Plenty. First was hypnotherapy, Mum’s idea. Believing in God, miracles weren’t out the question. …“Be still, calm, and relax,” he says….. Is this guy fucking serious? If I could do that, I wouldn’t be lying on this fucking leather recliner being tortured by the soothing sounds of singing dolphins (apparently).

Psychiatrists? Yep. One with no formal qualification. Another guilty of misconduct. Medication? First, the defective Seroxat aged 14, which led to legal action against GSK. Turned out first of many, as floodgates opened with a cocktail of antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiolytics, and “anti-effectives.” I was riding the chemical rollercoaster: uppers, downers, stabilisers, blockers. And that’s before my self-prescribed interventions, cocaine, and alcohol.

I peaked at 11 tablets a day. Mostly disorders I didn’t have, surely not. Although I only suspected that. It proves just how deceptive addicts really are that even professionals were easily tied in knots. I was grateful for anything that absolved me of responsibility. How accurate could it really be to diagnose an addict who wore more masks back then than throughout the whole of COVID? So, I questioned it. And that resulted in another, Oppositional Defiance Disorder. You can’t make it up.

A baby addict, 2 years in, I spent 42 days in the Priory. Full shebang — traditional, contemporary, group, and individual sessions. My first major fail, but although defined as a relapse, I don’t categorise it as one. Either way, it wasn’t a success but something sadistic which always gave hope…alcoholics… wow, different fucking beast. I was a VIP at a pantomime. They lied when the truth is a better option. Alkies have always given me the jitters.

I searched, but with all hope gone, and half a life part of the trial… ‘What does this one do?’, I quit, leaving it to me to figure’…..reassuring!

By the time anxiety and ADHD became fashionable, rabbits had PTSD, and people were selling merch for updated versions of disorders, I was so far out of the loop that I assumed my versions were discontinued with the Nokia 3310. Depression had become journaling in beige loungewear, drinking coconut water, and posting frowning selfies under #mentalhealth.

I’ve lived years off-grid. Done more solitary than a supermax inmate. Most strictly 2012, where this could’ve been the world’s longest suicide note. After a decade of cocaine addiction, with sides of alcohol and gambling, everything collapsed: career gone, disowned, and can’t pay the mortgage. All glossed over with a suicide attempt; just one more thing ADHD failed to complete. But, luckily, one remained…Mum. I moved back with nothing but £100k debt and a severely destroyed septum, which, like me, was hanging on by a thread.

The Plan? The only one left. A year’s solitary. No phone, people, or contact. Me, an iPad, and my everything: Millie. A one-eyed stray cat appeared days into exile. I’m an atheist, but I’m certain this emaciated, frightened cat with her eye displaced after being shot was meant to find me. We were in the same place. Sounds mental, but she saved my life — and for added craziness, not once but twice.

First? Stop all medication. NEVER do that. 20 years prescribed and recreational drugs — I needed to know who’s underneath. That meant confronting another addiction – downer of choice - Diazepam.

Recovery was no Instagram “Me show”, no yesterday vodka-on-cornflakes today abseiling. No fairytale to win her back. It was a real fight. Shameful. Dark, Turbulent. Slow.

Quitting? Easy part. Who knew: fuck-off difference between quitting and overcoming? I wasn’t naïve thinking when I threw my last wrap down the toilet for the 897th time (remarkable coincidence: always nothing in it) that habits, behaviours, lies, and masks flushed away with it. But Fuck…. did I ever completely crack it?

I took three years to cautiously re-engage. Discovering Identity? Years. Life was a lie. Child: Fear. Teenager: Non-negotiable. Addict: Necessity. Relationships rooted in dishonesty and distrust. Addicts? Real relationships? Impossible. You can’t have real when you don’t live in reality. (clue)

I clawed back. 2020 to 2021, best adult years. Typical. The world’s on fire with fucking Covid, and I cracked this shit. Lockdowns? Easy. Done stricter..

2022, one of the best. Buzzing all year. 100% back. The blueprint fucking worked. Well, it did, up until it didn’t because 2023 was a fucking, horrific, nightmare. A gift that kept on giving through to 2025. Twelve years clean. Still obliterated. This time. Not drugs or trauma. A woman.

Dehumanised, used, abused, gaslighted, bullied, insulted, betrayed, and ghosted like garbage. All by someone I gave everything. My biggest mistake. I thought I’d faced everything mental health had. But 2 years of lies, abuse, denial, and repeated behaviours never seen, ended in collapse. And no substances or diagnosis to hide behind, it was just me, stripped bare. Frightening.

Ironically, in protecting her from a narcissistic ADDICT ex (honestly,) I got destroyed. Bullshit and manipulation have had a massive upgrade. He made priory pantomimes look amateur.

Anxiety stole identity. Addiction eradicated it. She annihilated it. Transpired building it around kindness isn’t a winner. And how in 2024, I ended back where it all started with my rulebook defective, incomplete, and obsolete.

A defining paradox: My best self-years are the ones I’m most ashamed of, not the low-life junky ones. So fucked up, I was so pathetic, tragic, and weak.  The six months before she changed, I adored her, and then it turned into a form of addiction. A trauma bond I couldn’t extricate from. Addicted to toxicity?

Which answers….Did I ever completely crack it?... Evidently not.

I’ve seen the full swing, from mental health being for “loonies”, to everyone being neurodivergent, anxious, and traumatised. From qualified professionals to a tsunami of online “experts”. ADHD multiplies like gremlins, narcissists rise faster than crypto, and everyone’s overwhelmed, but strangely comfortable with a walking diagnosis.

Somehow, we created a culture no better than silence and shame. We needed less stigma and greater understanding. We got a pandemic of confusion and self-diagnosis. People don’t know the difference between sadness and depression, nerves and anxiety disorder. And behind most attention-seeking social media is an ego performing or someone confusing personality with pathology.

2012 wasn’t about publishing, just my way to dissect life. Try to work it out. After a lifetime’s silence, ghosting was a turning point and profoundly changed me. Extreme cruelty. It opened every wound back to the little boy with the knife.

My life’s not shiny. Been nowhere. Seen nothing. But it’s had dramas, wacky episodes, extreme behaviours, and bizarre self-preservation tactics. Anxiety to addiction to relationships: all are the opposite of normal.

It’s raw, ugly, occasionally funny, and sadly, true. It proves you can always come back. Not perfectly. Not with all answers. But enough to go again. The kicker? It’s likely on you. Scary but liberating: If you’re the problem, you’re the solution.

The book is for anyone. Although if easily offended, expecting glossy, polished or PC…. It’s not that. For those living it, out of humour and energy, despite darkness: underlying it is hope, the gritty, stubborn kind. For those living around it: forgotten collateral, it’s going to really challenge your views. And for those who understanding, a chance to see a different perspective on labels and textbooks.

I’m no reformed messiah, therapist, or guru.  Just a guy with ADHD, too many words in his head, and not enough sense to keep them there. Maybe that’s why you’ll keep reading.

Let me guess... Here we go again...Same old shit? Yep, what I’d think. But this… might just be a little different.