Neurodiversity and Me

As an incredibly proud gay 38-year-old Dyslexic ADHD’er, it has taken me a long time to love the person I am today!

The journey to getting to know who I am, and self-acceptance has been long and windy. If it wasn’t for my parents’ rigorous home-schooling and my best friend outing me… to myself at 17, my life could be very different today.

Being a gay female in the noughties was colourful, but not very cool.

I was forced out of the closet at 18 by my sister, shouting out, “This house is disgusting. Nic’s in bed with his boyfriend and Georgie’s brought her new girlfriend home, this house is full of gays.”

After an awkward conversation with my mother, declaring I was bisexual and not gay, and this was just a friend upstairs (none of which was true), her response was simply, “Do not tell your father he will be heartbroken!” It makes me so sad to say, I kept that secret until I was 27, and what a mistake that was. He opened his arms, hugged me and said “Love is love, all I want in life for you is to be happy”.

It’s funny because the advice to hide aspects of myself from others would come not once in life, but twice. Hiding one’s true self seemed to be easier for others to cope and for me, I would just be another pigeon amongst pigeons.

Despite being hidden in my family, I was always out and proud at work. However, I won’t lie, this did come with its challenges.

My first and most memorable threat at work was when I was just 17 and working my first Saturday job in a supermarket, “I’m going to get my boyfriend to run you over you filthy, diseased lesbian.”

It was from a female co-worker, 20 years my senior, as I simply re-tuned the radio when it was playing her favourite song.

School was also a challenge.

I loved to make art, play sports and the social aspects, but my parents had to support my academic learning at every turn. You name the syllabus, I was retaught it! I remember the arguments with my dad, “Just bloody sit down”. Urgh, I can still feel the frustration of being glued to the chair, it killed me and made me utterly miserable.

With my parents’ persistence and support (my scaffolding), I did make it to Uni, I studied fine art sculpture, I adored those days. But without a diagnosis or 1:1 support, there were aspects of my course that I found crippling!

So the day finally came, not only was I dyslexic, but they also assumed I had ADHD.

“She can’t sit still long enough to learn,” I was told.

I was sent off to the GP, and as quickly as I walked in, he laughed me back out the door. Looking back he was cruel, I felt so stupid and so ashamed.

“ADHD doesn’t exist in adults, it’s a childhood condition you grow out of!” I was told.

Luckily with the right support I managed to finish Uni, however, the transition into the workplace was hideous.

When I was finally ready to apply for jobs, my mother advised me, “Darling, I worked in HR for years, we didn’t take on newly married women, nor would we take on dyslexics so don’t mention it, you won’t get the job.”

After suffering two breakdowns, the final one being in 2019, my ADHD was finally confirmed. I was working full time, project managing my house renovation, and it was Covid. The cracks started to show, I was a chronic insomniac, riddled with anxiety in a crumbling marriage and once again, I felt I was failing at life.

However, the diagnosis was the final piece to the puzzle!

I finally had the full picture!

I am pleased to say, the woman writing this today is very different to the one 3 years ago.

Yes, I am a 38-year-old single, female, living with my cat and time-ticking womb bomb with no kids. My life couldn’t be any further away from the hetero-normative lifestyle I dreamed of, but what I can say is I am the happiest and most content I have ever been.

Why?

Self-love and self-acceptance: I understand myself in a way I didn’t before. Embracing therapy, I’ve taken the time to get to know myself, delving into every crack and flaw, and learning not only to love them but to know they are not a thing to hide or to be punished for.

We are human, all unique and we all experience this bizarre but incredible world differently….and that is okay!

I’ve learnt (the hard way), as a society, we need to enable, and not disable and maybe not even label, but that the first step to that starts with ourselves. So…

Be Out, Be Proud…..Love yourself!

And always be unashamedly you!