I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH ADHD AT 37

Always in trouble at school. Dead-end jobs. Failed relationships. James Bloodworth often wondered why he found life so difficult. Then four months ago, a psychiatrist gave him the answer – and a new way of looking at the world. He shares his story

I’D GIVEN up. No amount of willpower was enough. Every time I sat down at the computer I got up again soon after, the empty Word document a shameful testament to my lack of focus.

Some days I didn’t make it to my desk. It felt as if my thoughts were written down on Post-it notes, hundreds of Post-it notes that were swirling around in a giant wind tunnel. I was in the wind tunnel too, frantically grabbing at each slip of paper. I was supposed to be a writer. But I was a writer who didn’t write. Instead I lay in bed, paralysed with ennui and despair.

I kidded myself that this mental shutdown was a result of lockdown. It was November 2020 and a second wave of Covid-19 was coming. Everyone was struggling to concentrate, I told myself, I’d probably be fine once things settled down again.

However, in my case this had been building up for years. Blaming it on Covid was a coping mechanism, one final dogged rationalisation. It was time to see someone about it, whatever “it” was.

I had hit a similar wall during my schooldays. I knew I was different. My brain was frenetic. Sometimes frenetic and at other times like a sieve.

It’s striking how often the same comments appear in my school reports, year after year. “Prone to interrupting”, “poor presentation”, “great difficulty concentrating”, “easily distracted”.

These evolved into disciplinary problems as the years trickled by. I went from distracted child to problem child. I thought I was dyslexic for a while. I couldn’t spell and my handwriting was illegible. Other kids would write sentences, whereas I’d put squiggly lines on paper. I was that familiar classroom underachiever: disorganised, often surly, always lost in a world of my own.