Hi, I’m Himal. My ADHD diagnosis at 44 in 2024 rewrote my whole life story. Everything finally fell into place. Like a plot twist revealing something that had been hiding in plain sight my whole life.

Looking back it’s obvious all the signs were there for my parents too. Not working, struggling with basic tasks. No support and cut off from wider family and community.

By the time I was seven I was running away and going all around London on my own.

My teens and twenties were difficult too. Missing a lot of school but curious and hungry for knowledge, always reading or doing something. Later bouncing between jobs and periods of unemployment with no sense of purpose or direction.

Never fitting in. Never able to stick to anything. Never feeling good enough.

Knowledgeable, unreliable, skilled, inconsistent, talented, irresponsible, extraordinary, useless.

Cycles of energy, enthusiasm and overcommitment followed by loss of interest, failure, shame and depression. The pattern of my life.

By 32 fed up. No qualifications, no experience, no prospects. Something was wrong with me. I couldn’t live like this. I would end it. But one last push…

An unexpected decade-long journey across government. Working with senior leadership within a short space of time to help shape strategies for building and sustaining digital services and teams. Finally taking a permanent role as Head of Technology for GOV.UK during the pandemic.

But burnout was inevitable after a decade of relentless pushing. Overcompensating and overachieving, not sure why but unable to stop.

I had become “successful.” Materially at least. I still didn’t know what I wanted or who II was. I wasn’t happy. There was an unfillable void, I couldn’t let anyone in and I was never content with what I had or where I was.

Resigning and leaving on an open ended trip around the world. 18 months on the move. Having all the choices in the world but not able to decide where I wanted to live or who I wanted to be. Afraid to make decisions. Adrift and always moving.

Finally coming back to the UK to get a handle on my life. Then accidentally referred for an ADHD assessment while trying for autism. And suddenly diagnosed with ADHD without knowing more than the basics.

Being distracted, hyperactive or impulsive? Maybe when I was younger but I’d been successful. I’d run critical national infrastructure during the pandemic. I was organised. I had systems for everything… not realising then that I’d normalised my coping mechanisms to the point I couldn’t see them anymore and living a rigid and regimented life with no joy. Fear of losing control. Of failure.

Then my world changed forever.

Trialling medication a dam was released. A neurological block was freed. All the unprocessed feelings which couldn’t be felt before were felt. Now that dopamine and norepinephrine levels were high enough to stop my nervous system from being overwhelmed. A lifetime of pain, anguish and grief all came out in the cold dark January days and nights.

Everything I’d bundled into “childhood trauma”, all the anxiety, overthinking, rejection sensitivity, low self-esteem, negative self-talk, depression, fear of intimacy, inability to make life decisions, the avoidance, people pleasing, settling, the rationalisations, stories, excuses, all the blame… all of it.

And every other problem I had thought was “just me.”

It had all been ADHD. My whole life.

I forgave myself. I forgave my parents. I let it all go.

Healed. Freed from flipping between reward chasing and pure survival. Confident, in touch with my feelings and connected to myself and others.

No longer the same person.

ADHD wasn’t what I thought it was. It turned out to be the answer to all the problems I’d ever had.

ADHD shaped how I thought, felt, acted and responded. Driven all the choices I made. My personality, preferences. My whole life.

ADHD set me up with skills, knowledge, experience and means. But it also robbed me of love, joy and happiness and never let me know peace.

I see it in many others. Everywhere. It’s not something to “fix” or a problem only in schools or the workplace. It severely limits people’s lives. It is a disability affecting executive function and emotional regulation leaving people struggling, in pain or worse.

Like my dad. I was finally able to grieve 20 years after he died. He clearly had ADHD, leaving him misunderstood, isolated and dying alone in his tiny council flat aged 54.

ADHD was my whole life before I even knew it was there.

“Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder” doesn’t really cover it. It goes so much deeper.

I want to help raise awareness of how it impacts lives and how widespread it is.

I’m free. I want to see others free too.