This is obviously quite a personal blog post, but once again, I guess that’s the joy of being the proud owner of the UK’s coolest mushroom spore business – I can write what I like! Ya can't stop me, I'm over here just battering the keyboard about whatever pops into my little noggin! There’s a real person behind all of this; it’s not some disinterested company just selling spores, it’s a real chap with an interest in mycology and apparently now (always) a neurodiverse brain!

So I’ve always, always considered myself to be a bit weird compared to most people I know. As the years have rolled on, I’ve come to get a bit of a better understanding of myself and so I’ve been able to manage general life stuff in ways that don’t involve absolutely fucking everything up then having to rebuild it all, but for most of my life it’s actually been quite difficult. I knew I didn’t think like most people I met, my processes, routines, and ways of thinking about things seemed to be quite different, but I couldn’t put my finger on why! Annoyingly, it all seems a bit obvious now…

I’m 41 at the time of writing, so obviously back when I was in school, the awareness of ADHD was poor, to say the least. Those of you who also have ADHD will be able to predict the following text with 100% accuracy: Did well at school when it was the tasks I enjoyed (which wasn’t that often), but got frequent reports saying I’d “do well if I just applied myself”, was apparently a naughty child who was often bored, got into minor trouble with the cops, all that sort of absolutely typical “hey bud you might have ADHD” stuff. Eventually I got “asked politely” to leave school and only come back for my GCSEs after an incident featuring a broken bottle, me, and the headmaster. Got a spread of GCSEs that basically spelled out “DUUUUDE” because I just wasn’t interested. Whoops! I then tried college a few times, but would always drop out after putting off the work for so long that I’d get behind and then just leave.

I eventually ended up working as a labourer for a few years, and then pissing around doing whatever job cropped up, before becoming a chef, which is actually a really good job if you’ve got ADHD – there’s loads to do, it’s varied, there’s insane time pressure, strictly hierarchal, and making and eating things is fucking rad. Much later on, I got fed up with having to do twelve-hour days just to earn less than the waiting staff did for a six-hour day (front-of-house used to get all of the tips back in those days, I hope that’s changed), so I went and did an Access course. This was good for me, because one of the tutors was one of those kinds of tutor that you remember years later due to them being awesome. I found the subjects interesting, my classmates were cool, I was a bit older than most of them, and if I quit I’d have to go back to kitchens and that would be it forever, and so I found the whole thing engaging enough and managed to push through, before doing a Foundation degree.

I found the Foundation degree insanely difficult because there were lots of times I just couldn’t focus – thankfully I had a classmate who was hyper-organised and used to write little study plans and schedules, which she would happily share with me. I also took various study drugs (known as Nootropics), namely Aniracetam and Piracetam, which helped me to be able to sit down and spend hours writing about things that meant a bit less to me. At the end of the day I managed to get through the course and then started a (lucky) career doing something I liked that worked well with my chaotic brain. Years later I set up Orangutan Trading Co (which I have written about endlessly so I won’t do it here again) and that was great, because even though it was an insane amount of often very detailed work (try setting up an online business in a weird industry with virtually no spare money, you’ll be working a lot), it was something I cared about, so I was in that amazing “hyper focus” mode that’s literally the best upside of any disability that I can think of!

It’s kinda weird, getting to 41, and having carried a whole lot of self-inflicted guilt for all the times I’ve struggled with things, and then finding out “no mate, that shit wasn’t your fault, you’ve got a literal disability”. Lost a few jobs, fucked up a lot of friendships, the usual sort of thing. It turns out I was just trying to do things in a way that didn’t suit the way my brain works, and whilst I did my best with the various coping strategies that I’d picked up over the years, it didn’t work all the time. It is what it is, I guess.

However! This makes it all sound bad, and it genuinely ain’t all bad – I’m insanely creative when the mood takes me, my brain seems to be able to problem-solve extremely efficiently, and when the pressure’s on I am like a “task robot” (although this one’s a bit of a double-edged sword because it seems to turn me into an emotional robot during those times too). I’m also amazing at working non-stop on things that interest me, it’s like a compulsion and I literally can’t bear to do anything else, as long as the interest lasts – which it sometimes doesn’t!

Long story short, I recently got a diagnosis that I did indeed have ADHD (and let’s just say it wasn’t borderline haha). I guess, for me, this means I can now try and take an extra minute to think when I’m experiencing the more negative symptoms, and there’s now a wealth of resources I can read about that might give me some decent strategies (I’m already ploughing through loads of books but have found most of them shit, to be honest). I’m also probably going to have a look at what’s available in terms of medication, which I know many in the mycology world may think is a bad idea, but I’m up for trying whatever is available, and if it doesn’t work for me then I’ll do just do something else, innit!

I just wanted to write this particular blog post to say if you’ve got an idea that you might not be thinking like “normal” people, and you’re noticing odd patterns in the way you deal with things, it’s worth going and having a chat with a professional about it – it might be, like me, that there’s a reason for these things, and then hopefully, again like me, you can start to get a bit more understanding and a bit of help with it all!