I heard the news today, oh boy …

Becoming an ADHD Whisperer

I got a phone call yesterday, out of the blue.

It was from someone I have known in an internet way for many years now. Our paths have crossed over at various times and I have watched his various endeavours, all idiosyncratic and all creative in his own unique way.

I watched his progress from a distance for many years BA (Before ADHD) and it was interesting and impressive (and funny, he’s very funny).

A few years ago, somehow our paths crossed momentarily and we ended up meeting in London and talking about what we had been doing and what we intended to do next. It was at a time when I was just finding out about ADHD. I was coming to a realisation that the sorts of people around me that I liked, who had crazy creative careers of one sort of another, those people were probably ADHD. I hadn’t formulated any theories about it at that point (ADHD Clusters?) and I wasn’t even aware that I needed to. But something about this guy rang a bell and somewhere along the way I told him that I thought he might have ADHD. I probably didn’t couch it like that, I’ve always been wary of diagnosing people outright, although I’ve realised I’m good at spotting the traits. I probably said something like, ‘That looks like a crazy mixed up ADHD set of things to me’. Whatever. We had the conversation, the same conversation I’ve had with dozens of people before and since, and went on our merry ways.

So yesterday my phone rang out of the blue. ‘It’s true. What you said about ADHD is true.’ Someone else, someone more qualified than me (in a formal sense) had also noticed his traits and told him, told him a lot about ADHD and how it works. Not a formal diagnosis, but we all self diagnose before we get diagnosed. It was just another step down the road to self awareness. Where he takes it is up to him. At this stage, probably nowhere - his life seems to be on track, no adjustments needed.

He did tell me something funny though. ‘I came out to my son. I came out as ADHD’. It made me laugh and reminded me of the years when I used to imagine saying to people in the way of Alcoholics Anonymous, ‘My name is Ivan and I am an artist’. For artist, substitute ADHD, but the need to disclose, to reveal the difference, was always there. Still is.

Then we overtalked for a bit, we exchanged our wonder at this thing. We laughed about how our partners get bored with us banging on about it. Then we went out own ways.

But the call left a mark on me. ‘I am an ADHD Whisperer’ I thought. I’m right. And that will feed back into my research and writing about Our Thing.

And my coaching. Did I mention I’m now an ADHD Coach? It’s very early days but I’m looking to work with people who want to work this whole thing out. I’m about to launch two new one hour sessions: SO YOU THINK YOU HAVE ADHD and SO YOU’VE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH ADHD. Cheap and cheerful for people who have got to one of these points and want to talk about what it means.

My coaching site is Neurotivity. It’s a work in progress.