ADHD Aged 60. How it Started , How it’s Going ..

As an early Generation X’er (1965) with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), this basically meant I didn’t know I had ADHD. By my teenage years I had a background awareness that something was up; I struggled to stay on track at a decent school (though maybe not one suited to left field people) and couldn’t understand why, I often couldn’t focus when someone was talking to me and I started sliding into addictive behaviours to quell the anxiety caused by the condition. I still don’t really know if not knowing was a good thing or not. The positives of not knowing are that I just had to progressively work out how to regulate myself to prevent my chaotic life completely unravelling (despite the messy ride being exciting at times); the negatives are that I can’t help wondering if I couldn’t have been saved from a lot of needless suffering and mayhem if I’d known? Or where I would be now if I’d had support? There is no question that for me my life choices and outcomes have been defined by this condition.

For the uninitiated ADHD symptoms look like this, though people can present differently and there are variations between age groups, boys/girls and men/women. According to many scientists the condition is genetically inherited, though certain social/cultural environments can makes symptoms better or worse. The effects of trauma are linked to ADHD, the two are related according to Dr Gabor Mate who goes further and says that social/cultural environments and childhood trauma are more the cause than genetics . It’s a nature nurture debate. In my own case both parents were alcoholic and had suffered trauma themselves which no doubt added to my situation whichever way round it happens.

Around 1984 age 18 when most of my peers were either in apprenticeships, working or like me doing A levels in hopeful preparation for university, life took something of a turn. Two days before an exam I was tripping on acid at Glastonbury Festival (UK ,one of the largest in the world) and somehow thought that that would work out just fine! It took me 24 hours to hitch hike home, I just made it for the exam but mostly spent the time staring at the blank paper. When exam results came out I should not have been surprised to have failed them all, but I was, that was some level of self delusion, the train had crashed.

Was that peak ADHD chaos ? Now I was thrown out into the world without a plan or a clue. I smoked far too much weed at this time as an understandable but misguided attempt to regulate myself which really just threw wood on the fire. By some luck I was told of factory work in the Netherlands packing tulip bulbs so I hitch–hiked across England, caught the ferry, set up on a campsite and landed myself a job. This led to three years of roaming around Europe doing unskilled agricultural and labouring jobs: the Netherlands many times, grape picking in France twice, labouring in Greece twice and spending time on a Kibbutz in Israel.

The University of Life as some would call it. I did learn many things and met all shades of people; many on this work trail were lost like me, ‘in-between things’ or even on the run (if not from the law, then from themselves. Despite (or because of) this we were mostly a mutually supportive community of oddballs and misfits. There were some scary ADHD related moments such as waking up in a police cell in Den Haag, The Netherlands, having drunk/smoked myself unconscious; on another occasion I set a tent and myself on fire after falling asleep with a candle on (I was hospitalised but luckily got away with a only a bad burn on my torso). Once I had to hitchhike from Athens to London due to having miscalculated the money needed for the bus home (1986, no internet or ‘please mum, or anyone, could you transfer £20 to my account’ options) . I did get to know parts of Europe quite well, ADHD can give you a lot of energy. It has also been pointed out to me that all this was quite brave (or reckless, take your pick).

Yet despite all this, on that trip in Greece where I had travelled out on a three day bus I taken with me notes to prepare to resit a couple of my earlier failed exams; I had not given up hope of university and other options in life and was getting tired of the drudgery of the jobs I was doing. So as well as wild camping on Crete whilst labouring and picking tomatoes, I was also studying A level History and Sociology. Part of me knew I could do that, if I could just get myself together … For certain I was the only one amongst the itinerant worker tribe of people in Crete doing that.

An overall positive of independent work and travel was that I was slowly getting more organised. My struggling parents could not support me so without having anyone else to pick up the pieces of my chaos or cushion the problems I created for myself, I soon learned that life wasn’t just going to turn out okay.

On Crete I had met an old hippy ( actually probably only about 40) who told me if I could save money I could go to India for six months and take time out from endlessly working hard jobs. This appealed and gave me a goal, so I saved money in The Netherlands and went to India. Here things began to change. Apart from the amazing adventure that is India, I stopped smoking weed or hash (even though many had come to India exactly to do that) and with time on my hands started reading voraciously. Something in me was awakening, it was as though my brain was coming online in some kind of more manageable way; some scientists say that the pre frontal cortex develops more slowly in ADHD people, up to three years behind. The pre frontal cortex in part controls deferred gratification, impulse control and risk evaluation all of which ADHD’ers notoriously struggle with due to being dopamine deficient and therefore constantly seeking immediate stimuli for mini dopamine hits. I had passed those A levels, boom, so I started to believe I had options in education. I thought I wanted to go to university as some of my peers had, but having lived semi feral didn’t know to go about it.

So on my return to the UK my method to apply to university was to go to the library (the internet of old) and search through the prospectus’s of universities for any course of interest. It was also fortunate that in those days UK university was publicly funded. Having located interdisciplinary Humanities degrees (Liberal Arts in the US) as being my area I proceeded to handwrite a one page letter on a piece of A4 paper. I wish I had kept one to see what I wrote as they mostly presumably ended up in the bin and there were no replies, EXCEPT from the course leader from the University of Brighton who phoned my parents house. I wasn’t there but knew who to phone and he invited me for an interview and gave me a chance. At the interview he helped me along and teased out of me what I was interested in and had been doing. I was offered a place (but told I had to go and fill out the form properly). The guy saved me in many ways. I worry that a modern day version of myself wouldn’t even get to speak to a human being before being rejected by a computer.

I began to find my way. Someone had given me a chance and seen some potential and I took it. The structure of university (certainly of the cosy University of Brighton Humanities department of the late 1980’s) suited me. ADHD is a different brain structure so does not magically go away, but some environments are much better than others, especially supportive ones in which ADHD’ers are interested in what they are doing. I still had some struggles with alcohol and weed, and procrastination, my essays were often last minute all night affairs, but I was learning better strategies to regulate and manage myself. By the third year of the degree I had transformed as a person in many ways and came away with a good 2/1 degree.

Life progressed on from there: I met a long term girlfriend who later became my wife, then after some years working in Social Care and Mental Health services I became a Yoga teacher and Thai massage therapist. I also travelled some more to Asia to feed my curiosity about the region and it’s healing arts and then settled somewhat, got a house (easier and more affordable in the 1990’s it has to be said) and had two sons; life was largely good. ADHD doesn’t go away, but I got a handle on it for the most part without ever knowing until recently what it was and that I had it.

So what worked for me and really helped as I went into adulthood ? I had always been physical, if not sporty, and began to realise that exercise helped me self regulate meaning I was much calmer and far better able to settle down to other tasks. A positive habit I picked up in The Netherlands was that I cycled everywhere. It never occurred to me to get around any other way. So while at university I cycled the eight mile round trip every day and couldn’t understand why I was literally the only one on my course to do that. That journey in itself helped me settle for the day. I also went to the swimming baths a lot one year . I was still twitchy though, I remember a co student asking me why I couldn’t be still whilst chatting to her; I was genuinely oblivious to my wiggles and jiggles . Then a friend suggested to try Yoga, which despite having been to India I had not really heard of. I got a book, read it and tried to practice from the photographs. Amazingly the effects were almost instant; I was suddenly in my body in a way I had not experienced before. I sat and meditated by myself which also had an almost instant effect on my self awareness. I had no language for any of this at the time, I just knew I had found something incredibly helpful. (Much modern research suggests movement, sport, Yoga, meditation and related practices for ADHD’ers).

I carried on practicing Yoga and then a few years later someone described their experience of a silent meditation retreat ( in the Buddhist tradition) . I was curious about this so went and tried for myself . This was in the days before Mindfulness practice had been secularised and made more popular, so other retreatants were largely Buddhists, Psychologists of one sort or another and a few random curious people like me. This practice added another layer of insight into my situation and provided another tool to manage myself.

So here I am at age 60 this year. How’s it going ? Well I can confirm that as the scientists say ADHD is a brain structure/chemistry variation and therefore a lifelong situation that doesn’t go away. I know the beast that I’m dealing with and have found self management strategies and a lifestyle that that works for me. Would I have liked to know I had ADHD when I was young? I’m not sure how much difference it would have made. My younger son, now 22 and probably ADHD, is insistent that he doesn’t want to explore it further and says too many of his peers with it have created a self limiting victim status around it that has held them back. I’m certainly all for societies being flexible around the structures they create that better accommodate some neurodiverse individuals, but at the same time perhaps there’s perhaps a risk of making too much of it for others ? At the other end of the spectrum some cultures barely discuss it; my Thai friend in Chiang Mai, Thailand who has a PHD in educational pedagogues said to me that there are just different styles of people and don’t worry about it (!).

So if you’re reading this and have ADHD, or suspect you may, it’s hard (probably) but don’t give up on yourself. It has been noted by experts (and I believe it) that the ADHD brain can be a creative super power when understood and channeled. There are many books, podcasts and support groups out there that can really help shed light on the situation. I haven’t tried medication ( though it seems to help some) and generally prefer the idea that it’s possible for some of us at least to learn to manage and channel scattered energies through lifestyle adaptations, self regulating practices and perhaps most importantly trying to create a life that works for you. There is an ecological niche for us, so to speak, it’s just that much of what’s on offer in terms of jobs and lifestyles may not work for us.

ADHD doesn’t end well for everyone, many more people struggle at work, in relationships and with addictions etc Some of us will need more professional support which thankfully is more available these days.

I hope this story may help some people, or at least be interesting. If this is you in some form, I wish you all the best.

Supporting Me.

The content of my website is free but not cheap, I put a lot of work into it, so any donations to support the running of this website , or show your appreciation for any articles/blogs would be greatly appreciated . Thank you .

Subscribe to my newsletter. You can subscribe to my newsletter for occasional news and updates on new articles/blogs by signing up in the boxes below or to the right depending what you are reading this on .

Buy me a coffee. If you can support me by buying me a coffee either here https://www.buymeacoffee.com/nev or via the coffee cup icon that would be amazing – thank you.

Follow me on Medium. You can also support me by following me on the writer’s platform Medium .

Share my posts. If you know others who would appreciate any of my blog posts please feel free to forward or share on social media . Sharing is caring.

Thank you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Verified by MonsterInsights