The Wall Before the Grace.

There was a wall.

Not made of bricks or stone — but of silence, shame, and not knowing who I was.

I lived behind that wall for decades.

Before I knew I had ADHD.

Before I knew Jesus.

Before grace cracked it open.

Back then, I just thought I was failing at being a person.

I’ve lived most of my life with a noise in my head I couldn’t explain.

A restlessness. A fog.

A thousand thoughts at once and none of them helpful.

In the 1970s, nobody talked about ADHD.

Especially not in council estates, or classrooms where the “clever kids” were supposed to behave.

Back then, I wasn’t “neurodivergent.”

I was just “naughty.”

I was the kid who couldn’t sit still.

The one who talked too much, interrupted, cracked jokes, got sent out.

The one they said had potential… if only he could apply himself.

They didn’t see the anxiety under the surface.

Or the shame.

They saw cheeky and clever.

Not the kid who felt broken and different and not enough.

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When my dad got too ill to work, we struggled.

We were skint, but my parents were dreamers.

They saw something in me — something worth saving.

So I sat the grammar school exams.

I hyperfocused, nailed them, and got in on a full scholarship.

I should’ve felt proud.

But walking into that fancy hall on my first day — like a knockoff Hogwarts —

I didn’t feel smart.

I felt alien.

Rich kids. Confident kids. Voices like on BBC Radio 4.

And then there was me — poor, anxious, Sunderland accent, pretending to belong.

I begged my parents to come see me at break time.

Just so I’d have someone who felt safe.

That wasn’t a rite of passage.

That was survival.

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At 17, my dad died.

Everything broke after that.

I didn’t know how to grieve, so I didn’t.

I numbed.

Drugs. Raves. Bad choices. Panic attacks that felt like death.

Got a girl pregnant.

Flunked university.

Carried guilt like a brick in my chest.

My mum was grieving.

My sister was struggling.

I was spiralling — and nobody knew what to call it.

Not me. Not them. Not the GP who handed me antidepressants like a plaster over a bullet wound.

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Still, somehow I got a degree.

First class honours, no less.

Crammed a year’s worth of learning into a week, passed the exam, and forgot it all a week later.

That’s ADHD. But I didn’t know that yet.

What I knew was burnout.

Impulsivity.

Job after job — some in other countries — chasing a future I couldn’t hold onto.

One minute razor-sharp focus, the next walking through treacle.

Always forgetting. Always fidgeting. Always too much or not enough.

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But then… something good happened.

I met Lorna.

She was calm where I was chaos.

Steady where I spun out.

A light I didn’t think I deserved.

We got married. Travelled. Laughed.

Built a beautiful, messy life.

We even wrote our vows with the line “through the pissy and the fantastic.”

Because we knew it would be both.

And still — I kept burning out.

Lorna held the fort when I couldn’t.

I masked my confusion with humour.

But inside, I was drowning in noise.

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I spent decades thinking I was just a failure at being a person.

A broken man.

Too much. Too little. Never enough.

Until one day, at 49, I met Jesus.

And at 52, I met ADHD.

And for the first time…

The wall started to crack.

And light got in.

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Next: The Day Grace Found Me

Where the fog began to lift.