Acting like a normal person
I can’t see the audience, but I can hear them laughing. I’m saying stuff and they’re actually LAUGHING. How is this happening? Maybe if I’d written what I was saying I’d have scribbled it out. But I’m not in the audience’s position. I’m not looking at me saying shit. I have no idea how this…
Improv-ing My Life
With Improv the most difficult thing you can be asked to do is be yourself. Which for me was the problem. At the start of my first workshop, surrounded by strangers, I looked at the exit. Should I just leave? I wasn’t sure I could do it. What if I opened up and they didn’t…
A history of footballing mardiness
As a kid I would get mardy about football. I would be called mardy. I would be told not to get so mardy. When I was upset or/and crying, invariably I’d be told I was just being mardy or ‘having a mard on’. But being accused of being mardy would only make me more mardy…
The Neurodivergent Teacher (for 3 months only)
Working in a school as a teacher exposed my ADHD traits. I just didn’t know it at the time. It’s blindingly obvious now. Following redundancy from the BBC, during lockdown, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Teaching appealed. Schools had stayed open during the pandemic to an extent. I wouldn’t be stuck at…
The Distracted, Mardy Kid with the Busy Brain
As part of any neurodivergence assessment they ask you about the school years. It tests the memory, but it all gradually comes back. Primary school was harder to recall with it being about 40 years ago. But I did remember the frequent trouble I got into with one teacher when I was 8/9. I didn’t…
Misadventures of the Headless Professor
ADHD causes forgetfulness due to impairments in working memory. Holding and processing information is problematic. This leads to difficulties in recalling details and following through on shit you need to do. Losing things is also a core trait of ADHD. Frequently misplacing everyday items due to a moment of distraction is frustratingly common. The stupid shit…
Totally Wired
‘I’m totally wired. And I’m always worried.’ A porous memory, losing things, listening to people, and realising I’m not listening, switching tasks, worrying endlessly, walking away from conversations thinking, ‘why did you say that?’ Trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once, and not always well. Equally, being so deeply involved in a task, that…
The Off Switch
The comedian and writer Robin Ince described having an “angry heckler” in his head. I thought ‘hmm.. that sounds familiar’. I’ve always struggled with that internal voice. It starts talking the moment I’m off guard, usually when I go for a piss in the night. Also, when I’m trying to relax, when I’m not moving,…
Agadoo and All That
Pop songs conjure up a place and time. Even if they’re a bit crap. The kind of tunes your brain tortures you with when you’re lying in bed squirming about something stupid you probably said in 1997. Agadoo by Black Lace is a track as good as a time machine. Always has been, always will…
He’s Leaving Home…
It’s crept up on me… well, I say crept. It’s more like a grizzly bear gaining on me, and I’m legging it, heart going like the clappers, but it’s about to trip me up with a swipe of its giant paw. What am I on about? My eldest is nearing adulthood, and probably leaving home…
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Neil Heath 