Andy Blade
Hi, I'm Andy, I am 42 and I live in Buckinghamshire. I have had ADHD since I was a young boy - come and ask me about my experiences and how I've learnt to manage it as an adult. ...
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Who are you?
Hi, my name's Andy. I'm 42 and I'm from Buckingham Shear.
Can you tell us about your mental health journey?
So a little bit about my journey. I had a DHD as a kid in school. I was a little bit disruptive and stuff like that. Just the typical A DHD symptoms you get as a kid, lack of concentration, everything else like that. I then took a DHD into adulthood, unfortunately, about six years ago, seven years ago now. I went and paid privately to go and see a doctor, just to get a diagnosis, just to give me some answers as to what was going on for me, which did it gave me answers. I then got put on a course of Dix Amphetamines, which I took for about three months. I knew they just weren't right for me, I don't think. They sat well with my brain chemistry come off them. And then I started having severe anxiety to the point where I couldn't even leave my house. I was working in cars at the time. I was a quite high flying salesman, and I couldn't even speak to people. It was that bad. From then, I started getting panic attacks, panic attacks, then started setting in. But with A DHD, you sort of hyper-focused on things. So I started to learn a bit about what it was. So I started reading about what it was, and I sort of learned to self cope with it. But the A DHD has always been in the background and it's ruined my life. I literally had the woman of my dreams. I've lost her. I've lost her two weeks ago, all because of my A DHD. Small things, not listening, procrastinating on things. She's just been asking me to do small things, and for me, that's a massive thing. But for her, it's just normal. It's broken me. I'm at Crisis Point now, so I've got the adequate help. I've seen the doctors. Now I'm going to go back and try some medication. I've cancelling now, and I'm just going to do everything I can now just to repair myself and hopefully repair this relationship. I just want her to understand who I am as a person and who I can be as a person, because this is all fixable.
How has your mental health journey impacted your life?
My mental health has impacted my journey, my life journey, humongously massively again, where I refer back to my last video. It's small things in life, which easy for day-to-day people to do for me is a mammoth task. It's just something I can't cope with. But the problem is I do so many little things and I know I need to do so many little things, but I don't do them. So it all just stacks up, stacks up, and then I just implode. And that's the worst part of it. It's just horrendous.