The book The Year I Met My Brain by Matilda Boseley ventures into the lives of adults with Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), given her own experience of being diagnosed later in life with ADHD herself. She works as a social media reporter for the Guardian.
While Boseley has struggled with her ADHD and her journey for an adult diagnosis, it has also been a journey in better understanding her own behaviours that were somehow missed throughout her childhood. She interrupted in class when things got interesting, became fixated and even obsessed with certain topics, and suffered through anxiety and social phobia after not knowing how to communicate with people who thought so differently from herself. Recognising all these negative experiences, she still states that ADHD “can also be really fucking funny.”
In her personal life, she speaks of her own experience in writing this book about her ADHD and how her ADHD nearly prevented it from happening altogether. In waiting for an important meeting with her publishers, she found a task to do that would take 45 minutes, or one episode of the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, only to become so entranced by her task that suddenly the show’s credits had rolled around, for the second time. Now 45 minutes late for this meeting, she found many messages asking if she was okay, and she began to beg their apologies. Assuming the worst, Boseley decides the best way to calm her anxiety is a relaxing bath, and after running this bath and getting comfortable, the phone rings, forcing her to take this very important and very long phone call naked, in the bath, staying so still in order not to splash the water and give away her quite embarrassing, but very funny, situation. This has become an essential part of her story in getting this book published, and the absurdity of it all has made a great party story.
There are often two sides to every ADHD trait. Boseley shares her impulsive thinking and often interrupts, which makes her fun at parties. Her humour is strongly appreciated in social circles, but this behaviour can also be seen as rude or inappropriate in other places, such as classrooms or offices. Creativity is appreciated when it can contribute to innovation and problem-solving, but if your mind wanders when you are supposed to be paying attention, then that creativity is no longer rewarded. This can contribute to poor self-esteem and anxiety as ADDitude reports in a 2023 article that “Individuals with ADHD are more likely to have an anxiety disorder than are individuals without the condition, with rates approaching 50 per cent.”
Boseley laments that ADHD can feel like an endless struggle, and 70% of adults experience an improvement while on medication, according to a 2013 study from Frontiers in Neuroscience. Despite these improvements, it does not change for people with ADHD; it can feel like the world was not made for them.’
“Because here’s the thing about my ADHD, is that sometimes it turns me into someone that I’m not. I don’t want to seem selfish. I don’t want to be careless with other people’s time. I don’t want to be caught in this whirlpool of unaccomplished chores, unanswered emails, and disappointed friends’ family and coworkers, but sometimes it feels like I will never be able to row fast enough to break out.”
If you want to learn more about ADHD from people who have ADHD, be sure to read Matilda Boseley’s book The Year I Met My Brain: A travel companion for adults who have just found out they have ADHD.
W’SUP news would like to thank the Sydney Writer’s Festival team for providing the opportunity to attend events media personnel and for hosting such incredible sessions. We hope to continue collaborating in the future and bring these important conversations to Western Sydney University.
