My Story of ADHD Self-Discovery

The Late Diagnosis: Phil Gee's Story of Self-Discovery

Where do you even begin to unravel a lifetime of feeling… different? For me, Phil Gee, that journey of understanding started surprisingly late, at the age of 53. For years, a nagging voice in the back of my head had whispered insidious lies – that I was slow, a bit thick, just not quite with it. Little did I know, the reality was far more nuanced, and ultimately, empowering.

My early school years were… breezy, to say the least. I sailed through, not exactly excelling academically, but certainly making my presence known. The annual school reports painted a familiar picture: “chats too much,” “needs to focus more,” “easily distracted.” Sound familiar to anyone?

My mum, a force of nature in her own right, had a unique perspective on education. The daughter of a fiercely independent, if somewhat unconventional, Polish man who believed life was the best teacher, she wasn’t one for pushing traditional academics.

He, unable to read or write English himself, refused to send her to school and instead took her daily to The Kardomah coffee shop on Lord Street in Southport, imparting his wisdom over cups of tea.

Considering she went on to juggle single motherhood and run multiple businesses single-handedly well into her seventies, perhaps there was something to his unconventional curriculum!

(See? There I go again, off on a tangent! It’s a recurring theme, you’ll learn.)

So, at 16, qualifications were the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t even bother turning up for the exams. The allure of an underground den, painstakingly crafted with my mates in the Southport sand dunes, proved far more compelling than the sweaty confines of the school sports hall where our peers were diligently filling in answer sheets. Priorities, eh?

My entry into the world of work, a story I’ll delve into with more ADHD-related detail later in the book, began in retail. I joined Marks & Spencer on a Youth Training Scheme (YTS – a blast from the past for some of you!). Despite my lack of formal education, within four years, I’d become the first male supervisor in the branch. Who needs those pesky qualifications, I thought with the naive confidence of youth!

That confidence took a slight knock when I set my sights on management. The brick wall of “degree holders only” slammed down pretty hard. Without even an O’Level to my name, that ambition was swiftly curtailed.

The next fifteen years saw me navigating the fast-paced world of high street fashion, managing multiple branches for brands like The Gap and, most notably, River Island, where I was entrusted with overseeing a staggering eighteen stores! Again, not too shabby for a lad who’d prioritised sand dunes over syllabuses.

Then came GOSH, my own venture – a women’s and children’s shoe shop that blossomed into four thriving locations across Merseyside. By this point, however, the novelty of retail had worn thin, and the daily contemplation of women’s bunions was starting to lose its appeal.

Serendipitously, I was having a website built for the shoe shops and, like a moth to a digital flame, I fell head over heels in love with the internet. This was 2007 – the Wild West of the online world, pre-social media saturation, before smartphones and tablets became ubiquitous. Seventeen years later, that initial spark still burns bright, and the digital realm remains my professional playground.

This digital journey eventually led me to a significant life change – a move from my beloved Liverpool to the bustling metropolis of London. My wonderful daughter, Olivia, was now 25 and forging her own path. I was single, and a restless energy, was pushing me towards a new horizon.

Underlying this desire for change was a growing unease. My mum had recently been diagnosed with dementia, and as I reflected on my own quirks and behaviours, a terrifying thought began to take root: was I experiencing the early signs myself? In typical Phil fashion, rather than facing this fear head-on, I did what I’d always done – buried my head in the sand and ran. Two hundred miles south, to be precise!!

I booked a short, one-month let in a room in a shared house, a toe-dip into the London waters. Little did I know, that single month would alter the course of my life irrevocably.

On my very first day, one of the other tenants casually mentioned, amongst other things, that she had ADHD. At the time, the term conjured up a vague image of hyperactive children bouncing off the walls. It meant little more to me than that.

However, on my last evening in the shared house, she dropped a bombshell. “You know, Phil,” she said with a knowing giggle, “I think you might have ADHD too.”

My immediate reaction wasn’t offense, but genuine curiosity. “Why on earth would you say that?” I asked, genuinely perplexed. Her response was a cascade of observations, delivered with the blunt honesty of someone who recognised the signs.

“Well,” she began, “for starters, there was the porridge incident. Six times in one month, you put your ‘two-minute porridge’ in the microwave, only to get completely sidetracked and end up going out for breakfast!”

The absurdity of it struck me – a potent cocktail of impatience for those agonizing two minutes and a complete, almost immediate, forgetting that the breakfast was already in progress. She continued, pointing out my constant chirpiness, how seamlessly I’d integrated with the five housemates as if I’d been there for years (a classic masking strategy, I’d later learn), and my almost compulsive tidying of the communal areas. Apparently, these were all “tell-tale signs.”

I wasn’t upset; I was… intrigued. I promised her I’d look into it when I returned to Liverpool the following week. Her parting advice was to listen to a book called Faster Than Normal by Peter Shankman. “You won’t have the patience to read it,” she’d accurately predicted.

The moment I started my four-hour drive back north, I downloaded the audiobook and pressed play. Peter Shankman’s words hit me like a lightning bolt. The book was nearly six hours long, and I found myself extending my journey into North Wales just so I could finish it. It was that good.

Suddenly, so many things clicked into place. The “slowness,” the “thickness,” the feeling of being perpetually “stupid” or just “getting old” – all of it could potentially be attributed to this thing called ADHD.

Wow. Just… wow.

And that, in a nutshell, is how I stumbled upon the realisation that had been lurking beneath the surface for over five decades. A chance encounter, a perceptive observation, and a life-changing audiobook. The journey to understanding myself had finally begun