Letters, Labels, and Liberation

A letter from 45-year-old me to the boy on the countertop

Hi wee man,

That’s you there, sitting on the countertop in your happy place. Bare-chested, bright-eyed, legs swinging. Mum used to put you there after school. Safe. Seen. Still a little wild

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I wanted to write you a letter. We’re turning 45 soon, and I’ve been thinking about all the things we never got to say. Not to change anything. Just to ease some of that pressure in your chest. The confusion. The shame that never belonged to you.

This week, something opened up inside me, something I hadn’t fully looked at in a long time. A knot of old feelings started to loosen after watching two programmes that hit close to home.

I watched something this week that made me think of us. Jamie Oliver has released a new series about dyslexia. In his usual way, he’s charging straight at the system. Watching it stirred something big in me. It brought back so much of what we went through and what’s still happening to thousands of kids. I found myself in tears. Not just sadness, but relief. Like something that had been hidden for years was finally being spoken aloud.

Then last night, I watched Chris Packham: Inside Our Minds, about ADHD. And again, I was floored. That mix of emotion, recognition, and grief. But also something else permission. Permission to be exactly as we are.

You already knew your brain didn’t work the way school wanted it to. You felt more. Quicker, deeper. And sometimes it was just too much.

I’ve known we were dyslexic for most of our lives. But it took me a lot longer to fully acknowledge that we also have ADHD. Deep down, I think we always felt it. But without a diagnosis, I didn’t give us permission to name it. I kept trying to fix it. Get better at being more normal. More together. It’s only recently that I’ve started to understand how much it shaped everything. Our energy. Our sensitivity. Our creativity.

You lived for the bell. That moment it rang and we could run free, breathe, feel the wind. Then it would ring again, and the world would shrink. We’d sit there dizzy and numb, with that negative voice looping inside.

Long before we called it work, photography gave us space. A rhythm. A way to feel without having to explain. What we couldn’t find in textbooks, we found in light. In people’s faces. In the quiet before a wave breaks.

Since the pandemic, everything’s been flipped more times than I can count. But slowly, I’ve started to understand how this round peg fits. A big part of that shift has come from working with Darius.

He’s what’s called a workplace strategy coach or you could say a dyslexic productivity coach. He helps people like us get the support they need, not just to survive, but to actually understand how their brain works. With his help, I got Access to Work support through the UK government, and from there we began to build what I now call our operating manual. It's essentially how I've learned to understand and work with my own unique wiring.

Not someone else’s system. Ours.

It’s not just about apps and tools. It’s about noticing patterns. Energy. Mood. How do we move through the world? And one of the biggest things I’ve learned is this. We were never broken.

It’s not about fixing. It’s about expressing, about letting our individual rhythm come through. That’s where our focus lives now.

This journey of understanding myself and building that operating manual extends beyond just work. It's an ongoing process of learning how my unique brain impacts friendships and romantic relationships, and how to navigate those connections genuinely.

So thank you, wee man. You kept going. You stayed open. We’re still learning. Still seeing. Still growing. Together.

Further resources

• Jamie Oliver’s ‘Better Brain Health’ dyslexia campaign

• Chris Packham: Inside Our Minds ADHD documentary

• Darius's website (my coach who’s helped me build my 'operating manual')

• Access to Work Grtant (UK)

Till next time,

Mike

P.S. Expect big ideas and small typos. This was sent with a wee smattering of dyslexia and a lot of heart.

This was written by me, with a little help from AI to tidy it up and keep things clear.