Finding My Brain Again

Part Two: The Quiet Relief of Having a Name

Becoming a father is something I’ve always yearned for. There’s probably a whole other series on fatherhood to write one day, but for now, the fundamental truth is this: the birth of my daughter likely saved my life.

I don’t say that for dramatic effect. I had stopped fighting for myself.

Most of my waking hours were spent adrift — lost in the sea of my own thoughts and shame. Isolated not by a lack of love, but by an inability to express the depth of what I was experiencing. Even to those who cared deeply and consistently showed up for me, I couldn’t find the words.

That all changed the day she was born.

The labour was long, wild, terrifying, brutal, beautiful, humbling — and beyond exciting.

The moment I first held her is hard to describe. My wife was hemorrhaging. A nurse placed this tiny, blinking life into my arms and calmly told me she was about to press the emergency button — that the room was about to fill.

I have never known fear like it. And I have never felt such responsibility.

Hours later, with her cotton-soft hair and puffy cheeks pressed against my bare chest, her tiny hand wrapped tightly around my finger, I watched them both sleep.

And for the first time in a very long time, I felt clarity.

I was going to find my way through the storm of my sorrow. I could not stay adrift.

I didn’t just feel a shift after her birth — I moved.

Within a few months, I was sitting in the GP’s office, trying to explain the noise in my head, the lifelong patterns, the constant internal chaos. My referral for an ADHD assessment was sent off that August.

But the system didn’t move with me.

It would be nearly a year before I was finally assessed. And in that time, everything intensified.

This is when the dark hole days really took hold — the ones I described in Part One.

I’d asked for help, but the silence that followed made it feel like I’d shouted into the void.

Parenthood was beautiful and brutal. Work was toxic. I was signed off again.

At that point, I hadn’t given myself permission to consider that it might not be my fault.

I stewed in the truth I thought I knew — the truth that experience, other people, and my own inner critic had conspired to write for me: I was a failure. I always would be.

Tensions grew at home. I kept trying to function, but the mask had worn thin.

I was still coming to terms with my diagnosis — finally allowing myself to push back against a lifetime of internalised shame.

Adjusting. Reflecting. Determined to lay the foundations of a lighthouse so that the sea of my thoughts would never again threaten to envelop me.

For my wife. For my little girl. And yes — for me.

I had to stop the doom loop of my own despair. I had to believe I was worthy of saving.

But even after the assessment, there was still a long wait. It was another six months before I could even begin the titration process.

In the meantime, I was constantly analysing my own behaviours, past experiences, my reactions and choices — finding further signs that confirmed the diagnosis.

I felt the need to justify myself. To prove it was real. To prove I was real.

An imposter.

No longer able to connect in the way I used to.

I felt judged by people I never expected to judge me — but I suppose they were adjusting too.

It’s hard to overstate how life-changing that period was. I think, subconsciously, I’d already begun the process of unmasking. And as I did, I felt even more disconnected. Even more misunderstood.

And at the same time, my daughter began to show signs that made me pause.

She’d always found sleep hard. We’d spend hours swaying with her to the same two songs on repeat, fairy lights glowing, following a carefully choreographed routine to try and head off what we’d come to call “the hellscream.”

She was more active than any baby I’d ever known — physically ahead of every milestone. Walking at eight months. Running by nine.

But at her one-year review, she was only just saying five words.

We had all the usual worries, but told ourselves it wasn’t healthy to constantly compare.

Born in the middle of the Covid pandemic, she was our first — and the first among our friends. Up until that day, we had no reference point.

And then the birthday party happened.

A friend’s child was turning one, a couple of months after ours.

The party was held outside at an “adventure playground” — a forest school during term time. It was a beautifully sunny day. A picnic spread had been laid out on a lawn, but it wasn’t exactly toddler-friendly. The slide plunged down a hill, the ground was uneven, and thorny bushes lined the edges.

Still, most families explored happily. Their children weren’t very mobile yet — slow, cautious toddlers who couldn’t get far very fast. It all seemed manageable.

Not our little girl.

I remember describing her that day as “chaos and jam.”

She was everywhere, all at once.

While other children sat calmly, being fed little sandwiches and fruit by their parents, ours ran laps around the lawn. She refused to eat anything except jam tarts, some veggie straws we’d brought from home, and the icing off a cupcake.

Other parents chatted. Sat in little clusters while their children stayed nearby.

My wife and I chased a whirlwind.

Transitions had always been hard for her, but around this time, something began to shift. We started seeing outbursts we didn’t recognise.

We knew about tantrums — everyone warns you about tantrums. But after speaking to the health visitor and doing our own reading, we learned that a typical tantrum lasts no longer than fifteen minutes.

Our daughter was regularly losing herself to rage for one, sometimes two hours.

She started headbutting walls. Headbutting the oven. She fought against cuddles with an almost frightening strength.

That day, after the party, we carried our screaming child the short distance home.

And then I spent two hours trying to calm her.

She stripped off her clothes. Threw every soft toy in her room at me.

She hated mess. Hated breaking things. But she couldn’t stop.

I held her. Sang to her. Tried every soothing trick I could think of.

Her body shook as she screamed, voice cracking.

Eventually, dripping in her own urine, snot, spit, and tears, I carried her into the shower — me fully clothed, her not — and held her under the warm water.

That became our ritual. The shower. A softening. A place of peace.

Water seemed to calm her rigid body. And more than once, she fell asleep there, in my arms.

I think I look back on those moments with pride, to be honest.

My wife and I made a call that many people questioned.

But my education, my training, my knowledge and lived experience had taught me ways of managing what we now understand were meltdowns — not tantrums. Full sensory overloads. Fight, flight, freeze.

People who never saw our daughter in those moments didn’t believe they could be as we described.

We were told we were overreacting. That we were trying to “diagnose everyone.”

But I kept coming back to the facts: ADHD and Autism have strong genetic links. The likelihood of our daughter displaying traits wasn’t just possible — it was probable.

There’s such fear around labelling children with either condition. A fear I can only attribute to ableism — a belief that diagnosis is something shameful. That being different is something to downplay or deny.

But I didn’t see shame. I saw a child overwhelmed by a world that didn’t fit her. And I saw a chance — a responsibility — to help make it fit better.

There’s something quietly devastating in realising your child has already learned to mask.

After Edie’s two-year review, we were referred to the local SPA team for potential ADHD and Autism assessment.

What followed was a frustrating loop of “community-level support” schemes — a drop-in playgroup where she masked perfectly, visits from Action for Children where small glimpses of her difficulties were noted, but never quite enough.

One health visitor — kind, but honest — said something I won’t forget:

"I believe you. The thing is, we have to prove that it isn’t within developmental range. This is going to sound horrible, but it’s based on level of need at this point. You’ve put in some amazing strategies to help Edie... but if you hadn’t? She’d probably be on a waiting list by now."

That stayed with me.

We’re punished for doing well. For intervening early. For knowing our child and using what we know to support her.

And all the while, she is learning — just as I did — to contort herself into what the world finds easier to understand.

This is why names matter.

Diagnosis isn’t about limitation. It’s about liberation. It’s the difference between blame and context. Between being dismissed and being seen.

It’s the quiet relief of finally having a name — and the hope that maybe, just maybe, she won’t have to spend thirty years looking for hers.


If you haven’t read the beginning of this series… 👇

I’d love to know how this lands with you — whether you’re a parent, neurodivergent yourself, or just sitting with these questions too. Join the conversation below.