Matt Haig

Dear @channel4, You are taking one of the conditions with the most stigma and misuse around it and making it worse. That title causes real damage. Like most conditions ADHD is defined by society. Yet it is also biological reality. Studies of twins and families show ADHD is strongly heritable. Neuroimaging shows structural and functional difference in the brain. And, most importantly for all this kind of bullshit spreading, ADHD traits are found to exist equally across vastly different cultures. Can it be exacerbated by cultural context? Sure. So can most physical conditions. Is it overdiagnosed? Well, when random school and prison studies have revealed massive rates of underdiagnosis I would say no. For people like me, branded special needs at school, but never told why, a diagnosis offered so much clarity. I know times are hard but… Stop pandering. Stop trying to be an edgy podcast. Stop trying to create stigma just for viewers.

Before I was bald I was told I looked like Rafe Spall. Once I even had a five minute conversation with someone who thought I WAS Rafe Spall. Benedict Cumberbatch, the first time he met me, said ‘hey Rafe’. It was all very specific. Very Rafe Spall centric and I quite liked it. In fact, the likeness was so strong that it is actually me, as the villain in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. No one even noticed. Anyway. Times change. Since shaving my remaining hair off I am told I look like every bald man from Pep Guardiola to Bryan Cranston to Bill Burr to Jason Statham to PitBull to Charlie Brown. And I don’t actually look like any of these people. My doppelgänger is now every single bald man who ever lived, from Gandhi to Tucci to Humpty Dumpty. I am literally any age between 35 and 80. I am 36 percent of all men. And I have recently discovered other baldies get this too. This is a thing. Baldness is homogeneity. Baldies unite. We have nothing to lose except our distinct facial features.

Pearl singing one of my top five ever songs, Swim Good by Frank Ocean. So had to post - sorry @pearl_is_a_singer as I love it and the song gives me a mild existential breakdown.

Contrary to appearance I am happy. I am in Ibiza. The place where I tried to take my life a long time ago. We just drove past the hospital where I once was detained for a few hours while spaced out on diazepam. I remembered the feelings. The physical and mental prison of myself. The feeling of being trapped in a cave with unlimited darkness. I was collapsing in on myself in the scariest way imaginable. This idea of ‘self’ is just an idea and when it crumbles you end in a world of terror. But here is the flip side: if you survive the infinite things a mind can throw at you, then you end up with a self that is beyond a ‘mind’. Something we could unfashionably call a soul. And it is forged and strengthened in the heat of survivable pain. I wanted to die so badly because I had no future and yet this is the future, you young idiot. I am extremely grateful I am alive. I am extremely grateful for my family, friends, and anyone reading this indulgent post. It is just good to go back to the places you once couldn’t return to. It’s good to expand your possible. It’s good to face up to yourself. You can do far more than you think. Life is ugly. Life is hard. Life is wonderful. Sorry about the selfie.

Midnight and embarking on a sequel to a book I wrote.