New Year, New Me, New Metal Spine

At the beginning of 2021 at the age of 31, I was diagnosed with ADHD. At the end of 2021, I took a tumble down a waterfall in Thailand and broke my back.

It was an interesting year in terms of self-examination, discovery, and awesome achievement maintaining much more motivation than I've ever managed previously.

It was also a year wrought with self-doubt, anger, confusion, awkward adjustment, and immense pain.

Staring 2022 in the face, I am filled with an enormous wealth of gratitude, calm, a peaceful purpose, and a powerful passion.

My diary is already filling up, but instead of the panic this may have provoked in a younger me, I find pride in its promise, safe in the knowledge that I don't have to fear the self-destructive traits that have led to such tragic disappointments in the past.

The greatest pride of all, though, is reserved for the truly astonishing truth that this is the first year I've diligently downed dates in a diary at all, this level of organisation and mindful future planning being utterly alien to me.

I have always described myself as a fairly happy-go-lucky kind of guy. I live in the moment; never spending too much energy on looking back with regrets, or wasting precious time daydreaming and planning much for the future.

Going with the flow and letting the river of life sweep me along in its current as I lazily recline back and bob along in a bubble of present presence, completely at the whim and speed of an external destiny and force.

Pridefully, I felt it was a superior state of being, building an armor of ego in my connection to the now and my ability to give in to impulsive urges. It also offered a prepackaged excuse when I did hit the rapid white waters.

The uncertainty, the queasy anxiety, the complete freakout of submersion, and then my exit from the flow of the river entirely was inevitable; out of my control but to be expected. Normal.

Up until fairly recently, this seemed like the only way to be, my unchangeable nature. It came with its merits and moments of great opportunity and success, but also crippling failures and a confusing lack of consistency.

I watched friends and peers steadily set goals and achieve them. My success only ever came in explosive frenzied bursts, brilliant but brief. My failures followed swiftly after, demanding a steep cost that was paid with fugue state fatigue, habitual hibernation, and the deep dark depression stemming from my inability to control myself.

The neurotypical standards set for me were hurdles I could at times bound and bounce over with ease, at others I found myself bullishly bulldozing them, crashing through clumsily, crumbling completely, collapsing in the chaotic carnage, a wreck of splintered wood, flailing limbs, and fractured ego.

Unknowingly, I built up coping mechanisms and other methods for managing my ADHD brain without any true knowledge of its neurodivergent nature.

Measuring myself against the average ability to exist daily with such consistency meant that my life was a constant failure in comparison. A daily struggle with what I identified as the pulsing beat of a universally shared bleeding heart, a primal rhythmic truth of soul and struggle summoning the music behind such impactful and inspiring philosophical and poetic ponderings.

I have of late, [. . .] lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition; that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; [. . .] this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an Angel, in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither. (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, scene 2)

This was an immutable and deviant darkness that lurked deep within all human struggle. A challenge and test of character that we face collectively.

I had to overcome my childish impulsivity, immaturity, and inability to organise myself. I was a lazy loser that lacked discipline and drive, but I vowed to make more of myself. Moulding myself into a man of merit.

The repeated admonishment of my academic youth ringing in my ears, "why can't you just behave like everyone else?". The yearly parent/teachers meetings déjà vu echo of "Matthew is gifted and brilliant, but he needs to apply himself."

I failed most epically in the battle with the beast in me at upper school during the height of teenage angst and rebellion. My behaviour worsened, and I stopped trying to fit in spaces abnormally shaped and grossly foreign to me. I rapidly fell from the top set classes for the higher achieving students and plummeted ever lower. Now without even the challenge and focus of outdoing and outshining the best of my peers I became completely delinquent, disillusioned, depressed, then ultimately absent.

I wasn't able to pull it together to function as almost believably "normal" until my late 20s. I was old enough and wise enough to recognise the routines and habits that yielded positive results in my ability to focus, maintain my mood, and ignore at least some of the impish impulsivity at the core of my naughtier nature.

I achieved this through strict bedtime, proper rest, meditation, and daily exercise. However, even the slightest distraction or disturbance in my rigid routine had the ability to send me spiraling out of control again.

Since my ADHD and ASD (Austism Spectrum Disorder, a surprisingly common package deal) diagnosis, and after the initial shock, I was completely changed by the medication. It gives my brain the brakes it needs to slow down and actually focus. Instead of the frenzied, fuzzy, fury of my busy beehive of consciousness I for the first time found calm. I quickly became over-reliant on it, using it as a crutch, and forgot the routine of rest and self-care that my brain and body benefit so greatly from.

This past year, focusing on a goal at a time, by balancing the chemical imbalance of my beautiful and brilliant brain; I have been superhuman. My ADHD when stoked with the right fuel is a fiery flame that burns with an inferno's intensity.

My band went from busking for loose change, to paid gigs, to winning a mainstage slot at our favourite festival, to being booked to play Glastonbury 2022 on two separate stages. The talent, passion, and poetry were always there, only now I was able to actually manage our email inbox, curate a marketing campaign and press package. Suddenly with the benefit of an audience, the world was witness to what we had been cultivating all this time.

I had similar success in my own freelance writing business, massively expanding my client base as well as growing and monetising the music blog I had started with a friend when we were teenagers. I was earning more than before, benefiting from the extended hours and increased productivity of my superpowered brain.

My diary was getting fuller and fuller, but I was able to stay on top of it, scheduling more and more. Weekend after weekend had us travelling the country to different festivals. I would arrive back exhausted and with a huge backlog of work that I would just manage to catch up with before I was whipped back up into this cyclone of frantic frenetic movement.

Any sense of routine had been demolished. I never knew what bed I would be waking up in, if I found a bed at all. Sleep, regular exercise, a healthy diet, and any sense of mindfulness or meditation was disrupted.

I was filled to overflowing with glorious purpose. I was achieving everything I had ever dreamed of. Yet the creativity, inspiration, and passionate pen that had brought me here was running dry. I had no time, and nothing left to give.

At the end of this hectically busy year, filled with memories of magical melody and momentous moments, my partner and I, as we often do, packed our backpacks and escaped the cold unforgiving winter of the UK.

We headed for Thailand. The recently reopened paradise where we could live cheap, recuperate, and allow the energy, enthusiasm, and excitement to replenish us enough to entertain the evolution and inevitable snowballing growth still to come.

We headed for Pai, a truly beautiful place of peace in the mountainous northern reaches of Thailand. Pai buzzes with a resonance of spiritual, musical, and creative joy that is impossible not to immerse yourself in and imbibe deeply with gleeful abandon.

It was not our first time here and we instantly felt at home, returning to the highlights and hideaways of our previous trip.

It was every bit the paradise we remembered.

Until the waterfall.

Breaking your back will quickly and very drastically reset your plans and priorities.

Before, we planned to head to Koh Phayam, now I planned for pain, pressed prone against the hard stone I had managed to scramble to by adrenaline alone.

I have a high pain threshold and a decent understanding of my body. We usually communicate fairly well, excusing the times I am too busy to listen.

I flew with torrential speed and force from the falls' edge and bouldered butt-first onto the rocks below. Immediately after the collision, I knew it was bad. Incredibly bad.

I dared not move from the position I'd pushed to reach at the water's edge.

In the cold numb hours while we waited for the ambulance I braced myself for the ride, focusing on the pain and allowing it to consume me because at least it kept the terrifying thoughts of permanent paralyzation from prowling into prominence.

The care and expertise I received from the Thai medical system is a humbling honour and immense privilege.

The urgency and speed of the ambulance driver skillfully navigating the treacherous curves and dangerous descent of the notorious road from Pai to Chiang Mai was a truly transcendent pain. My broken spine bounced on every bump and brake against the tightly braced embrace of my stiff stretcher.

I was being rushed to the most skillful spine surgeon and a hospital equipped to deal with the severity of my injury, and so the torture of the transit was a journey of necessity.

I write this now on the other side. Having made a most miraculous recovery, ecstatically happy to be on the long road of rehabilitation. Every painful step is one I'm proudly taking. Every minor success is now epic in scale to me. Daily I am able to achieve things that I thought I might never do again.

Last time I visited Thailand I had the honour and experience of receiving a Sak Yant from a monk master. It is a mystic and spiritual tattoo done by hand, historically hand-poked with the sharpened tip of a bamboo stick, but now more hygienically done with steel.

My Sak Yant was the Gao Yord, one of the three master Yants that are usually given the first time. One of it's nine peaks is inscribed with the power to protect the bearer from grievous or fatal injury even in calamitous accidents.

I have had a lot of time to reflect on that, bedridden and resting on my doctor's orders. To look back at the year that brought me here. Finding the humour in the divine comedy of the unlucky luck of my fall.

I have booked a pilgrimage to the temple to have that same monk expand and renew my connection with my Sak Yant. Every day after my PT, I also practise bowing slowly and safely in my brace to show him the proper respect and thanks when we meet.

Hands in prayer, thumbs to my forehead, then (right hand first) both pressed palm to the floor, my body following slowly till my face feels the fuzzy touch of the carpet. This ritual must be repeated three times.

Since leaving the hospital I have meditated every day. First only able to do so laying down practising mindfulness and calm. Now, able to sit, I have progressed to utilising breathing exercises and chanted mantras.

The first day I felt able to walk for an extended journey, with the aid of my crutches, I took myself to the market at the foot of the steps to Doi Suthep and bought the traditional prayer beads from a local artisan to present to the monk to bless after my Sak Yant is finished.

So as I count the 108 beads I can recite a mantra celebrating both life and death. A prayer to the infinite suffering and the cosmic joy of existence.

2022 is a year of rebirth. Renewed and reinvigorated I can reinvent myself.

My resolution is a reaffirmation to the routine of rest and respectful recovery and rehabilitation my mind and body need. The raucous revelry and recklessness of the last year relaxed with reasonable restraint and respect for my own self-care and that of the friends that ride this journey at my side. Rededicating myself to rebirth and radical change, reveling in the reality and ridiculous pleasure I now recognise in every moment. Rekindled by gratitude, reigniting the passionate poetry at the heart of all I do.