This is Life on Hard Mode
Do you recoil at the glare of overhead lights or find yourself cutting the labels out of every shirt you own? Does the "pointless" choreography of small talk make you want to tear your hair out? Maybe you crave routine, or you can’t organise yourself to save your life.
If you’ve spent years feeling like a "broken" version of a normal person, you aren't alone. You could be living in the hinterland—a space occupied by the 90% of autistic adults over 40 and the 8 in 9 people with ADHD in the UK who remain undiagnosed.
I’m Brad. In 2025, at age 35, I was diagnosed as autistic and with ADHD. It was a shock, but not a surprise. For decades, I’d labeled myself with the only words the world offered: lazy, selfish, weird, and unreliable. I started this newsletter because I’d rather have a medical "label" than a moral one. This isn't about collecting excuses; it’s about Self-Knowledge. It’s about realising that we aren't failing at life—we’re just playing a game where the settings were set to Hard Mode from birth without us even knowing.
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Here is what to expect from the Life on Hard Mode newsletter:
Reframing Trauma: Swapping "character flaws" for neurobiological truths.
Strategies for Success: Practical tips for navigating a world that wasn't built for your brain.
Advocacy and Community: A space for like-minded neurodivergents to connect and raise up one another in a world not quite set up for us.
I’ll be in your inbox once a week. As someone with ADHD, I can’t promise I won't occasionally vanish down a side-quest, but I can promise to respect your time with brief, honest, and punchy insights.
We’ve been missing the last pieces of the puzzle for so long - let’s finish it together.