An old housemate once said to me “I love the way that you look at things. It’s like you are always seeing things as if you’ve just seen them for the very first time.”

The other day I was thinking about being a kid and the oscillation I experienced between the frustration of needing quick, fast changing activities, the quite literal painful experiences of boredom, and then how I’d get engrossed in certain activities uninterrupted for hours on end.

Sometimes when I’m giving a talk I share an image from years back which includes working with some of my mental health medical records. One of the images is just a list of hand scrawled names of medications prescribed to me from 2004 - 2008. A litany of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, a medical student’s summary.

One of the clearest memories I have of speaking to a counsellor, aged 18, is describing to her how I experience my thoughts.