I'm always busy. I'm always doing something, whether I'm fidgeting or pulling some crazy face or running up something and doing a backflip of it. Just real out there, real open and crazy. It's who I am.

All the people that I know that have ADHD are all, like, real creative in their own way. Hands on things, they seem to be real good at. He's this little powerhouse. He's got so much.

Focus and energy, and he's like a ball, a power pack, and it's just like busy as I am, there's so much to do.

We run an export company, and we are a successful company in no small part because we're not normal by normal standards.

I've always been like, I'm not I think I've always been different from everyone else. When people say ADHD, like, I reckon people always think it's like a real bad thing, but I don't I don't reckon it's that like a bad thing. I think it's like a superpower. You got so many ideas all the time, but then sometimes it can be really hard just to stop and do one thing at a time.

I was the five minute wonder as a kid. I could never stay on task, but I could do many tasks at once, not necessarily finish them all perfectly, not necessarily finish them all at all. It's pretty full on and crazy. My head is the constant living vocal diary about what I should be doing. A whole lot of Germany crickets telling me of all the jobs I've gotta do at the same time. It's like having.

A thousand people around you all the time. And then even when I'm by myself, sometimes I just find it really difficult to, like, focus on one thing. Like, I find it real hard not to just be thinking about something else in my head even though not on purpose, though. Like, because sometimes people think it's real rude. Hey.

Let's try that. I think the desire or the impulse to act out far outweighs any recall of what consequences. So whilst he might yeah. In the moment, he doesn't recall or remember that there's gonna be a consequence.

People say, like, why did you do that? I I just don't know. Like, I don't even know why I did it. I remember I put my I put my foot in, the you know this, like, like, an elevator. Is that what it's called? The one like, room things? For some reason, I just put my foot, like, into the gap in between it. I somehow, like, pulled my, like, foot out just as it was but it, ripped all my toes and stuff. And I was like, I just don't know why I did it. It was like this, like like, even if you're a kid, this is like you've won't notice this. This is not gonna be good. Like, there's nothing good that's gonna happen from doing something like that. Like, you're definitely impulsive.

Some people, they find calm in lying down and reading a book, but, like, I'm totally relaxed when I'm jumping off something really high. That free fall, that plunge is amazingly calm and amazingly peaceful. And that's where I find my peace. It stops my mind from wandering and going down into those dark places that lots of people don't wanna be.

Jack is more highly sensitive and certainly in moments of issues at home he'll take it personally, you hate me, you don't love me, you don't like me.

When I was a kid I used to have a lot of tantrums. Just from being frustrated though, once I get angry, like, I find it really hard to, like, to calm down or, like, like, I get real, like, shaky and stuff. The whole thing of your head, like, sometimes and you just can't you wanna do something and you just can't do it and it just, like, makes you real pissed off. Like, I don't know how, like, how else to deal with it, I think.

There's good days and bad days. And some of those good days are really great, and some of those bad days are really dark. There's so much about his personality that is exceptionally caring, exceptionally loving.

Yeah, and challenging. Absolutely challenging. You're not gonna be a hairdresser when you grow up, are you? Mm-mm. No. Jack was asked to leave the first daycare center that he'd been at for a couple of years. He wasn't integrating and he was hurting and biting.

So the day care centre obviously having all their strategies and structures tried to start working with Jack on what they would do with other children, but he sort of wasn't didn't respond to that. We took him along to another day care centre and that didn't work, and then we took him to a third one and he was actually asked to leave after being there a couple of weeks because he stabbed a child with a pencil. So he didn't conform in those environments. He was often lashing out and hurting, and it indicated was that he probably wasn't best suited to day care environments.

And I found it hard in particular because they didn't know how to deal with it. Parents were complaining because the children were getting hurt. You know your child was getting talked about in the playground, you know other parents were saying don't go anywhere near him, you know. He wasn't getting play dates, you know, so there was that whole social issue that was going around and it was just like, you felt lost and you felt helpless, you know. It was bloody hard. Really hard at the beginning.

I didn't really like primary school that much because I used to always get in trouble. I really wanted to leave. Like, I never used to wanna go to that school. I remember writing someone's name all over the tables to get them in trouble or something. And, like, me and my mate used to just chuck rocks at cars. I mean, that's probably why they don't like us. I don't think I fit in at all. I was very sporty at school.

I was shite academically, really. Maybe that's because of my ADHD. Maybe it's just because I was an ass at school. Maybe the teachers just weren't prepared for the style of teaching that best suited me.

I don't know whether it was my ADHD or just the person who I am, but I couldn't learn in the classroom. It's not that I didn't want to learn because I tried very hard, for the first ten minutes, and then I couldn't focus anymore.

I tried to do work sometimes. It was just too overwhelming, I reckon. There's just so much going on. If I took myself away, like, away from everyone, was a lot easier to work. But you can't really do that in high school a lot because you're stuck in a class with everyone else. I used to just talk, like, talk to people or, like, make sort of make little guns and stuff like that out of out of pens or build, like, aeroplanes out of rulers and stuff. Just kinda make things or be drawing. Yeah, and I didn't didn't care that I got into trouble at all. I was I thought I was funny. Was I ever suspended?

Yes, I did fall out of school. I think my suspension had something to do with drugs and alcohol.

I think I must have got stood down like 10 times or something. In the three, four years I was there, I got stood down once for lighting a fire behind the canteen, for lighting fireworks and stuff. I had like a big fight with one of the teachers.

I could pretty much say my permanent chair at the school was outside the principal's office.

I did get expelled.

I got expelled. Or yeah. I think that's what they call it.

Probably because I did something wrong.

Like, was kind of stoked about it because I remember being like, speedy. It's like, I could just keep going on my holiday then. It's a long end holiday.

When I was 17 or 18, I decided that school wasn't for me anymore. I had been there for a lot of years, and I hadn't learned a lot of stuff. And then I started trying to sort my life out, which wasn't really working for me. And eventually, I ended up on the dole, getting paid by the government to sit on my bum and, well, get high pretty much. And that slowly progressed further and further until it totally consumed my life, and that's what I live for.

I used to drink heaps. I don't know if I'd I don't know if you'd say I was, like, alcoholic because I was only, like, up to, like, 18. So I don't know. It sounds weird when you say that an 18 year old is an alcoholic. I used to smoke lots of weed when I was younger, when I was 15. Yeah, playing video games is definitely an addiction, I reckon.

Everyone reaches a stage in their life where they're like, they hit that wall and they have no idea what to do. I had a job working for a company holding a sign on the side of the road. And one day it was really windy and it was raining and I still had to work. And the sign was slapping me in the face and I just thought, what am I doing? What better time to go on an adventure and change my life and become a somebody? I set off on an adventure around the entire coastline of New Zealand. I started in Kaburanga, made my way down the entire West Coast and then right back up the East, right back to where I started. It ended up taking six hundred days exactly and was over 8,000 kilometers. I lived off the land effectively.

So most of the time I was hunting for my own food with a crossbow, a bow, or an air rifle. And if I wasn't using them, it was just my bare hands. Just following my instincts, because that's what it was down to out there in the wild.

Hey, our personality type, you can be addicted to drugs or you can be addicted to swimming, can be addicted to sport, can be addicted to anything. But if you recognise the type of person you are, it's not that hard to be addicted to something good rather than something shot.

I don't drink at all anymore. I just got into doing y stuff instead. I've been doing interior design, graphic design, and a bit of packaging, teaching myself how to make websites so I can make websites for people as well. And graffiti, I really like graffiti. My mom used to say, like, you'll be stoked as when you start making money doing what you like, and then it's true. I just found something I was just real interested in doing. That's what I'm doing now.

It's really great to get that activity, and that's the cool thing that, you know, you've got this ball of energy firing around the place.

I think we've made a great investment into community, and we've made a great investment in school in terms of, you know, getting to know some really cool people, some really good mums, really good dads, because it takes a village to raise a child.

Just keep doing what you enjoy doing. Yeah. Shouldn't let other people decide what your life's gonna be like.

My world has always been glass half full. Regardless, it doesn't matter. I'm six foot above ground, therefore it's a good day.

I remember being told by doctors when I was little that I'll grow out of ADHD, everyone does. But I don't think you do grow out of it. I think you grow into it, you find ways of managing it, and you find ways of controlling your impulses. Once you can learn to live with ADHD, it's an amazing thing. It gives you this energy that you can go out and take on the world with. The ability to go and go and go. Once your mind's set on something, nothing's gonna stop you.