Where It All Started
I was born and raised in Llanelli. In my childhood I lived just off Station Road with my mother, my father, and my two older brothers. It was a terrace house, not small, not big. We had what we needed, and my parents worked hard to make sure of that.
My Brothers
My two older brothers are exceptional. One has an IQ of 142, the other 143. Both of them sailed through school, collected top grades without appearing to try whatsoever. One of my brothers was almost allowed to sit his GCSE's in primary school which was unheard of to me. and were the kind of students that teachers talked about and those same teachers would get excited when I came into their classroom. I am proud of them, and I mean that. But growing up directly behind them was its own kind of pressure.
Sometimes parents would sit me down and say "why can't you be more like them." The comparisons were also there. In the way teachers looked at me when they saw my surname on the register, in the quiet disappointment when my results came back. I learned very early on that expectations could be a heavy thing to carry.
Lakefield Primary School
I attended Lakefield Primary School in Llanelli. A school that has since been abandoned and no longer exists. My memories of it are mixed. On one hand, I made some of my earliest and closest friendships there. Break times, football at lunch, and films on the rainy days. that part of primary school was genuinely happy.
On the other hand, the classroom was a different story. I found reading difficult, writing difficult, and sitting still for long periods of time almost impossible. I was often told I was disruptive I thought I was well behaved. But apparently not. I remember staring at pages of text that just would not make sense to me, watching classmates finish work I had barely started.
I was assessed for ADHD but because the teachers then said I was relatively well behaved at that age I couldn't get diagnosed with it. But with my mother being a teacher , I did not want to create more hassle for them, knowing I wouldn't want other students doing that to my mother. So for personal reasons I was extra cautious about my behaviour, which likely lead to my academic struggle for years. In primary school in Llanelli those things were not always picked up on quickly especially in well behaved kids who were not causing trouble.
Outside of School
Away from the classroom, I loved Judo, and I was good at it. I was a skinny kid, and had to fight multiple weight groups above, however, I was still Welsh judo champion in the higher weight groups. I also got into video games around the age of nine or ten. Gaming became a big part of my life not in a harmful way, but in the way that anything becomes important when it is one of the few things you feel genuinely good at.
Looking Back
I do not look back on my childhood with bitterness. I had people around me who cared, a roof over my head, and enough good moments to balance out the hard ones. What I do wish is that someone had spotted earlier that I was not lazy or disinterested, rather I was struggling, in a way that was not addressed or recognised at that stage. This is also why I don't blame my family for this. They had me tested but it came back negative, due to behaviour and they even tested me again which was in year 10. This is when I got diagnosed.