What I learned from Glastonbury as a newly diagnosed auDHDer

I've done festivals before, but not in the knowledge that my brain functions atypically. I wasn't sure whether this awareness would help or hinder me as I let myself in for five days at Glastonbury.

I feel too much and not enough. Especially the latter, as I lie on a deflating mattress and listen to the pounding from stages I’ve paid to watch. I wish I’d not bought into the illusion that I am energised by crowds and noise like many others are.

I survived last Glastonbury by the skin of my teeth and with two years elapsed I suppose I thought I could hack it. I don’t like gigs. Why I thought I might like days of back-to-back gigs, I don’t know. It reflects the fact I don’t know my limits, as someone who is simultaneously mentally healthier than a while back and struck down by life-induced exhaustion. I can’t keep up with the others whom I know and I am consigned, yet again, to a state of alienation.

There are sensory tents here. For people like me, I’m sure. Except running to unknown professionals while I’m already close to tears, so they can calm me down like they do children hankering for a fidget spinner and a hammock, is far from the solace it’s billed as. Which reminds me, I need to make use of the hammocks before I leave this farm for what had better be the last time.

How can I be so self-aware and yet so clueless when it comes to paying hundreds of pounds and several days’ annual leave for something I am not, on balance, enjoying? The silver lining is that this experience makes for blog fodder, although people complaining about Glastonbury have got to be among the most annoying demographics to ever exist…

…Several days later…
Fast forward to the coach back and I survived. It was all over quite quickly in the end, inviting the adage “time flies when you’re having fun”. I wasn’t having fun all the time, but there were certainly highlights.

I might say that Glastonbury is more than the sum of its parts because its parts aren’t consistently world-class when you’re me. And somehow, in retrospect it was a bit of a blast. That’s why they have sensory tents with a sandwich board inviting “autistic and ADHD people, etc”. Shoutout to the et ceteras. The jacked Essex lad in the neighbouring tent even visited one for a physical, rather than emotional, cooldown. I, however, was too motivated by FOMO to take time out in the day, when my energy was high and the alcohol convincing me that my sensory tolerance had reached new heights. Prevention is better than cure, though, as they say, and with ‘emptying your cup’, it’s the same. Basically, I should have enforced timeouts while I still felt okay, to allow me to experience a fraction of the richness of Glastonbury post-midnight. I didn’t succeed in facilitating this for myself, but it’s all imperfect anyway. Festivals. Life. Everything.

What worked for me and what didn’t
A conflicting verdict on the last five days, then. Probably to be expected when you’re a perpetually high-low energy, extroverted-introvert sort of person. Add in drink, erratic food intake, lack of sleep, too much time in direct sunlight and the consequent burn, and it might then be difficult to imagine why people go again and again, to paraphrase Charli XCX. (Not my favourite act, I might add).

The music offerings of Glastonbury are incredible. Obviously. But Rod Stewart is past it, realistically, and The Libertines underwhelmed me. I accidentally ended up in front of Snow Patrol and thought they were a fabulous chance encounter. I almost didn’t trek to see Royel Otis but I’m so glad I did. But it’s not really about the music for me - I do hate gigs, after all.

I actually think I hate people a lot of the time, which is a significant challenge hemmed into fields with a quarter of a million of them. But Glastonbury presents the ideal opportunity to remind myself that I don’t hate all people all of the time. I’m privileged to be able to spend several days with beautiful, funny people who are, if not my friends, my partner’s, for whom I have great fondness. It’s harder to have a bad time when faced with such overt examples of joy, vitality and warmth. I love you all. But not as much as I love my true camping partners in crime. My real, real-life pals, who, for me at this stage in life, are ever-dwindling in number.

The fact remains that some people are hell (to misappropriate Sartre). To the woman at the barrier with me for Wolf Alice who didn’t care for the band and just used their set as a window of time in which to shriek into your suffering friend’s ear: I hope you got stuck in miles of traffic leaving the festival. Because I have intense relationships with particular songs and albums, which means I will be able to revel in some live performances, if not for the loathsome fellow audience members. For now, I’m relieved to be back listening to my song of the moment, which was repeat for the coach journey home, helping to drown out the sounds of fellow festival-weary Londoners.

Not all people are hell, though
Circling back and reaffirming that it’s really not for the music that I’ll remember this experience (not least because the aforementioned woman ruined Wolf Alice for me), I have a special mention to make. When I retreated to my tent earlier than everyone else three nights on the bounce to cry about how “maybe I’m just not cut out for this”, some lads I’ve never met had my back and made me laugh, then cry, but with gratitude.

Interstitial voiceovers and the Methodist minister at Pyramid Stage on Sunday profess the beauty of community at Glastonbury, but I ended up feeling the strongest ties with strangers through my phone, as opposed to those standing with me in the crowd. A podcast, which, seemingly, most appeals to men in their 30s and 40s, became content I paid extra for, which became admission into the best WhatsApp group chat of all time.

I have now, in adulthood, the twitter fandom experience which I derided as a teenager. It might seem lame but it’s taken silly, male-centric videos and associated discussion over text for me to appreciate the kindness of strangers. The friends I never thought I would have nor need, but who came in clutch at my most vulnerable moments this past week. You’re all stars xxx