I was recently asked “who is Paul Coleman?” ; a relatively simple question, that I found myself struggling to answer. It was much easier to simply give a list of the things I do. In fact, the biography on my Facebook profile does the same thing: I’m a “musician, gamer, A/V tech engineer and historian now dabbling in theology”. I also love photography and will often be found lying in the mud as I try to get the “perfect” picture of a drop of water on a leaf or a mushroom.
I’m a type 1 diabetic and have ADHD, I’m married to Clare, have a wonderful grown-up daughter from a previous marriage along with a cat called Tiffany, who is really in charge of the house (at least according to her). But again, none of these are who I am. If you look at my hobbies or, possibly more revealing, my bookshelves, you find a somewhat eclectic collection. I’m an introvert who is very chatty, I love being around people, but to be honest, find you all a little exhausting.
All of this has come more into focus since finding out that I have ADHD. One paper I’ve read has offered an explanation as to why I find the question “who is Paul Coleman?” so difficult to answer. In a paragraph about masking, a process by which people with ADHD present a socially acceptable version of themselves, essentially minimising your own identity to fit in, I came across this sentence:
“[Masking is] uncomfortable, and it’s exhausting, and if you do it enough, you can lose track of who is behind the mask.”
For most of my life I have been unaware of being neurodivergent. I have been aware that I don’t quite fit in but have not been sure of how or why that is, and I have often confused who I am with what I do. I have in effect lost myself, at least temporarily, behind the mask.
Throughout all of this, the one part of my identity which has stayed somewhat stable is my faith. That is not to say it is unchanged, in fact it is safe to say that my understanding of God is very different now to even a decade ago. For a long time, I said that I was created to love and worship God. However, over time my conception of what that looks like has changed to become less focused around Sunday morning worship and more focused on justice for those who are marginalised by society.
So, who is Paul Coleman? Paul is very much a work in progress. Since my diagnosis with ADHD, I have been trying to find the Paul who hides behind the mask and to figure out who he is and how to let him come out in a way that feels safe for me and is not too scary for other people.
I hope this blog is going to help with that and maybe be of some use to other people who are dealing with similar issues. I am hoping to share some of my own experience of figuring out what all of this means for me and what if anything is going to change ... after all I have been living with ADHD for decades now without realising and in that time have developed a few tricks to help me deal with most situations. The only difference is that now I know what I am doing and a little bit about why I'm doing it.
As part of my day job I am beginning to explore the theology around disability and the ways in which that has shaped how we as a society and as individuals understand disability (even if we are not people of faith) I'll probably share some of that here as well, along with some thoughts on how a disability centered theology might help us to act in a more just way towards people marginalised by disability and may even help us to gain a more complete understanding of who God is.
Of course I do have ADHD so there is a possibility that these posts will not be that regular or I'll develop a new fixation or interest to share. I'll do my best to keep this going and see what happens.
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