The Label I Never Had: Living with ADHD and Autism in Optics

There was a reason I loved problem-solving. Episode DescriptionThere was a boy who never quite liked school. Not because he wasn't bright — he clearly was — but because the way school worked never really worked for him. The lessons felt slow, the structure felt suffocating, and sitting still when your mind is already three steps ahead of the room is its own kind of torture. He got through it, the way people like him always do — on charm, on quick thinking, on finding ways around the system rather than through it.Then came the dispensing course. The qualification that would define his career. And it was hard. Not just hard — it was the kind of hard that makes you question whether you belong in a profession at all. While others seemed to absorb it naturally, he had to work differently, fight differently, find his own route to understanding. He passed. But it cost him something.And then, in the world of optics itself, surrounded by colleagues and optometrists who seemed to share a kind of professional language he could never quite speak fluently, he felt it again. That familiar sense of being slightly outside the room. Watching through the glass rather than sitting at the table. Capable. Driven. Talented, even. But never quite fitting the mould.He built a remarkable career anyway. Thirty-six years. Patients who adored him. A human connection that no textbook could teach. A mind that could hold a room, read a person in seconds, and make optics feel anything but clinical.And then, at 52 years old, sitting in a consulting room on the other side of the chair for once, he finally got an answer.ADHD. And autism.In this deeply personal episode, Garry Kousoulou FBDO — dispensing optician, entrepreneur, and host of The Optician Show — shares the story of his diagnosis in real time, recorded on the very day he received it. He talks honestly about what it felt like to have a lifetime of experiences suddenly reframed, about managing a career demanding precision and focus with a brain wired entirely differently, and about why he believes the world of optics absolutely has a place for people who think like him.If you've ever felt like you didn't quite fit. If you work in optics and carry a label — or suspect you might — this episode was made for you.