ADHD and me
As I mentioned a couple of blogs ago, I suspect I might have ADHD, even mildly (either that or just overwhelmed and overstimulated. Either way I am DEFINITELY wired differently to my husband!). When I started looking into ADHD for Benny, I started getting targeted posts on social media, and a heap of things started to make sense for me. Some of the things were new revelations, others I knew and finally started putting the pieces together. It has been mentioned to me a few years back, and I thought maybe, but it wasn’t to the point where it was causing any challenges for me. However as I’m heading further into perimenopause and my hormones change, so does my capacity for keeping my systems in place. Also attempting to homeschooling B last year pretty much had me feeling very overstimulated and overwhelmed, and almost feeling burnt out. Needless to say, him being in school this year has definitely been the right thing for our family!
Here are some of the things that I noticed coming up in the social media posts that I recognised in my life:
I’m an awesome ideas person, but a terrible finisher
I have a heap of unfinished projects around the house (like the recipe book I started 8 years ago and never finished, the crochet blanket I started before my 3 year old niece was born, and did about 1 cm of length, the chair I’ve started refurnishing, then hit a roadblock and gave up on) and my to-do list of things I want to try keeps on growing.
I currently have 57 tabs open in my phone browser and 23 in my laptop browser.
School came pretty easy to me, uni was a bit harder (to the point where I completely crashed the first time round then never completed the degree), then uni the second time round it felt like a total exercise in determination to complete it rather than getting distracted by every shiny thing that came along.
My brain is all over the show most of the time!
I used to call myself a solar powered energiser bunny, but these days while I’m still solar powered, I spend more time with less energy than I’d like.
Picking up my phone to look up something or walking into a room to do something and totally forgetting what I was doing
Doom piles (piles of paperwork and other things) all around the house. My dad used to hate them, now my husband gets to hate them.
Rejection sensitivity is a big thing (which i’ve been working on for many years!) as is never feeling like I’m good enough.
Procrastination! Perfectionism! Getting overwhelmed before I start and feeling like it will never be good enough.
I have hypermoblity (which is linked to ADHD) and have had knee surgery as a result of it.
Masking or keeping it all together takes energy, which seems to be getting harder and more exhausting as I get older. When my systems are in place (constant checking and rechecking, religiously using my calendar and checking it multiple times a day to make sure I’m not missing anything as well as other things) I do pretty well, but it takes energy to keep them in place.
Lists! Whenever I feel like I need to be productive I need a list to keep me productive.
Having a large number of things that I’m interested in and love to do. Feeling like a jack of all trades, but master of none.
I had this whole big long section written up about my experience and how I cope, disguising my symptoms, and it had been sitting there for a couple of weeks, but something about it just didn’t feel quite right so I never pressed the publish button. It took me a while but I realised why. So many of my masking and coping techniques are based around criticism I received along the way, revolving around trying to avoid shame or gain acceptance.
My husband asked me what I’m getting from all this research, from this realisation. And so I shared with him. Then I went to the supermarket and the whole idea was rolling around in my brain, so much that I had to do a voice note in the supermarket carpark to get it all out of my head, and I’m not gonna lie. I cried. A lot. So here is what came out:
What I’m learning is that I’m not broken. There is nothing wrong with me. I’m just not wired the way some of the people around me are. And that’s ok. In fact it’s pretty awesome.
So when I have those days where I feel like I can’t get anything done, I’m still not broken, there is nothing wrong with me, I can just soak it in and relax. And the words that go through my head about how I’m useless and I’m hopeless and I never get anything done, they are lies. And I get to truth coach them into submission. No, I’m not useless. I’m not hopeless. I’m just having a low energy day, and I can honour that. I’ve also learned along the way that the more I do honour it, the more the energy comes back, as does the motivation and things can get done quickly when I’m motivated!
This journey of discovery has given me more compassion for myself. Its allowed me more grace. It’s given me a bit of an explanation on why even when I’m eating all the right things and getting enough sleep I’m still tired sometimes. And It’s actually been really cool to recognise that.
I’m not broken. There is not anything wrong with me. I’m just uniquely and wonderfully made.
And it also helps give me a bit of an understanding about some of the other people around me. In my class at Ara there are often people who come through with an independant action plan (IAP), and it helps me understand them better. It helps me understand my son better. And to try and show him love and compassion rather than criticism and critique. Because I know from my own experience there is so much shame involved in being criticised for doing the things that you feel are right inside you. And not doing things that you didn’t even notice before they were pointed out to you and told off for it. I’m far from perfect but I’m trying to bring awareness and understanding to my parenting and teaching.
So many of those coping techniques, a lot of those masking techniques, the systems and strategies, whatever you want to call them, a lot of them are wrapped up in shame. And I don’t want to live that way anymore. I want to live from a place of love, and compassion, and understanding. And that is what I want to share to those around me.
There is one coping strategy however that I wrote previously that I do want to share with you. One that is about removing the shame and stuck-ness rather than adding to it… I had to learn to do things badly. I have perfectionistic tendencies which sound like it could be an ADHD thing (but them you get overwhelmed when it’s not perfect or you know you can’t do it perfectly so don’t even start). My dad had the saying when I was growing up, “If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well”. Which probably sounds good in theory but left me with massive imposter syndrome and not wanting to do something unless I could do it perfectly, which is totally impossible. A few years ago I had a couple of sessions with a counsellor and she reframed this for me in such a good way. Instead the saying is now “If a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing badly while I get good at it”. Now I can say I’m a recovering perfectionist and an aspiring good-enough-ist. Maybe that is something you can take today as your own too.
So there you have it. My learnings so far on this topic. As I said at the start, I am learning. I’m also very open to hearing more and learning more. If you want to share your story, what you’ve learned, what works for you and what doesn’t work for you, then feel free to contact me. I love hearing from you.
