If you haven’t heard this cliche while discussing your neurodivergency with someone, then I envy your luck. Yesterday I fucked up, I feel shitty, but also I am pissed.
Our brains are impulsive af and tend to forget the most important information. We mess up, our RSD (and empathy) kicks in, we feel terrible, we vow to be more careful, but guess what? Thats fucking exhausting.
As a result, we start overthinking our every waking moment, stressing over every little thing. Because, we are trying to be aware of the things we cannot perceive.
At some point, hopefully we realize that we cannot live like that, and we start to arbitrarily ignore our compulsion to overthink. Most often that works out great because most often the threat is not real, but sometimes we make the wrong call.
The times we overthink are still more than the times we do not, and we still mess up. Let us have our fucking peace.
First and foremost, I don’t know your circumstances but I can relate and I’m sorry. Your worth isn’t measured by “productivity” or “what you amount to”, you matter. Work Culture and general North American society isn’t great for us with ADHD, all we can do is try our best. I swear to you that even when things look dark and there’s no way out, it does end. I’m going to put a ramble of my experience in a spoiler.
Long ramble of my experience
My ADHD got me into a pit of credit card debt, small compared to others at just under $19k CAD but I still had $20k+ in my student loan and I couldn’t see a way out, struggled hard, kept deferring payments and hitting overdraft, legit at my worst point I was $20 from bankruptcy, I probably could have got support from family and my at the time girlfriend (now partner) but I was too ashamed of it, I didn’t want to admit it to my partner (and she knew it, I don’t lie well, not that that’s a skill I really want to have). It put a lot of strain on my relationship, made me the most anxious I’ve ever been and very nearly ended my relationship, my life was on the verge of falling apart completely, I’d be lying if I didn’t have the exact same thoughts.
I was diagnosed 3 years ago at 31, I did what my dad (who’s likely got ADHD if not AuDHD, but won’t get evaluated) did and expended all my energy on work to the detriment of other parts of my life, I also struggled with binging (spending is obvious, but also alcohol and food) and emotional regulation.
My partner is the reason I got evaluated, she convinced me to get into therapy (I have a good therapist who has ADHD, didn’t know that when I found them). After diagnosis, it took me at least a year to begin accepting that I have ADHD (funny that putting a name to it changes things right), that it effects everything I do and that I have, and will always have it. Hardest thing was realising just his much of my personality is influenced by it. Medication is helpful but it’s not perfect, but with therapy, it’s helped address some of the maladaptive coping mechanisms I developed.
If you have access to therapy and aren’t already, it helped me immensely. Depending where you live there may be resources you can access through your health authority. We’re here if you want, even just venting can be helpful.