I really understand the "letting people down, over and over" part of your post - also actual ADHD person here and this feels like it has been the theme of my life when I am not medicated. It has cost me opportunities, clients, and friendships, etc and SUCKS.
This week I rear-ended someone on the highway because I was daydreaming. No one was injured, but my car is totaled and I'm waiting on the insurance adjuster to let me know how financially fucked I am over the other party's car. #justADHDthings
Two months ago, I was babysitting a friend's car and lost the key. I turned the house upside down, but ended up having to pay $750 for a locksmith to break it open and replace the key for me. I was so ashamed I didn't tell them what had happened until they asked why the new key looked different. #ADHDpride
My best friend, who was diagnosed in childhood, calls it her "lazy inconsiderate bitch disease." I was diagnosed in adulthood, but we have the same experience with it: ruined friendships, financial instability, struggles in the workplace, and most of all, a general feeling of just being a bad, lazy, selfish person who can't do what other people seem to do easily. I understand people who want it to be a cute personality quirk instead of a cluster of socially-stigmatized behaviors that actually hurt us and other people emotionally and financially. It's just that pretending it's a cute personality quirk doesn't make it so.
re: mass transit, I loved that aspect of living in northern Europe, taking the train everywhere instead of driving. Of course, doing that successfully requires packing all you need and not forgetting anything (being an hour into a 2 - 3 hour train trip and realizing you forgot your suit jacket at home is the worst), in addition to navigating the train timetable and making it there on time. Nothing easy about traveling when you're ADD!
Still, it was a lot safer, and as everyone else here says cost a lot less given the cost of auto accidents.
I realized I had lost my wallet fifteen minutes before my cab was leaving for a two week trip to LA. The only reason I was able to do much of anything there was that I had a separate drivers license from another time I thought I had lost my wallet. The wallet showed up months later in the pants pocket of a pair of shorts I was wearing when I packed.
I felt like a complete idiot, ashamed and embarrassed by this. My family wasn't going on the trip so at least there was that. Then I realized that - well - there were so many small things like this growing up. And the emotional overwhelm around that, really made me avoid people for a long time. Not so great.
I utterly respect your decision to delete (don't feel bad!), but having gotten here late and always appreciating your contributions, I can't help but feel, based on the responses, that I missed something worthwhile with this one.
Aww thanks. I always appreciate your comments too. I wrote about ADHD symptoms that aren't cute--in my case, being very messy and letting people down. I just didn't want the specifics on the internet forever.
Oof, I wrote you a longer response that got eaten. Nevertheless, I have the best of intentions to come back and recreate it later today. Will my brain cooperate? Guess we'll find out! ; )
So, yeah, unsurprisingly, my brain did not, in fact, cooperate. But better late than never, right? I can’t guarantee I won’t end up having the same change of heart you did, in terms of this hanging around on the internet forever, but it’ll exist long enough for you to read it, and that’s good enough. Anyway, it’s mainly just random commiseration…
I come by my ADHD from my dad’s side, and my mom’s side provided the delightful addition of OCD. For me, this manifests as a need for excessive (and idiosyncratically perfectionistic) order and structure in my environment in order to be able to function my best (or hell, even adequately), coupled with a severe deficiency in being able to create or maintain that state of order. It’s a truly spiffy combo.
One of the best things I ever did for myself (and it took a looooong time for me to come around to the idea) was to sign up for routine house cleaning and to work with a personal organizer occasionally. (Insert standard privilege disclaimers and whatnot here.) It utterly transformed my quality of life, and it freed up enough space for me, mentally, that I was able to focus on a lot of important things that had gotten deeply neglected while I was busy bashing myself endlessly against the brick wall of housekeeping. I knew it had been bad for me, but I didn’t realize until then exactly how high a mental load I’d been carrying from just that one area of my life. As accomodations go, it did more to improve my mental health than any medication I’ve ever been on.
That said, in the early days of the pandemic, when everything was still so uncertain, I made the grievous error of suspending the service. Between all the pandemic stresses and the fact that I’d become a new mom for the first time shortly before it all hit, things went downhill rather quickly. Fast-forward to now, and I’m stuck in a perpetual loop of not wanting to bring the cleaners back because I’m too ashamed of all the disorganized junk piles, but I’m also too ashamed of the other mess to bring in an organizer. I’m currently working my way toward doing one or both, but it’s agonizingly slow progress -- just keeping up with regular old entropy is hard enough.
Anyway, there’s not really a point to this, other than solidarity, I guess. Just saying that I get it, that I feel for you, and that it’s not just you. Routine household upkeep is my eternal white whale. FWIW, I’ve found a lot of solace and ideas in the book How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, and also from her website and videos. She puts a lot of emphasis on “care tasks” being functional, not moral. Anyway, you might check it out if the idea resonates.
Whatever the specifics, I hope your struggle eases up soon. And even if it’s a bit rich for me to say so, I hope you know that you don’t deserve to feel shame for this stuff. We just do the best we can.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate it. I'm in a very similar situation, too ashamed of the mess to get help. I'm starting to get an idea for how I can attack it though, in part because of your comment. If you're comfortable, could you send me an email so I can follow up less publicly? No worries if not! carina.substack@gmail.com
Deleting this. Thank you for the kind comments. ❤️
Yeah, it's a challenge sometimes. There isn't enough room in my brain to listen and speak, and its hard to switch between them.
😔
Oddly enough, I wrote a Facebook post last month making almost exactly the same point https://www.facebook.com/samcraft/posts/pfbid033EdB3DzXV35sBMk5bUQyJswMTQ8dnfzM6zYyCsvk7qUBqqgSAw1CXTd9nYCv4D4Tl
I really understand the "letting people down, over and over" part of your post - also actual ADHD person here and this feels like it has been the theme of my life when I am not medicated. It has cost me opportunities, clients, and friendships, etc and SUCKS.
This week I rear-ended someone on the highway because I was daydreaming. No one was injured, but my car is totaled and I'm waiting on the insurance adjuster to let me know how financially fucked I am over the other party's car. #justADHDthings
Two months ago, I was babysitting a friend's car and lost the key. I turned the house upside down, but ended up having to pay $750 for a locksmith to break it open and replace the key for me. I was so ashamed I didn't tell them what had happened until they asked why the new key looked different. #ADHDpride
My best friend, who was diagnosed in childhood, calls it her "lazy inconsiderate bitch disease." I was diagnosed in adulthood, but we have the same experience with it: ruined friendships, financial instability, struggles in the workplace, and most of all, a general feeling of just being a bad, lazy, selfish person who can't do what other people seem to do easily. I understand people who want it to be a cute personality quirk instead of a cluster of socially-stigmatized behaviors that actually hurt us and other people emotionally and financially. It's just that pretending it's a cute personality quirk doesn't make it so.
Solidarity, homie.
This doesn't surprise me slightly. Thanks for the info!
I hope my car insurer never finds out I have lazy inconsiderate bitch disease.
My mechanics are certainly aware of this.
re: mass transit, I loved that aspect of living in northern Europe, taking the train everywhere instead of driving. Of course, doing that successfully requires packing all you need and not forgetting anything (being an hour into a 2 - 3 hour train trip and realizing you forgot your suit jacket at home is the worst), in addition to navigating the train timetable and making it there on time. Nothing easy about traveling when you're ADD!
Still, it was a lot safer, and as everyone else here says cost a lot less given the cost of auto accidents.
I realized I had lost my wallet fifteen minutes before my cab was leaving for a two week trip to LA. The only reason I was able to do much of anything there was that I had a separate drivers license from another time I thought I had lost my wallet. The wallet showed up months later in the pants pocket of a pair of shorts I was wearing when I packed.
I felt like a complete idiot, ashamed and embarrassed by this. My family wasn't going on the trip so at least there was that. Then I realized that - well - there were so many small things like this growing up. And the emotional overwhelm around that, really made me avoid people for a long time. Not so great.
I utterly respect your decision to delete (don't feel bad!), but having gotten here late and always appreciating your contributions, I can't help but feel, based on the responses, that I missed something worthwhile with this one.
Whatever it was, you've got my best wishes.
Aww thanks. I always appreciate your comments too. I wrote about ADHD symptoms that aren't cute--in my case, being very messy and letting people down. I just didn't want the specifics on the internet forever.
Oof, I wrote you a longer response that got eaten. Nevertheless, I have the best of intentions to come back and recreate it later today. Will my brain cooperate? Guess we'll find out! ; )
So, yeah, unsurprisingly, my brain did not, in fact, cooperate. But better late than never, right? I can’t guarantee I won’t end up having the same change of heart you did, in terms of this hanging around on the internet forever, but it’ll exist long enough for you to read it, and that’s good enough. Anyway, it’s mainly just random commiseration…
I come by my ADHD from my dad’s side, and my mom’s side provided the delightful addition of OCD. For me, this manifests as a need for excessive (and idiosyncratically perfectionistic) order and structure in my environment in order to be able to function my best (or hell, even adequately), coupled with a severe deficiency in being able to create or maintain that state of order. It’s a truly spiffy combo.
One of the best things I ever did for myself (and it took a looooong time for me to come around to the idea) was to sign up for routine house cleaning and to work with a personal organizer occasionally. (Insert standard privilege disclaimers and whatnot here.) It utterly transformed my quality of life, and it freed up enough space for me, mentally, that I was able to focus on a lot of important things that had gotten deeply neglected while I was busy bashing myself endlessly against the brick wall of housekeeping. I knew it had been bad for me, but I didn’t realize until then exactly how high a mental load I’d been carrying from just that one area of my life. As accomodations go, it did more to improve my mental health than any medication I’ve ever been on.
That said, in the early days of the pandemic, when everything was still so uncertain, I made the grievous error of suspending the service. Between all the pandemic stresses and the fact that I’d become a new mom for the first time shortly before it all hit, things went downhill rather quickly. Fast-forward to now, and I’m stuck in a perpetual loop of not wanting to bring the cleaners back because I’m too ashamed of all the disorganized junk piles, but I’m also too ashamed of the other mess to bring in an organizer. I’m currently working my way toward doing one or both, but it’s agonizingly slow progress -- just keeping up with regular old entropy is hard enough.
Anyway, there’s not really a point to this, other than solidarity, I guess. Just saying that I get it, that I feel for you, and that it’s not just you. Routine household upkeep is my eternal white whale. FWIW, I’ve found a lot of solace and ideas in the book How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, and also from her website and videos. She puts a lot of emphasis on “care tasks” being functional, not moral. Anyway, you might check it out if the idea resonates.
Whatever the specifics, I hope your struggle eases up soon. And even if it’s a bit rich for me to say so, I hope you know that you don’t deserve to feel shame for this stuff. We just do the best we can.
Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate it. I'm in a very similar situation, too ashamed of the mess to get help. I'm starting to get an idea for how I can attack it though, in part because of your comment. If you're comfortable, could you send me an email so I can follow up less publicly? No worries if not! carina.substack@gmail.com
Absolutely! Curious to hear your idea! : )