Just be nicer to yourself when you run into problems and things don’t turn out like you expect. It doesn’t make you a loser or a fuckup to not accomplish everything all the time, it makes you human. And take into account that with ADHD you are basically pedaling uphill to begin with; you’re allowed to celebrate small wins either way, but small wins are bigger when you’re doing life on hard mode.
It sounds hippy dippy, but being your own cheerleader really does impact that instinct to self castigate. It especially works if you mentally take yourself out of the situation and ask how you’d treat someone else in it: would you call them a loser or a fuckup? Probably not, so don’t do it to yourself. Just affirming to yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you’re doing your best helps change the mental pathways that have become ingrained into something less toxic to yourself.
Once that becomes automatic it becomes a lot easier to deal with challenges and failures. As they say, the master has failed more times than the pupil has tried.
Thank you. Didn’t expect such an elaborate answer.
You’re right. What makes it a little difficult is that this uphill battle is often hidden, e.g. from your employer. So you try to work the same as your colleagues but unless they’re also hidden ADHD people it doesn’t work. So it’s basically an entirely different game, they play “do the job” and you play “impersonate someone doing the job”.
Since this happens in hiding there is nobody giving you feedback on how you’re doing except for yourself. You get feedback for “the job” but not for what you’re actually doing…
Just be nicer to yourself when you run into problems and things don’t turn out like you expect. It doesn’t make you a loser or a fuckup to not accomplish everything all the time, it makes you human. And take into account that with ADHD you are basically pedaling uphill to begin with; you’re allowed to celebrate small wins either way, but small wins are bigger when you’re doing life on hard mode.
It sounds hippy dippy, but being your own cheerleader really does impact that instinct to self castigate. It especially works if you mentally take yourself out of the situation and ask how you’d treat someone else in it: would you call them a loser or a fuckup? Probably not, so don’t do it to yourself. Just affirming to yourself that everyone makes mistakes and you’re doing your best helps change the mental pathways that have become ingrained into something less toxic to yourself.
Once that becomes automatic it becomes a lot easier to deal with challenges and failures. As they say, the master has failed more times than the pupil has tried.
Thank you. Didn’t expect such an elaborate answer.
You’re right. What makes it a little difficult is that this uphill battle is often hidden, e.g. from your employer. So you try to work the same as your colleagues but unless they’re also hidden ADHD people it doesn’t work. So it’s basically an entirely different game, they play “do the job” and you play “impersonate someone doing the job”.
Since this happens in hiding there is nobody giving you feedback on how you’re doing except for yourself. You get feedback for “the job” but not for what you’re actually doing…