Ok, here it is a confession! I’ve reached the age where technology has exceeded my tech knowledge and it is for this reason that I haven’t yet managed to get the video done. Another reason is that my life is quite chaotic right now, with the children going back to school and trying to regain a sense of routine why juggling other things has proved more of a challenge than my ADHD can handle.
“I have so much going on at the moment and more than I can reveal on here, but I always over estimate how much I can handle.”
ADHD Girl
I suppose I should have realised this a couple of weeks ago and simply been honest with you all by saying ‘look guys I need a few weeks to get myself together’ but the one thing I know about myself is that I’m quite stubborn and sometimes don’t know where to quit. While this quality has stood me in good stead for many things in my life, it also comes with a lot of pressure.
I think all ADHDers go through a phrase when we first realise how truly different we are from neurotypical people. We spend a lot of time weighing up the need to conform with the benefits of standing out. If we go down the first route we constantly try to live up to other people’s expectations for us, in terms of standard of behaviour. Some of us may succeed but the majority of us end up constantly failing and get really depressed about it, until we either learn to accept ourselves for who we are, or we don’t.
“I’m sick of feeling guilty when I don’t live up to my own expectations, but don’t expect a lot of others.”
ADHd gIRL
One of my favourite quotes is by Dr Seuss, which goes ‘Why fit in when you were born to stand out.’ This along with another favourite quote from one of my favourite books, Little Women; ‘You have so many extraordinary gifts, how can you ever expect to live an ordinary life?’ instilled in me from a young age that being different is not a bad thing as long as you aren’t holding out of universal popularity.
That all being said, though I have learned to balance other people’s expectations, I am still bad at learning to manage my own. I constantly push myself because it’s the only way I know how to get stuff done. Unfortunately, this leads to me setting too high expectations and not having a respect for what I’m actually capable of doing. That combined with telling people my own expectations to hold myself accountable can be a recipe for disaster.
“When you give your accountability to other people, it means that you are constantly putting your emotions into other people’s hands”
ADHd gIRL
Sometimes it’s important to remind ourselves; well actually look at what I’ve achieved, not matter how small, because well living with ADHD is dang hard and it’s constantly exhausting. Just rejoicing in keeping it together and getting some things done is something to be celebrated. It’s only once we look at what we’ve achieved, that we can begin to have a respect for this is what I deserve.
I disrespected myself by telling you all that I could get a video series done at a very busy time in my life and for that I choose to apologise to and forgive myself. Of course, I haven’t given up on doing it by any standard, but it may have to wait a little while until I can figure out how to do it properly. Hopefully, you can gain something from these types of blog articles in the meantime. Even if they remind you that people with ADHD are human or just to be kind to yourself then that’s more than enough.
I’ll update you all again soon; probably next week, but no promises! Just now I’ll be back as soon as I can.
