Why I deliberately worked myself into exhaustion
Warning: You might not want to read this if reading about disability shame/internalized ableism, burnout, perfectionism, self-absorption, or deliberate use of bad coping strategies upsets you.
1. If I go above and beyond everyone’s expectations, then they won’t write me off if I occasionally make ADHD mistakes--showing up a few minutes late, forgetting an assignment, taking too long to answer an email, etc. I’ll just be an “eccentric genius” or “absent minded professor.”
2. If I work so hard that everyone can see it, I’ll never hear “you don’t have ADHD, you’re just lazy.”
3. I feel like (and think other people believe) I must make up for my numerous deficits by having them be outweighed by good performance in other areas. At the very least, the pluses and minuses in the equation have to balance out.
4. Perfectionism comes in at only a distant fourth, and it’s more pragmatic than anything else: If something is worth spending my limited mental energy and executive function on, it’s worth doing well.
And the thing is, it worked--as long as I could physically sustain it.
No one has ever told me “you don’t have ADHD, you’re just lazy.” And before I burned out, I didn’t tell myself that, either. I knew I was a workaholic.
There was a class where, try as I might, I could never show up on time. The professor didn’t care because I always asked good questions and turned in good work.
In psychology and neuroscience, there’s a gauntlet where you need a certain amount of research assistantships in order to get into grad school. The research assistant-ships are all executive-function demanding things like recruiting and scheduling participants, data management, data entry, and lots of phone calls and emails. In graduate school, you can delegate most of that work to research assistants and focus more on my areas of strength (reading, writing, thinking). I managed to get through research assistantships despite lacking the necessary organizational and programming skills to do certain parts of my job well, because of #1 and 2. As a result, I was able to make it into graduate school.
Oh yes, and I beat the awful ADHD education odds. I’m not sure if it’s accurate, but I recently read that less than 1% of people with ADHD get graduate degrees, and only 5% get a bachelor’s degree. I have both a bachelor’s degree with honors and a master’s degree, in part thanks to a combination of workaholism and hyperfocus.
Now that I’ve learned the hard way I can’t do this any more, I have to relearn how to navigate the world of education and work, and I’m more afraid of bosses’ and teachers’ judgments than ever before.
How do I handle the inevitable times when I can’t prevent myself from making ADHD-related mistakes?
How do I ensure no one thinks I’m lazy, including myself?
How can I take care of myself when I need it without actually becoming lazy? Especially as I seem to have a lot of self-care to catch up on.
How do I make others see I’m good enough if I’m not always one of the best? Who will write me letters of recommendation? Who will give me life advice? Who will hire me?
How do I make myself see I’m worth something to the world if I can no longer tell myself I’m one of the best in some specific area, enough to “make up for” or “balance out” my weaknesses? If I’m taking more from the world than I’m giving right now, how can I live with that?