ADD and Feelings of Inferiority

I had a horrific interaction with my internship supervisor on Thursday. Like seriously horrific. Because this is a public blog and internet sleuthing could probably result in my identity, I won’t post specifics. Suffice it to say it was truly traumatizing, and mostly not my fault. The person in question acted unprofessionally and inappropriately. This person even said at the beginning that my lessons went well, and that I have a great rapport with my students.

Even though I already have a meeting scheduled with the head of the program to mediate, I still am fighting some pretty significant depression over it.

It got me thinking. I take negative comments pretty hard, and I dwell on them. I’ve read that focusing on bad stuff is an ADD trait, but I sometimes struggle in how much of my feelings of inferiority and failure are my ADD and how much of these feelings are just my personality.

And, of course, since I am depressed and feeling sorry for myself, I descend into this spiral. What if it’s not really the ADD at all? What if I just suck at life? What if I am taking the easy way out by blaming all these things on a cognitive disorder?

Do y’all ever feel this way? What do you do?

The first step is the hardest

I’ve been back from 2 weeks of no internet, no air conditioning, and no crazy city life for 3 days now, and I’ve only put a dent in my to do list in the last 15 minutes. I’d like to point out that a good portion of this to do list needed to be done in July.






I find things hardest to do when they are already over their due date. It’s like, well, I already fucked it up, why even bother? Of course, lots of things are still perfectly fine if they are done late, but it is very hard to get out of that high expectation rut. It is one of the reasons that I hate To Do Lists. They end up staring at me, pointing out the things I failed to accomplish.Then I fail to accomplish more, and it is one big spiral down to that happy-fun-ADD-depression.






The only thing that sucks more than fear of failure is actual failure. It is really hard to face it and say, yeah, I fucked up, so now I should do the best I can to fix it. It’s way easier to ignore it and hope it goes away. Sitting here typing, I can be like, hey Nic, that is a stupid plan, but I keep doing it, in school, in life, and romantically. It really sucks watching yourself make the same damned mistakes, over and over.






So that’s it. First step done. I sent those overdue emails. Now, to do the cleaning that I planned to do sunday, and then I will finish dealing with my fucking school loans tonight.

Possibly Good, Possibly Bad

So on Tuesday, we met with our internship supervisors.

Because my college hates me and my ADD, I have 3 separate people I need to deal with and report to: my academic advisor, my seminar professor, and my internship supervisor. My supervisor is the only one I haven’t taken a class with, because she isn’t actually a professor here.

We met and chatted about the year ahead, and then she asked the million dollar question:

Is there anything else I want her to know about me?

I bit the bullet, and said it. “I have ADD, and please feel free to bug me about deadlines”

I know it is supposed to be the kiss of death job-wise, but this isn’t a job yet. It is school, and I need to get through it.

She thanked me for telling her, and we’ll see how this goes. First impressions are hard.

Fear

The problem with ADD is that sometimes, one begins to obsess over one’s fears.

I’ve never been good at getting homework done on vacations, or even just when I stay overnight nannying. This has, of course, turned itself into a fear that I will not be able to get my homework done summer semester, now that I am living in a real house, with other people.

I have worked very hard to set up a usable desk area as my first priority, and I will be on campus for a few hours in between classes, as well, so I think, with some focus and concentration, I should be able to focus and make this work.

But transitions are hard, and fear is harder.

Spring Break

Going to Berlin for Spring Break rocked my socks. No, really. I did, however, learn some things about traveling with ADD.

• Have some sort of folder or envelope in your purse or traveling bag with your itinerary, tickets, info for accommodations, and passport. Much easier to find all this stuff if it is together.
• Research food ahead of time, because by the time you remember that you are really hungry, get distracted by pretty German things one more time, and then finally decide you really truly need to eat, you are to hungry to sit down, look through the guide book, pick what you want to eat, and find it.
• Have a rough itinerary, but don’t be disappointed if you end up spending more time at one place because it is shiny, and miss others.
• Don’t be disappointed when you cannot fit in everything you wanted to do and planned to do. Being ADD, you are always optimistic about how much time something will take. You cannot actually slow time down.
• (not really ADD) Try not to travel to Berlin when there is a transportation strike
• Pack light for the plane ride. Yes, it is seven hours, but you really do not need three books, knitting, homework, a notebook, an ipod, and a magazine. The seat-backs come with TVs and movies, and it is an overnight flight, so you will probably sleep through most of it anyway
• Don’t stress out about little things. This is a vacation
• The plane will not suddenly fall out of the sky. I promise. If it does, you can beat me up.
• Don’t forget to plan time to sleep.