It seems like the only thing I can accomplish with consistency is failure...

I'm not a complete worthless piece of trash, I've done wonderful, fantastic things in my life...but they were all short term, highly stimulating projects.

Every few months I decide I'm going to grab the reins and take control of my life, and sometimes I even succeed...for a while. But over and over again, without fail, it all comes crashing down again. I feel like my whole life I've been riding in a tiny boat anchored just off shore, riding huge waves that are sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent, but always there. It's never still. It's never balanced. It's never clear. And I never, ever reach the shore.

I can't go to college or earn any type of license for anything. I can't keep a job. I can't even keep my house clean. At all. It's seriously bad in there. I can't keep one single object, a pair of scissors, a piece of clothing. I lose everything. I can never find what I want, yet there's so. Much. Crap. Everywhere I look there's things I don't need and I don't know where to put them.

I don't know how to live any other way but in chaos, constantly trying to hold onto something, constantly feeling bad on the inside, if not on the surface, about myself and my capabilities...or lack of them.

How does someone live this way? How does a woman live this way?

oh sweetie!

its so hard... i know... i can never keep anything clean or organized, and yet i hate mess! inevitabley, what happens now is someone comes and hangs out with me, helps a bit, but even just the fact that they are there and they keep me on track... and it makes it more fun, just have someone to hang out with..
do you have a friend that would hang out with you once a week or something? you could provide treats or something...

anyway, just dont be so hard on yourself, thats the first step.
here is an article from this website, you should check it out, it has all kinds of advice.

http://www.addresources.org/

Women with ADHD in the Workplace:
Juggling the Dual Responsibilities of Home and Work

by Kathleen Nadeau, Ph.D.
Bethesda, MD—2000
Terms of Use: This educational material is made available courtesy of the author and Attention Deficit Disorder Resources. You may reprint this article for personal use only.


Women with ADHD have a much more daunting struggle in the workplace than the majority of men struggling with attentional issues. Why? For two major reasons: 1) Women in the workplace are more likely to be the support system for someone else rather than to have a support system. 2) Women with ADHD, just as for all women in the workplace, are expected to work a "second shift" at home, as the primary homemaker and parent. In this article, we'll focus on juggling responsibilities for the "first" and "second" shifts as a working mother.

As both Sari Solden and I have repeatedly said, the job of homemaker is one of the most ADHD-unfriendly jobs around. Homemaking requires women to function without external structure, juggling multiple, shifting responsibilities, to function despite frequent and often unavoidable interruptions, and to remain focused in a highly distracting environment. The job typically involves structuring others, keeping track of paperwork, handling the schedule of several people, including one's own, and supervising the work of untrained and often unmotivated individuals (our children, doing, or more often not doing their chores). The work of a homemaker is repetitive, often uninteresting, receives little remuneration, and yet is expected, by spouse, extended family and community, to be undertaken with sustained motivation and a high level of performance.

After reading this description of homemaker you may ask yourself how any woman with ADHD can function as a homemaker, much less take on an "outside" job. We're certainly not here to tell you that the task is easy, but to offer some pointers on how to make it more possible to juggle home and work responsibilities with less feelings of exhaustion and being overwhelmed.

Surprise—having two jobs may be easier than "just" working as a homemaker! How can that be? That depends upon how well you are matched with your paying job. One woman with ADHD, Debra, quit her four-day-a-week job reviewing science grants after her two children were diagnosed with ADHD. She reasoned that her children needed her more, and that her time should be spent with them, taking them to tutors, to coaches, to pediatricians, and going to teacher's conferences to monitor their school performance. Several months after quitting her job, however, she found herself feeling depressed and overwhelmed. Both she and her husband were dismayed over the chaotic state of the household.

Through counseling Debra was convinced that the solution was to return to work. Why? Because work afforded her a quiet, non-distracting environment in which she could function well doing a task which she enjoyed. The salary she brought in also allowed her to hire a cleaning lady, and to buy more expensive carryout or prepared foods on days she worked. When she had been home full-time she had felt it was her duty to do all of the housework, laundry, cooking and shopping, and chauffeuring. As a working woman she felt justified in hiring a weekly house cleaner, to ask her husband to pitch in with the children's activities, and to pay more for foods which required little or no preparation.

What Is the Key?



Don't require a superwoman's efforts of yourself.
Don't feel that you should keep up with the neighbors. Schedule a level of activity for yourself and your kids which is comfortable for you and is not based upon what "everyone else is doing."
Think about your second-shift job as homemaker the same way you think about making your paying job ADHD-friendly.
Focus on those tasks which are best suited to you.
Try to find ways to delegate tasks which are most difficult or most disliked.
Look for ways to reduce the stress of ADHD-unfriendly aspects of the job.
Prioritize your home and work life. Don't just keep doing things because they have always been done that way.
Keep yourself in the priority list. First accommodate your own ADHD - then you will be much more able to help your children with their ADHD issues.
What does this mean? Don't give up your yoga class so that your daughter can take on yet another after school activity.
Don't allow your child to invite ten children to spend the night if this feels overwhelming to you.
Entertain by going out if making your home ready for company is just too much work at the end of a long week.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
Get the whole family in on the act. Develop a schedule. Get your husband to participate in keeping the schedule intact.
Emphasize what you're good at. If you are at your best in playing with your children, talking to them, helping them to be creative - then do those things and appreciate your ability to do them.
Don't feel guilty if you need to hire a tutor rather than go through daily homework battles with your ADHD child.
Don't feel inadequate if Dad is better at getting the kids to finish their homework or get to bed on time.
Give yourself guilt-free down time. Talk with your partner. Decide what will be most helpful to you. Would you rather have your partner take over the kid responsibilities after dinner so that you can straighten up the house? Would you rather have your partner take the kids one full day on the weekend so that you can have some uninterrupted time to organize your life at home?
Make sure your "day job" is ADHD-friendly - a job which allows you to concentrate, which is not too pressured, which does not involve you a majority of the time in doing work which is difficult for you, which is interesting and challenging.
Above all—don't just grin and bear it. There are many changes at home and at work which can help you juggle more effectively, without dropping as many balls. Making your life more ADHD-friendly is a process of problem identification and problem solving. It may help to work with a coach, a counselor or a women's ADHD support group to find creative, ADHD-friendly solutions.
Remember, when you look for solutions—don't think "super woman"—think "super ADHD-friendly"!

Thank you so much! I just had a huge fight with my fiance about cleaning the house (he doesn't believe ADD is real), this makes me feel much better. The more solid information I have to give him, the more I hope he will support and accept the way I work.

Of course, it's going to take me a couple days to get through the whole article, that is, if I remember to read it, haha...

and although she can be overwhelming, check out flylady.com. do not sign up for the e-mails! you will be overwhelmed. take what help/advice you can use, and dismiss the rest. she does help, both with the actual work and with psychological soothing.

it has taken me years to get to the point where my house isn't always in constant chaos (although, if my husband were telling the story, well......). it is clean enough and organized enough for me.

and you are not alone. (doesn't help the situation you're in much, but maybe you'll feel better hearing it) i am usually a chaotic mess too.

good luck.

It seems like the only thing I can accomplish with consistency is failure...
I can't go to college or earn any type of license for anything. I can't keep a job. I can't even keep my house clean. At all. It's seriously bad in there. I can't keep one single object, a pair of scissors, a piece of clothing. I lose everything. I can never find what I want, yet there's so. Much. Crap. Everywhere I look there's things I don't need and I don't know where to put them.


I know exactly what you are talking about. 10 years ago I felt exactly the same way & described my life in similar terms. You can get past this & get your life more in control. Just try to work out what is important to work on and what you can live with staying the same. Over the past 10 years I have got my driving license, been to college, got rid of some (not all) junk, become a little more organised.

The secret is to chunk things up, to work on one goal at a time, keep a short term focus, to build routines & habits. Don't try to fix everything at once.

The first thing I worked on was losing my keys (I lost them every day at one time). Here I already had a bad habit (i.e. losing my keys). My goal was to change this from a bad habit to a good one (i.e. not losing my keys every day). I analyzed how I lost my keys - it was because I got distracted after opening the door & did not focus on where I put them. Then I nominated a place to put the keys (in the zipper part of my handbag), and put the keys there every time. I would say out loud, over and over again, "must put keys in bag" until they were safely stored. And if someone wanted to interrupt me before the keys were safely stored I'd say "just a minute must put keys in bag first", refusing to be distracted. I'm sure people thought I was nuts. But it worked and I have not lost my keys for nearly 10 years now. All I've done tho' is replace the bad habit with the good habit.

This model that I used to fix the keys problem is the same one I applied to most of my problems. It sounds simple, but it is hard. If you try it, like me, you will find that you fail in doing the thing you want first off. It is important to just keep trying. Ignore the failure, forgive yourself and try again. It takes a long time to build bad habits as well as good ones. And it is harder to unlearn old things than to learn new ones.

They other important thing I did was to use positive self talk. If you've got adhd then you've absorbed years of criticism that you have internalized by now. And now even if the critics are not around you will do their talking for them (start by being conscious of how you talk about yourself to others - do you put yourself down before they get a chance to?). That's why it is important to start realigning your self talk. I got a lot of good stuff from books by Louise Hay (I think it was called "You can Heal Your Life"??), also there was a good book called "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" (I think that's the title, cannot recall author).

Sorry this is a long post...
Anyway, hang in there. You can change your life. If you just do a few positive actions for change everyday then in 10 years you'll look back in amazement at what you have been able to achieve.

That is not to say my life is perfect now, my house will never be tidy without outside help. I'd need a forklift to clean out some of my junk, I still get disorganized and distracted easily. That's OK, a clean house will not help me get to heaven.

Good luck. Remember it is like the Chinese sage Lao Tzu said "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

Pru,

Thanks for that post. It was FANTASTIC!

thanks :)

Thank you, elibrowning, for your thread. It could have been me writing it. Look at the great advice you brought forth! re: fiance, he really needs to understand and "get" ADD before you get married. It is a part of you, and marriage comes with enough challenges: you need to be understanding of each other.

Thank you, subliminal, for posting the Kathleen Nadeau article. Awesome article, and I am printing this entire thread to show my husband. He does not like to read books on the subject, but he'll read an article. He really wants to understand me! lol So do I!

Thank you so much everyone. This has really been helpful, in giving me resources and giving me hope. I'm glad I found this board.

While reading these threads I am constantly amazed how we, women with ADD, share so many of the same grueling feelings. I could have, and actually did, write almost the same post yesterday (under the thread I started).

Rationally, I know that I am not a complete failure and life is not really always chaotic, but at that moment it sure felt like it.

Luckily I had an appointment w/ my therapist yesterday, and she asked me to write counterstatements for 2 of my ever popular negative thoughts:

"I'm a mess" and "My life is chaotic all the time"

She asked me if I got out of bed this morning. I said yes, and she asked me to write down,"I got out of bed."
Then she continued, and asked me to write down "I got dressed, I fed my children, I got them ready for school, I came to my appointment, etc."

Then she said, "That is not total chaos.You are managing to do these very important things."

I protested, "but those are such basic things that I should do!" (oops! I let the perfectionist "should" slip) (I often feel I need to be doing greater things--save the world!)

She countered,"Many people cannot do those things."

elibrowning, you are bright, and you can use it to your advantage. i love prumont's advise, and subliminal's article was amazing.

One step at a time--any step forward. it doesn't matter.

I wish you the best.:)

Darlin

I know what you're going through...TRUST ME I've lived with what seems to be constant failure as well...geez I can go on and on but I'll only go into the basics.

I've had trouble in school, in relationships, in friendships...(mind you I've only ever had 2 close friendships in my life and only one of those has been long term) I've also had trouble keeping jobs and applying myself to study etc etc etc.

Please don't feel alone in this....anyone in this forum WILL support and try to help you in anyway they can.

Take Care
Selena:)
It seems like the only thing I can accomplish with consistency is failure...

I'm not a complete worthless piece of trash, I've done wonderful, fantastic things in my life...but they were all short term, highly stimulating projects.

Every few months I decide I'm going to grab the reins and take control of my life, and sometimes I even succeed...for a while. But over and over again, without fail, it all comes crashing down again. I feel like my whole life I've been riding in a tiny boat anchored just off shore, riding huge waves that are sometimes calm and sometimes turbulent, but always there. It's never still. It's never balanced. It's never clear. And I never, ever reach the shore.

I can't go to college or earn any type of license for anything. I can't keep a job. I can't even keep my house clean. At all. It's seriously bad in there. I can't keep one single object, a pair of scissors, a piece of clothing. I lose everything. I can never find what I want, yet there's so. Much. Crap. Everywhere I look there's things I don't need and I don't know where to put them.

I don't know how to live any other way but in chaos, constantly trying to hold onto something, constantly feeling bad on the inside, if not on the surface, about myself and my capabilities...or lack of them.

How does someone live this way? How does a woman live this way?

Seems like my life....except now my son is grown and at college. I got divorced years ago. I am currently unemployed and I am recieving unemployment benefits. They aren't enough, but I am supplementing my income by doing home health care for a couple of hours a day.

My life is more simple than it's ever been. No romantic interest, no one but me at home (ok, plus my two dogs and four cats). And I feel as sane and organized as I have ever been.

My dilemna? Should I complicate this with a 'relationship'? How bout if a couple of guys are interested in me, but I feel no 'passion'. I don't think it's worth it, not at all. I love this, being responsible and accountable only to me. Is this selfish? Is it an ideal situation for an ADD woman?

I don't know, but it's workin'..............

Oh boy yes I know what you are talking about! Anything from a new system of keeping order, over a cleaning rota, to trying to lose weight etc. etc. after a week or two it's like it's been erased from my mind. It's not that I give up or anything, I just genuinely forget I was [on a diet, sticking to a rota etc.].

Girlfriend,

You are NOT a failure! You sound pretty interesting to me -- so there, you have succeeded at being an interesting person, BELIEVE me, you have already escaped the trap of mediocrity into which many people fall early in life. So pat yourself on the back.

I am a CRAPPY housekeeper and some days I feel like I could slap myself, because it makes my life so hard. I'm a stay at home mom with a 13 month old daughter. I don't think I've ever used a pair of socks on her more than twice. The hall in front of my washer and dryer looks like it rained baby socks -- WHY? Because I just buy more. All the time. Life is too short to worry about finding and matching baby socks. At least she wears socks, there, I succeeded at something!

You know how germ-phobic most moms are with their newborns? I didn't have that luxury. I didn't sleep for, oh, about a year, since I have one of those children who doesn't sleep through the night ever. Which just compounded my ADD and addled my brain even more. So while I'm talking on the phone to my mommy friends who are BLEACHING their children's toys (huuuh?) I'm just running after my kid making sure that she isn't being devoured by the dust bunnies under the couch. I haven't touched anything with bleach. I don't even know if I own bleach.

BUT people are always commenting on how beautiful my daughter is, and that I am a good mother, because, while I am not spending a "lot" of time cleaning, I am spending tons of time loving on, teaching, playing with, and adoring my wonderful daughter. I'm a terrible housekeeper, but a GREAT mom! Who knew?

I came on this site today because for a while there I "forgot" that I had ADD and I started using that old dumb measuring stick for loving myself -- I'm okay when my apartment can be featured in Architectural Digest. NOT. But then I realized -- my husband and daughter are fed and warm and happy. So the important things are getting done.

Remember, you aren't alone, you are probably doing better than you think, and God loves you anyway. You're NOT a failure -- everyone has tons of faults, it's just that some people can hide theirs more easily than we can!

Every time I read this thread I cry. You are all so great. I feel so lucky to have found this place on the Internet. I'm going to print all this out and carry it around with me....until I lose it!