ADHD & Self-Sabotage
Before I found out I had ADHD, my life resembled the below pattern:
👉 start something new (usually a job or relationship)
👉 throw myself in 250% and become obsessed
👉 decide I don't actually like it, find something new, find an issue, have an argument, etc.
👉 quit & repeat.
My word of the year was 'stability' for about 6 years, as my life got more and more chaotic. It was like living in season 8 of a terrible TV show, where the writers have gotten bored and run out of feasible ideas. I'd wake up and live in fear of what ridiculous decision I'd make by the end of the day.
This was all underpinned by a never-ending question of what to 'do' with my life. It's hard to describe just how dramatic this was. I'd wake up in the middle of the night crying, wishing I wouldn't wake up in the morning, because I hated my inability to just 'be normal' so much. I read every single self-help and career book out there, but everything seemed impossible.
On the outside, my life looked incredible - moving country on a monthly or weekly basis to places like New York, Bali, New Zealand, and Australia, and starting exciting new jobs (usually unpaid) or business ideas (let's not even get into the relationships). Every experience piled up on top of each other, until I felt like there was no point to any of it at all.
Internally, pretty much every single day I had to bargain with myself to stay alive, like just going to one yoga class or just booking 1 more flight. I was so exhausted by this constant demand of what to 'do' with my life, scrolling and applying for jobs in any career, diving in and out of relationships, arguing with everybody, constantly on the move, and never feeling still.
It was only when I found out I had ADHD that things changed, because I felt like someone had finally given me a reason I didn't fit in, so I could stop searching for it. At least I could stop torturing myself with attempting to get a 'normal' job and live life on my terms, as I assumed that was what this label meant: I was an official social misfit.
Ironically, this actually ended up in me staying still enough to make friends with my brain, instead of trying to escape it. Taking medication eventually enabled me to calm down enough to think through options when I felt overwhelmed, instead of attempting to switch everything off.
This led me to get my corporate style Disney-ending: an office job (renting a flat over the road in a fixed 8 month contract for extra insurance). When the self-sabotaging tendencies arose a few months later, I found an ADHD coach, who helped me to learn how to actually create my own ideal life, instead of trying to fit into society's - and here I am, running ADHD Works . The End.
Except, I was just repeating the pattern.
Being a founder is an incredibly stressful way to live your life. You can work non-stop, and nothing is ever enough. Every success becomes a barometer for what's next, weighing you down with expectation. Money remains stressful, no matter how much you make, because there's the assumption that 'what if you don't make any ever again?'
Yet I am much more financially stable than I ever was working in law (or before!), and every day we see how people in 'real jobs' are being made redundant. If there's one job that's irreplaceable by AI and in certain demand for our future, it's ADHD coaching. A robot will never be able to relate with another human being and help them to truly feel seen, validated, and understood, because they cannot provide true empathy. ADHD has only been diagnosable in adults since 2008, which is why there's been a 400% rise in the number of people seeking assessments.
Our healthcare systems are broken and nothing looks to change anytime soon, with years long waiting lists and thresholds for assessments being increased to crisis point around the country. Helping people feels good, because it gives me a purpose and switches off my brain, as I have to be 100% present for the people I'm coaching. So I've worked harder and harder to stay on top, saying yes to everything and trying to help as many people as possible.
However, being an ADHD coach can also be incredibly stressful, which I didn't anticipate or know how to handle. Very quickly, I experienced compassion fatigue and burnout. I heard people's problems all day, and felt overwhelmed by them. If someone in my 'real life' had a mental health problem, I was so hyper vigilant that I'd often either call 111 or compare them to the 'real' problems I'd heard about that day.
My window of tolerance had closed, and coaching took a serious toll on my own mental health, as I worked 7 days a week. I burnt out and sought help, having a grand total of SIX separate coaches for myself at the start of 2023, which just confused me even more. My restlessness applied to my healing: I wanted to try everything, all at the same time.
I was non-stop, thinking of and implementing solutions that caused me even more work and stress. From creating a coaching course, to attempting to take on 25. coaches, run courses, corporate trainings, and do everything else under the sun, I lurched from one chaotic situation to another. Even so, failing fast means learning fast, and by the end of the year, things felt much more organised and I had the right support in place (and just 1 coach!).
There was a team of people sharing the work with me, and I even ended the year with an impulsive holiday and 24 hours of my phone being switched off. The End.
Except, ADHD-ers thrive in chaos.
I have now finally achieved my 6 year goal: 'stability'. My (remaining) relationships are not on fire, I have lived in the same place for 1.5 years, I am not overworked: there is no clear problem. I have the luxury of choosing what to 'do' next.
So why do things feel even more stressful? Why do I imagine the worst case scenario every where I look, whilst knowing how irrational I'm being? Why do I start a new project every day, but feel unable to finish anything? Why am I poking holes in all of my relationships, provoking arguments? Why am I beating myself up for not doing enough when I'm still doing so much? Why do I feel so blocked - and why can't I just relax?
Ironically, this week we're training coaches on the executive functioning skill of problem solving. I realised that every new idea I have is actually a 'solution' to a potential problem that doesn't even exist, as attempt to control the uncontrollable, which is what is blocking me. There are no problems to be solved, but when we have ADHD, this 'stable' state can feel scarier than crisis mode.
This is why we self-sabotage: because it gives us the illusion of control. Creating problems feels safer than waiting for them to happen, and we can find ourselves acting in ways we don't understand before tracing it back to the clear thing we're trying to creatively protect ourselves from.
When all we're used to is things going wrong, experiencing Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria in every part of our life, and a 'catch' to every happy moment, 'success' can feel weird - and scary.
The restlessness is an avoidance of feeling, and a non-stop desire to fix things. If there's one thing I've learned on this journey, it's that there is no fix. There's simply growth, change and learning. There's the ability to become more self-aware, and to change our behaviour, step by step.
I have been told repeatedly that to counter this, I just need to 'feel my feelings'. I've got 50390189190 journals. I do yoga (and have even done a yoga teacher training course). I've had breathing coaching. I've gone to therapy non-stop since I can remember now, talking my poor therapist's ear off each week.
I would LOVE to 'sit in the discomfort', but I often don't have the luxury, because my brain has whizzed ahead before I even realise what I've done - leaving me to pick up the pieces.
The advice I have for anyone feeling similarly imprisoned by the non-stop thunderstorm of their own brain is this:
Try to notice the 'thoughts' that compel you to keep doing things, and question them.
Try your best to write down your ideas and thoughts before doing them, such as on your phone. I know this is extremely difficult, but the longer pause you can create between the thought and the action, the better, even if it's just a few seconds.
Try to pick a project to 'do' that is within your control entirely. For me, this was writing books (I now have 4 👋). You don't need a publishing contract to do this - you can just write and get the thoughts out.
Try to notice what you are reacting to, and why. Having ADHD means we may have a tendency to act in 'all or nothing' thinking, such as quitting a job immediately vs staying in it for the rest of our life, but there are always so many options in between this. Remind yourself of the grey area. Yes, it's boring, but you do not have to do anything in this moment.
Remind yourself as often as you can that you are a human being, not a human doing. You have survived this far throughout your life and you do not have to do anything at all - just surviving is enough.
If you're worrying or feeling anxious, try to think ahead to the worst case scenario and what you'd do if it happened. We can often stay stuck in anxiety, but you can handle whatever life throws at you.
Try to break your 'goals' or timeframes down into much smaller chunks, like 'what do I want to do in the next 10 minutes?' instead of 'what do I want to do with my life?'. Try to just ask yourself this question and simply accept the answer. Who knows if any of us will even be here tomorrow!
Work with an ADHD coach (there's LOTS of wonderful ones being trained on this very topic this week at ADHD Works, who all need people to try it out with!), and therapist. Build a support network up of people who will celebrate you, and help you to understand how to enjoy your life.
Remember that your identity is not tied to the things you do. It's easy for us to get caught up in believing our work is our worth, but it's not. You are far more than a job title, or a list of achievements. You exist, and that in itself is enough.
I hope this is helpful, from one self-sabotaging soul to another. At the end of the day, the purpose of all of our lives here on this spinning ball of rock is to enjoy the time we've got.
Although it might feel like your brain has an answer for everything, remember that these are ultimately, just thoughts. We have thousands of thoughts every minute, and we can choose which ones to listen to, and which ones to act on. It might just take us a bit of training!
You deserve to be able to relax and enjoy the good times. It's okay to feel happy without having to apologise for it, or undermine yourself. Ultimately, you are still here - and if your brain really wanted to self-sabotage you, you wouldn't be - and you definitely wouldn't be reading this!
Find the parts of you that believe you are worthy of stability, kindness, and happiness, and consciously choose to listen to tune into this inner radio station (as inspired by Siobhan Brady!). You can trust yourself.