My undiagnosed ADHD has made me feel worthless for most of my life and has had drastic effects on my self-esteem.
As a young kid – until about 3rd grade – I was constantly at the top of my class in terms of intelligence, athletic ability, and social skills. Everything I did was right and it felt natural. As I progressed into the grades where more sustained study and effort was required, my self-esteem began to suffer because I couldn’t make myself work the way I knew I needed to. I could see clearly what I needed to do to get As, but just did not have the energy. I still felt smart but also started to feel like I was always behind – always trying to catching up. This is when I started to overeat and became one of the kids who were always about 20 pounds overweight. The weight gain and poor performance in school hurt my self-esteem a lot.
Growing up in a family with a lot of abuse had also led me to the conclusion that nothing was more important than the approval of others. Sometime before I went to high school I concluded that doing well in school was the only way I could get approval. I also noticed that people respected academic accomplishments more when the person played sports. My ADHD was going to make it very hard to do well in school, and sports just took up more energy. I was fighting a constant uphill battle because I thought I was supposed to. My self-esteem was as low as it could go because others were doing the same stuff as me with little or no effort.
I overextended myself at every opportunity. I abandoned the hope that I could motivate myself and relied on the fear of approaching deadlines. The fear of failing out of school made me study. The fear of looking like a fool on the football field made me exercise. I could never focus on anything but my exhaustion and depression. I thought the only solution was to keep moving.
I continued the same behavior into college and right after graduation suffered and emotional collapse in the form of a panic disorder. My self-esteem was almost non-existent.
I set myself up for failure because I have always thought that I could feel good if others approved of me. My criteria for approval involved academic “success” which my undiagnosed ADHD made almost impossible. I spent years beating myself up for being lazy.
Recently I am learning that my criteria of approval and success are all self-imposed and artificial. My self-esteem right now is questionable but that is higher than it has been in a long time. I am taking time to value myself and beginning to realize that it has taken a lot of energy and determination to fight my ADHD for so long. I never gave up and have even accomplished some things with my life. I can be and should be very proud of that.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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Thanks for explaining about ADHD. I am interested in how it manifests with people in relationships.
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