The Perfectionist

Adapted from Kelly and Ramundo

“The Perfectionist: Luke has decided that being the best regardless of the cost, is the only way to hide his deficits. Luke is a perfectionist. He has ADHD but those who know him would never believe it. Although his poor conduct grades reflected his restlessness, his behavior wasn’t disruptive enough to cause serious discipline problems in school. In general he followed the rules and did what was asked of him. Before he graduated he took part in many extracurricular activities and could be counted on to volunteer for any task that needed to be done.

You might be asking how someone with ADHD could function so well. Actually, he wasn’t really functioning very well despite his carefully constructed façade…Sometimes he longed to get off his treadmill but didn’t dare risk disclosure. If he failed to do everything, his secret would be out. Everyone would know he wasn’t normal. The hitch was that Luke didn’t have a clue about what normal was. He had kept his secret so long that he had inflated ideas about what other people could accomplish. His impaired sense of self, distorted by differences he didn’t understand, caused him to do anything that would bring acceptance.

Today he still works himself to death, compelled to do it all. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to do it all with so many conflicting demands on his time. Lately he feels that he’s losing control and that at any moment something horrible is going to happen. He can’t keep all the pieces together anymore. While Luke may look good to outsiders, he feels terrible inside. He has to spend all his energy running and hiding behind his façade of perfection. Knowing that he has just about pushed himself beyond his limits, he wonders when he’ll totally self-destruct.”

This was me two years ago. I ran across this description of a woman named Debra in the book “You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy.” It explains me better than I have ever been able to so I changed the name and a few pronouns to suit me. When I first read it I had to put the book down because it was so powerful. I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry or vomit.

In the past I have tried to write about or explain why I have always felt like an outsider. I always ended up frustrated or sad because I didn’t have the structure or descriptive characteristics needed to describe myself. I didn’t fit the stereotype of the disruptive and under-achieving ADDer but I could see every one of those qualities in my inner life.

I wanted to put this out there for anyone else in the same situation. I have come a long way in the last two years and am happy with a lot of my life today. There is hope. There are others who have been there or are still there. Things can get better!