Or should that be “I’m an ADHD Success at Being a Failure?”
You know, I can be successful. I’ve succeeded at many things, really I have. But there is something I’m not good at. Succeeding.
Whenever I accomplish something well, I don’t do well. I’m not sure why this is, but I have a couple of theories.
Theory one
When I was a younger person, I suspect that success, and the subsequent celebration there of, made me less than attentive to my responsibilities. This allowed me the opportunity to follow up a success with an immediate failure or string of failures. I’d be basking in the glory of a job well done and just simply forget that other jobs awaited my attention.
Theory one; subsection one
An additional aspect to this is that a partial success, as in successfully completing a well defined stage of the current project, would throw me into a very similar situation. It would afford me the opportunity to rest on my laurels and not actually finish the job.
Why did that happen? Well, if I needed to solve a problem in order to complete a task, solving that problem could easily become the entire focus for me. Once I’d immersed myself in solving the immediate problem I would have trouble transitioning back to the bigger picture, the main job.
After having both of these related situations happen time and time again, small successes would start to herald larger failures. I began to anticipate the arrival of the down side to every success. Like Eeyore, I began to expect the worst, especially if things were going well.
Theory two
I can recount situations in school where I would feel like I was way ahead of the game on one project or another. I’d come up with a brilliant idea, a great plan, or amazing concept as soon as I was told about the project. I’d be feeling good about my idea, feeling successful in advance. Then the deadline would suddenly arrive without my having actually done any work (we’ll talk about the perception of time for ADHDers soon, not now, but soon).
Plan “B”
My brilliant plan would die a slow and emotionally painful death, held inside, while I struggled to quickly accomplish something adequate. I would be remorseful over the lost opportunity to have acted on the original, brilliant idea. Even if the project turned out okay, it didn’t feel like success. In fact, even though I had succeeded in a manner of speaking, I not only had failed but I felt like I had let myself down.
It’s been a long road
I’m 52 years old and for the first half century of my life I was unaware that I was dealing with a defined set of circumstances. Today I recognize what I’ve described above as being brought about by aspects of ADHD.
But I still suffer from an inability to celebrate success. I’ve become somewhat stoic in life, choosing not to celebrate so much. I try not to get excited about accomplishments. If you hit your thumb often enough with a hammer, you will eventually give up driving nails.
But maybe screws and a screwdriver are a better choice –
I think the next time I feel that sensation of success creeping up on me, I’m going to try something different. I think I’m going to plan a celebration. I’ll plan exactly what it will be and when it will end … and then get back to being responsible.
If there is a well defined time for the celebration, after which I get on with my life, perhaps the celebration can become exactly that, a celebration. A good thing. I guess we’ll see.
