Day 2 Done for the next session 😊

The mask I've been wearing most: Pleasing others, always helping others, and taking on more work than I could realistically manage. I often said yes to extra tasks and projects to support my manager or colleagues, even when I was already on the verge of feeling overwhelmed. Constantly trying to meet everyone else's expectations ultimately contributed to my burnout.

How exhausting it's been: It has been incredibly exhausting. I always told myself that I loved work and wanted to do my very best. That may be linked to my ADHD, as I feel a real sense of satisfaction when I accomplish something, if I don’t feel like accomplished anything I feel miserable. However, after 47 years, I'm no longer sure whether I genuinely love working or whether I'm driven by the feeling of completing tasks, I feel lost, if I’m honest😒.

The problem comes when there are simply too many tasks and too many responsibilities. Taking on extra work to please other’s and until I reach a point where I have no idea where to start. I would get through the working week, but by the weekend I was completely exhausted.

Before my symptoms became significantly worse, I felt like I had everything under control and could manage it all, even though I was masking and trying to appear as though everything was fine. When perimenopause began, my ADHD symptoms became much more intense more noticeable, and I noticed a real shift in myself.

By the weekend, I would spend most of my time trying to recover from the previous week and prepare myself for the next week. Even though I was exhausted, I would criticise myself for not achieving more during the week and on the weekends. Instead of recognising that I needed rest, I felt guilty for "wasting" the weekend recovering, and then I would feel even worse for not getting everything done that I had hoped or planned to, and this was without others then making me feel even worse by criticising what I hadn’t done too.

What I loved as a kid (before the masks):

I loved drawing and painting. I could spend hours completely absorbed in creating a picture, losing track of time because I enjoyed it so much.

Friction Audit complete, this are the exact steps i have to take: I have prepare my desk, switched on my computer, and I have written the steps down that I need to consider before completing it in the next session.

1 comment