ADHD and my perfectionist view of healing
Battling the black-and-white thinking that I'm making no progress
A mother of two kids in elementary school, I was just waiting for this to happen.
I was sick this week. My body dragged, my mind wandered, my energy lagged, my productivity suffered.
I took note of how I felt when I couldn’t do the things I wanted to, when I couldn’t rise to the occasion to, say, make an elaborate dinner for my family, tackle a big project at work, or make it out with friends to celebrate my belated birthday.
Disappointed.
My subconscious swirled with thoughts of inadequacy… as if I had chosen to be sick… as if I were somehow inventing my illness… as if it were an excuse to be my old “letting everyone down” self.
It turns out the experience of being sick mirrors that of an ADHD backslide.
While the rational parts of me - that, yes, do exist - know that it’s okay to listen to my body and take the rest I need, I couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that I wasn’t healing perfectly.
A bad day - whether because I’m sick or not - always seems to throw me for a loop and make me question if I’m healing at all.
I’m not supposed to have bad days anymore.
The truth is, this is a bit of a backslide, but not in the way I’m imagining it. It’s a fallback to my old habit of beating myself up for things outside of my control. It’s a regression to a time when I had very little self-acceptance. It’s a throwback to my black-and-white thinking that made me believe healing was an all-or-nothing enterprise.
So, this note is for anyone feeling down on themselves for canceling plans, needing a day to recover after plans, having a sad and unproductive weekend, or being sick and unable to tackle dinner or the to-do list items eating at their soul. And it’s a reminder for myself, too.
It’s all okay. We are allowed to be human. We are allowed to have bad days. We are allowed to take sick days. We are allowed to need mental health days. We are allowed to have low-capacity days. We are allowed to feel overwhelmed or scared or lonely or lost.
And most importantly, we are allowed to listen to our bodies and respond to our own needs, because they matter. Healing is about giving ourselves grace. Go take a nap.
Nothing is permanent. Healing isn’t linear. And there’s no perfect way to be human.