My Bad ADHD Day…

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of imagerymajestic / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I’ve been living with ADHD my whole life. Even though I’ve managed to live with my ADHD, there are days where it can impact me more than others. Yesterday was one of those days.

Let me start with things at home. My computer network at home stopped working properly. I decided that I would try and fix everything in about ten minutes (that’s the amount of time I had before I needed to leave for the office). Of course, I wasn’t able to solve the problem. While luckily I didn’t really ruin anything, I wasn’t able to fix it either.

At work, a few things began coming undone simultaneously. One of my clients has been struggling with some things over the summer. It has gotten to a point where it has caused major stress in his life and has impacted his relationship with his family. This impact has caused our work to become discombobulated. The client’s way of utilizing our time and his family’s vision are skewed. My client would like me to help him better understand why his ADHD impacts his work. His family would like me to offer him solutions. My philosophy has always been that the easy or surface solutions for ADD, ADHD and Executive Functioning are temporary fixes to a bigger problem. I make this clear to my clients, but this family can lose focus and want things fixed.

This family has a tendency of reacting quickly before learning all the details. I’ve learned that these parents can get very overwhelmed. The stress of this situation has caused them to want solutions. When they feel overwhelmed, they will attack the process and undo some of their child’s accomplishments. Think of it this way, if you feel good about something and then the person you care about belittles it; wouldn’t that cause you to doubt things? They also come after my work as well. When they cannot conceptualize my approach, they come out on the offensive. I’m usually able to walk them through the process, but yesterday was very difficult. I’ve decided I am going to call the family today and further explain the philosophy about my approach. I think they needed to sleep on some of this, so this will help clarify things a little more. They’re great people and wonderful clients, but yesterday’s summer concerns blew up and showed how frustrated everyone was with the situation.

The other negative work situation came from client that regularly has issues with family ADHD. What I mean by this is that the parents struggle with their own ADHD issues and this causes all kinds of problems for their child. In this particular case, the family didn’t tell me about a summer project the child needed to address for school. However, they shared this information with a colleague that trusts my work. The colleague wondered why I didn’t help the family with this issue.

After clarifying the situation with my colleague, she had a greater understanding of what occurred. I have no problem admitting when I make a mistake, but when something appears to slip through the cracks that isn’t my fault, I get frustrated. Dealing with my own ADHD is difficult enough.

When these types of days happen, I try to focus on the big picture. Obviously, we’re going to have bad days. But when I look at the bigger picture, I am a very lucky person. Looking at the glass as half-full never is a bad thing.

For more information on my ADD, ADHD and Executive Functioning coaching, please visit www.adhdefcoach.com. In addition to working with clients in-person, I also work with clients all over the United States and World online, please visit www.onlineadhdcoach.com for more information. To learn more about my other services, please visit www.carrolleducationalgroup.com & www.iepexperts.com. I can be found on Twitter at ADHDGuru. You can also find me on Facebook, Google Plus and Tumblr. Feel free to email me at [email protected] or call 877.398.ADHD (2343) with any additional questions.

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