I listened to a great podcast "The Happiness Project" by Sari Solden on adhd Experts today, episode 167. She spoke a lot about the damage and longterm effects on young girls growing up with ADHD but not knowing you had it. She spoke about how a lot of women with ADHD have their life on hold, they are waiting till they get their shit together before they will move forward to seeking out their happiness. She said that this can stem from childhood where parents would say "you can't go play until your homework is done or your room is clean. That really resonated with me.
For the past 8 years life has been busy with babies and a photography business, while it was chaotic I got through it, for a while. The the anxiety grew, trying to keep my family happy and clients happy became so overwhelming. The house was never clean, I was never happy and clients never got their stuff on time. I felt like I was always saying "I'm sorry", you can read more about that here.
About a year ago I put the business to the side. I thought it would be the best thing for my family. Surprisingly I slipped into depression. It was very slow, but very painful. I thought by having more free time, I would be able to get more done and find more joy. It was the opposite. I got less done and was more miserable. I felt guilty as hell if I was working on my own photography or something else creative. I was always telling myself you should not be sitting in front of your computer right now...you haven't even made your bed yet. Or finished the laundry or the dishes or etc..you get the point. The part I didn't truly get is that there will always be other things you could/should be doing, but taking time to do things that make you happy is important too. The hard part is allowing yourself to be happy while doing it. Being mindful is very import and fully immersing yourself into what makes you happy.
Since those of us with ADHD have major time management issues, we can be working on something during a little bit of free time and then look up 3 hours later and now you "schedule" (lol) is all messed up. Or you are in the middle of a project and you get up to go to the bathroom on their way there you see the dishes and feel guilty again so you do them and then get distracted doing something else and now your "schedule" is all messed up, you didn't get to enjoy your project AND you don't have time to clean it up.
Can anyone else relate to this?
I have recently started Bullet Journaling but not until writing this did I realize how important it is to schedule "me" time. I have heard before that that is important but it sounded so selfish and unproductive but it's actually totally the opposite. If the time is not scheduled then "me" things are always being done on a whim and for women this can feel like we do not have the right to be doing it at that moment...enter guilt, enter lack of joy and happiness...enter depression. So scheduling "me" time is basically giving yourself permission to enjoy your time knowing that is what that specific time is meant for, laundry has its time to so you don't have to stress and worry about it now.
So if you need to go to the bathroom right now, put your blinders on and go and then quickly come back so you are not losing out on your "me" time!!!
Check out Sari Soldens podcast, great information!
http://www.additudemag.com/RCLP/sub/12174.html
