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My #ADHDphd friends in remote work: how are you doing? I am really really really struggling. Everyone keeps telling me that we all have a hard time, and that I'm not doing as bad as all that, and they believe in me. But it feels different.
I am apologizing to everyone who catches me, and avoiding everyone who can't. All my organization and self-regulation and motivation tools have been taken from me by remote work. "We're all adapting!" they say, patting me, but I am not adapting. I am drowning.
I'm sorry I missed the meeting / the deadline / the email / the appointment. I feel sick with shame. Also, I'm going to keep missing them. I'm struggling immensely and working so so so hard, and using everything I've learned from therapy.
I. Can't. Work. Like. This. I can't have everything inside one screen. I can't motivate myself from nothing and no contact. I can't go looking for what I have to do all the time. I can't keep track of it, I can't get ahead of it, I can't keep up. It's the executive function.
Everyone keeps telling me how thoughtful I am, and how smart, and how capable. That's true. But I'm talking about something different. Everything about my work environment and conditions has changed, for the worse, for my conditions. And I am in quicksand.
People I love keep dying. But this isn't grief, or depression. This is me having worked out over 17 years how to run the term marathon, and this year I have to run it on my hands, blindfolded. I can't do it like that. I can go the distance, but not like this.
It's true everyone is finding this hard. But neurodivergent people are finding it, often, truly harder. I just wish someone would believe me. Not believe in me, like "you can do it!" Because I can't. Believe in me like, "this is too hard for you, you need help." I'm drowning.
People are mad at me. Mad at me for failing to do things I warned everyone I was going to fail at doing. Things I tried to not have to do. Things I was cajoled or coerced--on account of my competence or my duty--into having to do. And then failing at. I warned everyone.
I tried. I told everyone that I was afraid exactly this scenario would produce itself, and I fought it mightily the entire term, at great personal cost. And I *am* failing at things, just like I was afraid of. I feel pretty hopeless about it. People think answering emails is easy
It's not easy. I wish you could be inside my brain, to know how incredibly hard I push myself for so little result, and I'm exhausted and miserable and anxious all the time, waiting for someone to tell me what I fucked up now, because I forgot.
So. Yeah. #ADHD and fully remote work is peeling away my mental health one discussion post at a time, one Teams meeting at a time, one library recall notice at a time. And it's NOT the same as what everyone is experiencing. It's just not.