Statement: My intent in this newsletter is to express as quickly as possible my own beliefs and opinions on matters. I have no problems with people who disagree with my opinion and have even been swayed to rethink my position from time to time.
We are still taking book orders for my new book "ADHD and The Criminal Justice System" and you can get my author's discount from the AMAZON.COM price...
Patrick Hurley was recently appointed to the Professional Advisory Board of the Attention Deficit Disorder Association. For more information you can go to www.add.org
Patrick also spoke on October 15, 2007 at the National Conference on Correctional Health Care
in Nashville, TN on his book. The Conference is sponsored by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), which has an impressive membership.
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Many people I know with ADHD have an underlying sense that they are living their lives like they are acting in a play. They look at themselves, when they are alone, and feel that in some ways they are frauds. They may do well at their jobs, or in volunteer activities, and then come home and know they struggle with the same areas they seem to do well with. They may portray a happy go lucky, always upbeat person to the public, and come home from their day of acting only to crash and burn in self doubt, depression and being a fake.
We look at ourselves and know that we have abilities and skills, but convince ourselves that we can only do these things out of desperation with what others might think of us if they only knew the truth. We look at ourselves as lazy, unmotivated failures who cannot do anything well, unless it is visible to the public eye. Most of us have an unrealistic picture of how important we are. We magnify out of proportion what, and how much, people might think about us. It is somewhat like delusions of grandeur. Most people probably have enough problems of their own to spend any time evaluating our lives and making judgements about us.
But knowing this does not always mean that we stop our obsessive tendency to put the best public image available out there. It is pretty normal for most people to do this, it is not normal that we obsess over it, or that we spend so much time ruminating over our actual importance in other peoples lives. I am not saying this to insult anyone, I am only speaking from my own experience of feeling like I had to please everyone and that people were probably out there examining my life with a microscope, which of course they aren't. This didn't mean I didn't continue to think they did. Some may call this being paranoid. I don't feel it is as much paranoid, as it is a overestimating my importance in other peoples lives.
If we do something wrong in our lives, we have a harder time putting it in the past. We feel it validates what we have always thought about ourselves, frauds, fakes, insincere, basically that we are not the person whom we portray to others we are. This becomes a mental block to us in other areas, such as seeking better employment, a promotion or asking for a raise.
Our self esteem is usually so low that we have to get it from third parties in the form of compliments or praise. Even if during those times when we can actually analyze our strengths and know we have many good things to offer, we struggle with being able to self promote ourselves with any real confidence. It feels like a continuation of the act we repeat on a daily basis, and makes us feel even more like frauds.
About the only thing I know that helps is actually thinking about how much of my day is spent judging other people around me, and realizing that it is hardly any time at all. Then I know that others cannot possibly spend much of their time judging others, and if they do, they are probably not anyone that I would care or value their opinion of me anyhow. So as long as we are doing things right, and not coming home and kicking the dog, beating our spouse or yelling at our kids, we are probably doing as well as can be expected. It helps me, and even though I have relapses, I can usually come back to these thoughts to ground myself.
We are important, but not half as important as we might think we are. We impact others in our lives, but not nearly as many as we might think we do. We are evaluated by others based on our actions, but it probably is only briefly and quickly forgotten. We make mistakes in our lives, but probably fewer than many others do. We might feel like we are acting all day long, which can be exhausting, but everyone does a certain amount of acting everyday.
Don't take yourself too seriously or magnify your weaknesses. Focusing too much on our weaknesses only diminishes those areas in our lives where we can excel and reach our full potential, no matter what that might be.
Thanks and talk to you next month.
Patrick Hurley
addcorridorcoach@aol.com
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