Does anyone else feel a degree of imposter syndrome with work, like it’s only matter of time until you can’t work around your ADHD enough to avoid problems and everything falls apart?
I’m currently provisionally diagnosed with ADHD, pending further testing. I managed to get a degree and was working for a few years when someone recommended I get tested where I proceeded to finally pass this one test with flying colors…
My experience with work is that in the beginning, my attitude and enthusiasm to learn tends to give my bosses the impression that I have so much potential.
Then, cue the slow car crash that is me failing to meet that potential, then the cracks starting to show due to disorganisstion or task paralysis in my work, eventually putting me in a position where my competency is questioned and I’m falling behind on work because I’m struggling to meet (imo) great expectations that might seem realistic to neurotypical people, but is a struggle for me.
Then I jump ship to a new job, and the cycle restarts.
I thought I had a handle on my latest job. Stayed for just over a year. I thought this was it, I wasn’t an imposter, I was finally fitting in. Then cracks, and everything fell apart and I’m now at risk of losing my job again. I tried my best, and I just feel disappointed in myself, like even I can’t trust myself to do things right even at max effort.
This sucks.
It’s pure neuroticism. Ask yourself objectively if there’s any such thing as this kind of “imposter.” That doesn’t exist. You have a job, and you try to do it. You’ll make mistakes and you’ll learn from them. Dwelling on these thoughts and feelings is the real waste of time, the real weakness.
Some of these fundamental attributes are always going to trip you up. I don’t have a solution. But you obviously have to relax and focus on always improving. Just like anybody else. Dwelling on “imposter syndrome” is just adding a new obstacle.
Hm, it feels like I’m always expecting the other shoe to drop, for the inevitable collapse to happen. I’m always scared of that, and so far, despite best efforts, it’s been true.
I usually reach a point where I’m struggling to deliver even a “reasonable” workload in possibly some form of burnout, and then mistakes happen, and bosses start to side eye me. My lack of ability to notice detail at times also doesn’t help, even if I do double back to check.
But I’m still early in my career, so I am learning, developing new coping skills and moving on to do better (I hope).
I work in IT, specifically desktop support. Over the last decade I’ve moved up into management and I’ve always had that feeling of things are going to fall to the ground any minute now. Everything is overwhelming and how can I possibly keep up. I just need to work faster. I decided to get tested when I moved into management and it got even harder to keep track of everything. I was diagnosed with combined adhd as well as moderate depression and anxiety maybe 6 months after that.
The thing that helped me most with getting a handle on my job has been medication, especially adderall/vyvanse (I like adderall better, but this ongoing shortage sucks). It can still be hard to concentrate, but I have a much easier time figuring out what needs to be done and being able to concentrate on that and somewhat ignore all the millions of other things that I need to pay attention to.
As long as you expect yourself to fail, it’ll eventually happen. Even if you’re doing a perfect job, you’ll burn yourself out with the stress of feeling like you’ll eventually fail. One thing that could help, if you don’t already, keep a task list as well. Even if it’s reminders of the things you need to do. I’ve found having that has helped me remember the next day or even later that same day the things I need to do.
What do you need to do to get from a provisional ADHD diagnosis to a full one? And have you mentioned to your doctor the anxiety you have for work?
I just want to chime in real quick, with something that’s not quite helpful (at least at first). Your fear is actually affecting your behavior towards others in your company, like your bosses. Of course I don’t know your situation, but it’s pretty likely that if you’d just confidently do everything the same as you’re doing now performance-wise, acting as if the mistakes are not a big deal and you just fix them, you’d have absolutely no problems right now.
This is not helpful in the sense that it adds another thing to worry about, but for me it was very helpful in the sense that I could actually forget about my performance and not worry about it anymore, and replace it with that other thing. And once I had figured out how to act confident in face of my mistakes, even that went away.
I can confirm this works too! Fake it till you make it really does work because it is basically practice.