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ADHD

bananajammer avatar
bananajammer
11
6 months ago

Struggling at work

I’ve been struggling at work for a while now. Everything that happens feels like a personal attack and I can’t seem to get into the headspace of assuming miscommunication before malice. It’s effecting me so much that I’m shrinking away from coworkers and things I loved doing at work before I’m now dreading. Before downloading this app I didn’t know that my ADHD can also include dysfunctional emotional regulation. I got diagnosed with ADHD last year and take medication every day for it. It feels like people at work just think I’m an emotional mess and that I take everything too personally. I have tried a few times to explain ADHD to my boss but he doesn’t understand. I’ve had some trouble with remembering to clock out and in at the beginning and end of my day. I made adjustments to my day by programming a desktop application that will calculate when I need to clock out based on when I clocked in and reminds me at those times. I tried to explain that time works differently for me. I get hyper focused on what I’m doing and don’t even notice when its time to clock out. I love my job from a technical standpoint so it’s easy for me to get hyper focused. This week my calendar notifications stopped working and I was late to every meeting. Again I explained to him how my brain processes the passage of time differently and that if I don’t get the notification to remind me of the meeting I don’t remember there even is one. He told me that he can’t empathize with me because he doesn’t experience it himself. It feels like a struggle to fit in at work and the team just labels me as disorganized, always late, over emotional. It makes me want to pull away and keep to myself. I’m a really social person and I worry the team thinks I don’t like them or that I can’t handle myself at work. Have you guys experienced something like this? How did you cope? Is there anything I can do to regain the teams trust and prove to my boss that I’m not an over emotional person?

Micah9! avatar
Micah9!
5mo

I don’t have a ton of personal experience with this. I was only diagnosed a few months ago. But, I would say first thing is to not emphasize too much how your peers are perceiving you. I am only recently coming to understand that how I think the way others perceive me is often inaccurate and much more critical than reality. I don’t know if this is a good option for you, but you might need a buffer. See if you can take a day or two and work from home (or even better to take the time off!). If you recognize that you’re being overly judgmental in assuming everyone is being mean and you are still struggling to avoid doing that then some space between you and them might be helpful to give your brain and emotions a break to reset. As far as the clock in and out goes: I do have experience with that! Happens all the time. My supervisor allows me to roll my hours over so that I don’t go over my allotted time every pay period. Meaning if all I have is 40 hours that week before I hit over time I can work 15 on Monday if I want as long as I am at 40 at the end of the week. So, sometimes this means I will only have 1 or 2 hours on Friday (if I have any hours left at all). This, of course also depends on overtime. I do get paid overtime. Maybe talk to your boss and see if he can be flexible in regards to that? Obviously he isn’t the most empathetic to ADHD, so I would stop mentioning it to him. Just present it like, “I am the most productive when I can work under these conditions and I think this can really be a boon to the company and team, etc.” And see what he says. Most bosses like it when their employees take some initiative, so present it like you’re taking initiative and see if that gets you anywhere. I hope this helps 🙂

rainbowtoady avatar
rainbowtoady
5mo

Really good advice 👍

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