Sorry, not sorry for ADHD self-care:
Recently, I had an unusually people-filled weekend prompted by two birthdays at either end of the family spectrum.
First came my granddaughter’s 3rd birthday treat - a bouncy castle party, and the day that after we hosted my partner’s mum’s 80th party at our house.
Both had the potential to wipe me out mentally if I hadn’t practised the correct self care.
I know this because before I realised I was wired up differently to most people, I couldn’t understand why I found the most ordinary situations so difficult, and I just made myself do all the things and beat myself up afterwards for not coping well.
There are lessons to learn here even if you don’t have ADHD, so don’t think this won’t apply to you if you have a well-behaved brain!
Firstly, for my granddaughter’s bouncy castle party, her parents hired a HUGE sports hall that had NINE bouncy castles in it!
It was absolute toddler heaven (including my son who’s a big toddler at heart himself) - the kids had so much fun and it was a great venue, but I anticipated well in advance that I needed to wear my little Loop ear defenders so I could could cope better with the auditory hell of an echoey hall reverberating with the noise of nine huge air blowers and twenty-odd toddlers all high on cake and screaming with delight!
I also took an opportunity to take my grandson out in his pram along a peaceful woodland walk half way through the party.
That was just great!
By giving myself protection from noise and looking for a good opportunity to get a small breather, I was really able to relax there and enjoy seeing the kids have lots of fun.
In previous years, I’d have suffered inwardly and beat myself up for not coping well. We all have our thresholds for different kinds of interaction, so it’s worth taking a minute to think about the kinds of situations that make you uncomfortable.
Maybe you need to excuse yourself from them completely if you’re just attending out of a sense of duty, or come up with a strategy to help you enjoy them more if you want to attend.
Secondly, I had a real “Sorry, not sorry!” moment when a few weeks ago it was suggested that I have some overnight guests at my mother-in-law's party.
In the past, I might have felt obligated to let a couple of sweet old ladies stay over so they didn’t have to find alternative accommodation when I had plenty, but I had absolutely no problem rejecting that idea immediately and without any guilt.
Here’s the thing - as lovely as all the old ladies were, I needed them to not be in my house past 6 pm (just for clarity, the party started at 12:30 not 5!).
I needed to prepare for work the next day, and by that I don’t mean I needed to write up notes or work on a spreadsheet.
I mean I needed to have a calm, people-free evening so I could turn up with plenty of energy for my clients.
It would have been hell-on-earth for me trying to get ready to work whilst sorting out breakfast for old dears and ushering them out of the door before my first call, whilst listening to them tell me about Kev’s chubby cheeks when he was a kid for the fifty-eighth time.
I’d have probably ended up gagging them, rolling them up in a rug and calling for assistance!
One of the reasons I take this self-care stuff so seriously is I can’t do my best work when I’m not feeling rested and focused, and letting my clients down like that goes against my values.
(Rolling pensioners up in rugs obviously doesn’t go against my values! Needs must and all that...)
It’s one of the things I remind my clients of, especially those who provide services: when you protect your time and your energy, you serve your own clients better.
Nobody wants to work with a burnt out, busy fool who’s got nothing in the tank for them.
The trouble is, we’ve been conditioned to think being selfish is a bad thing.
It’s only bad when there is no potential benefit.
You don’t even have to say “Sorry”, let alone “Not Sorry!”