You just gave me a huge insight into myself I had never realized—I think I did the same thing with school regarding work and never realized it. All through graduate school I could push myself to keep doing more and more work, and I would celebrate the end of a unit in a class or the end of a semester by really letting loose, partying, and drinking. I think that pattern translated into my work life (when problems started) and then peaked during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing your story, it helped me learn something about my own maladaptive patterns.
You’re very welcome! Something else interesting is that the pandemic really broke my productivity, and I discovered I had ADHD that was never diagnosed. It was the whole forcing myself thing that masked it all my life.
I dunno if that’s true for you also, but I figure we’re similar enough that it could be helpful.
Yeah I definitely have ADHD, but have been functioning well and I think I self treated by career selection (I work in the ER and the ability to hyperfocus and rapidly task switch is actually an asset).
I had no idea that hyper focusing was a symptom until later, and it makes so much sense in retrospect. That’s basically what I did to force myself to plow through work
![Drinking in your 20s vs 30s [Sarah Anderson]](https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/bdd00dec-88cd-4a64-acd3-6ac89d114f97.jpeg){kind=link}
You just gave me a huge insight into myself I had never realized—I think I did the same thing with school regarding work and never realized it. All through graduate school I could push myself to keep doing more and more work, and I would celebrate the end of a unit in a class or the end of a semester by really letting loose, partying, and drinking. I think that pattern translated into my work life (when problems started) and then peaked during the pandemic. Thanks for sharing your story, it helped me learn something about my own maladaptive patterns.
You’re very welcome! Something else interesting is that the pandemic really broke my productivity, and I discovered I had ADHD that was never diagnosed. It was the whole forcing myself thing that masked it all my life.
I dunno if that’s true for you also, but I figure we’re similar enough that it could be helpful.
Yeah I definitely have ADHD, but have been functioning well and I think I self treated by career selection (I work in the ER and the ability to hyperfocus and rapidly task switch is actually an asset).
I had no idea that hyper focusing was a symptom until later, and it makes so much sense in retrospect. That’s basically what I did to force myself to plow through work