Growing up, my parents didn't have encouragement or patience in their emotional toolkit. You were expected to do everything perfectly - homework, writing a letter, any kind of planning, even sweeping the floor or washing dishes - and if you struggled in any way you were berated at length.
Many decades later even mundane things can be a battle - ringing a doctor to ask for an appointment, or a provider to query a bill, filling in forms and so on. Most of my procrastination stems from my experiences back them. It is easier in my mind to defer action than to risk the imagined verbal abuse. I'd imagine a fair share of non-ADHD related organisational issues can be traced to similar experiences.
Just like you can't out-train a bad diet, you can't out-live a shitty childhood.
Really sorry you went through this. Your experience reminds me of mine, which left me to contend with a lifetime of challenges.
> Just like you can't out-train a bad diet, you can't out-live a shitty childhood.
I think I’d challenge this slightly. Out training a bad diet probably doesn’t work, but is better than a bad diet with no training. And when you fix your diet, the training can start working wonders.
My childhood left deep and unhealthy imprints, but I’m no longer in that environment. I think you can out-live a shitty childhood, by changing your diet so to speak. This is grueling work, painful, slow, and often frustrating. But replacing old patterns can really transform living in the same way changing a bad diet can transform the process of training.
Over time I’ve come to believe strongly that the only thing harder than dealing with the past is not dealing with it. And over time, this gradually transforms the present. I very much prefer the late 30s version of me to all of the preceding iterations.
Best of luck on your own journey. Send me an email if you ever want to chat. (Not selling anything, just someone who cares about this topic a lot).
That sums up a lot of workplace disfunction. Proactively pushing new ideas and then getting blamed for failure, not applauded for them attempt. It’s why corporates can’t innovate internally.
The book "Learned Optimism" was a life changing read for me coming from this kind of background. It includes exercises that start to rewire your brain. Highly recommended.
But with the upside that it is technically unknown whether or not you actually could have pulled it off if you tried, and if every once in a while you manage to perform the impossible, that covers for 100 failures.
People who don't care about their children don't care about this, of course. You have failed them simply by being a child.
"Why didn't you just have better parents you stupid little brat, didn't anybody teach you anything you absolute dumbass lazy #%!£ moron?"
It did mess up with my ego heavily. Because once in a while I would actually manage to push through anxiety and do something, and I'd succeed.
Unfortunately it made me quite narcistic, as I ended up with belief that I could always succeed, if only I gave in some effort - but as I never tried to do that in practice, I ended up at the top of Dunning-Kruger curve. High ego, no skills.
Excelling at school & career at an early age, while being absolutely trashed at home/family time, gave me the anxt from sticking my head out of the room. But, at the same time, while out and about, already working on something, subconcious power trip in most interactions.
Like, when I am already on a roll, I have this vivid vision of the tasks to take & tools to use. I am quick to decide and to come up with solutions and at the same time very loud about it.
But every time I wake up, I feel worthless, scared that I am not enough, that one step into the world, means step between thousands of angry faces that want to hold my face against a gutter.
Many decades later even mundane things can be a battle - ringing a doctor to ask for an appointment, or a provider to query a bill, filling in forms and so on. Most of my procrastination stems from my experiences back them. It is easier in my mind to defer action than to risk the imagined verbal abuse. I'd imagine a fair share of non-ADHD related organisational issues can be traced to similar experiences.
Just like you can't out-train a bad diet, you can't out-live a shitty childhood.