The brutally honest story of burning out with ADHD.

I put on my red blazer, apply my matching red lipstick and force myself into high heels I really can’t walk on but I look fierce, so it doesn’t matter.

I start this crazy new career adventure in London and everybody already loves my work and my personality before I even started. Because they give me such positive attention the dopamine my very ADHD brain so desperately craves keeps flowing. I feel extremely flattered, confident, and strong.

So far a good story, right? Except for the fact that within that confidence grows a little thing called overcompensation.

Overcompensation is something people with ADHD tend to do again and again because they are afraid someone will call them out on bad behaviour. For me, this was not different.

I say ‘yes’ a lot because I don’t want to disappoint others (You can read all about how that works in the article below).

How the ADHD Thought Train always makes me say ‘yes’ at work.

I run the extra mile just to show people they can count on me. Even when I’m exhausted and take a mental health day I’m checking in because I’m afraid people think I’m not doing enough.

I am a bit like Hyacinth in Keeping Up Appearances (If you don’t get that reference, very popular British sitcom from the 90s).

of course, unlike Hyacinth, there was nothing snobbish about me. I covered up the fact I didn’t get to do my laundry for weeks on end by walking around with a nice scarf covering up the stain on my shirt and occasionally I didn’t even take my long coat off because I had ripped my only clean jeans and had nothing else to wear.

By this point, the capacity in my brain is already 80% occupied. ADHD center Netherlands calls this the ADHD bucket and it opened my mind to how I wanted to change certain behaviours, but more on that later.

As you can probably tell from the visual above I don’t have much free thinking space left but if you think that lets me stop me, you are sorely mistaken. That’s the point where I give it an extra push! I work even harder to keep up appearance, I’m saying ‘yes’ even more and I use food and in the past also alcohol to calm my brain.

Fatty and/or sugary foods and/or alcohol give a dopamine rush in ADHD brains but please do see a specialist if you are struggling with food or alcohol abuse. I also got help and that changed everything. There are other ways to calm your brain.

So let’s sum it up: I am completely overworked, I poisoned my body, I can’t even run to a bus stop without being completely out of breath and I’m waking up emotionally every day. The ADHD bucket had now exploded.

So what do I do? What would someone without ADHD do? Yes, call in sick and work on it. Me? I quit my job. I failed to keep up my appearance. I don’t want my employer to think I am weak or not good enough so I rather leave the job and start over somewhere else. So I do.

I put on my red blazer, apply my matching red lipstick, and force myself into high heels I really can’t walk on but I look fierce, so it doesn’t matter. I march over to the office where I calmly explain I don’t see any more growth opportunities and hereby resign. They accept my resignation and tell me how they love my personality and work and leave me with a good reference. I walk out, extremely flattered, confident, and strong, on to the next burn-out.