The trouble with doing it 'My Way'

the ADHD struggle to conform

Frank Sinatra sang “I did it my way” and I have always felt that this song is the theme song to my life. For good or bad, I always have to do it my way or I cannot do it. You would think that this is a positive quality but often it does not come across as such. Even though I don’t really have many regrets in life, I do often wish that I could have chosen a less difficult route through all of life’s adventures.

Is this part of not accepting authority? As a child I was hideously shy and yet would instantly charge to the head of my secondary school when I perceived an injustice, never thinking that his authority level was too high for me to address. In one of my last employed jobs I ran afoul of the school lead as I simply told him I was going to work from home so that I could concentrate better, without considering the possibility that I might have to ask permission…

As a consequence I have long stated that I only accept authority when I am the one in authority. Even then my authority feels more like being a spokes person, a coordinator, rather than being someone who takes all the decisions. I have always discussed everything with the team and only then take the decision with their input. Does this resonate with any other ADHDer? I guess I have a strong need for autonomy in making decisions and automatically give this to others too. I have no problem delegating responsibility for tasks and will then assume the other person will have the autonomy to design and implement the task, only asking for feedback, not for permission.

Part of this strange quirk in my being is also that I find it hard to finish projects if I feel I have completed the bits that were relevant to me. I once read the book ‘Refuse to Choose’ by Barbara Sher and her take on this was a revelation to me. Being able to simply ‘bless it and let it go’ meant that I no longer had to feel guilt and shame that I could never seem to complete projects. Ironically, because the guilt and the shame were no longer there, completing projects became easier as long as I could figure out the relevance they still had for me.

Examples of projects I did not complete are:

My masters in applied positive psychology and coaching psychology (as the research paper I would have written would have needed to include way too many papers that showed ADHD as a disorder, which I disagree with). I ended up with the postgraduate diploma.

The vegetable garden I took on at the intentional community I lived at for a while. I cleaned the greenhouse, supervised the digging of the bed, sowed all the seeds, and then people came and messed up my system so I no longer had any idea which seeds were in which container and the beds had been planted with, to me, the wrong things. I left the garden to the others. At the same community I had intended to paint one of the main rooms. We had discussed colours and had chosen one. I was all prepared and then they reopened the choice of colours. I stopped and left them to it.

My permaculture training (although happily I can pick it up again if I wish to do so) when I left said community and no longer had any land to work with.

Yoga teacher training when I started living in a van and found it hard to do the practice.

Several business and niching courses when they stopped feeling relevant.

I joined a franchise that sounded brilliant but could not continue as it would have meant using their brand colours, their slides for presentations and their way of explaining things. I struggled and then gave up and lost a lot of money on it. This also means that although I think I could really do with a partner to take on the business and marketing side, I struggle with that idea as it might mean I could not do it my way.

Doing it my way seems to mean never taking the easy road. Instead of becoming a state trained teacher, I became a Steiner Waldorf teacher, giving me less places to work and lower salaries, but giving me the opportunity to teach my way.

It meant trying out different living options, like van life, caravan life, intentional community life, and right now starting digital nomad life. I could have stayed in the house I owned. But that did not feel like my way…..

Tell me I am not the only one that never seems to fit in the existing boxes!