I was listening to the radio the other day when My Own Worst Enemy by Lit came on - a fine example of pop-punk from the late 90’s.
And while I enjoyed the song, what stuck with me was thinking about the name of that song, My Own Worst Enemy. This is a feeling I have often felt with my ADHD. I seem to have an endless supply of maladaptive and self-destructive behaviors that stem from the condition.
Poor time management, hyper-focusing on non-priority tasks, overcommitting, and procrastination are just a few examples of how my ADHD can manifest in ways that feel counterproductive.
And what we’re talking about is a view of our worst self.
That self of ours comes out in ways that we may later regret or that seem to work against our interests. And with ADHD, these moments can be frequent and frustrating. There have been many times when I’ve thought about this worst self of mine and how I wish I could undo all the bad inside of me. I mean, looking around online, it isn’t hard to find people who prescribe how you can become your best self. However, many of our worst selves' behaviors do not indicate our value as people; instead, they’re a reflection of our unmet needs and coping mechanisms.
And so in today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about this worst self of ours, how it manifested, why perhaps we should have a bit more empathy for these maladaptive behaviors, and also how we can work on moving forward to perhaps not our best self, but at least possibly, a better one.
Our worst selves often emerge when we're trying to make up for the ways ADHD impacts our lives. So, it’s essential to keep in mind that these behaviors manifest for a reason, such as when we are trying to compensate for something.
For instance, overcommitting might stem from a desire to prove our capabilities or avoid disappointing others, while procrastination can be a response to fear of failure or perfectionism.
While other times, they will manifest directly because of our ADHD.
Poor time management might arise from our struggles to prioritize or an inability to estimate how long activities will take. Hyper-focusing on non-priority tasks can help avoid the overwhelming anxiety of starting a high-priority project - or simply be a way for us to build stimulation during an otherwise unstimulating activity.
This is an essential idea to embrace. Often, when we think about the habits and behaviors that we see in our worst selves, we simply see them as something that needs to be excised.
If I’m procrastinating and think, “Well, maybe I should just do the thing”. That I “just” shouldn’t procrastinate. And I’ll stand up and walk over to the thing I’m supposed to be doing and then stare at it for a minute before wandering away because I didn’t address the actual reason I was procrastinating.
Procrastination can come from many different sources, and if I’m not addressing the cause and just trying to address the symptom (which in this case is procrastination itself), then I’m not going to make any progress in solving the problem.
If it’s perfectionism, then I need to redefine what done looks like. Maybe I’m understimulated, and I need to make the task more interesting. Perhaps I don’t know where to start, and I need to break down the task into more manageable pieces.
Each of those reasons for procrastination requires a different approach to solving the problem. I can’t just say, “Procrastination be gone,” and expect any results. Although, now that I say it, that feels kind of fun, so that might work a little bit.
And this is true for many of our maladaptive behaviors. These behaviors happen for a reason, and if we can work on identifying the root behavior, then that puts us in the right direction for modifying those outcomes. Of course, this doesn’t mean we’ll always find simple and easy solutions. In fact, most of the time, we will see that we will have a lot of work ahead of us, especially for those maladaptive behaviors that have really baked in. We’re also going to find that many of these behaviors aren’t just a result of a single source. For example, I may go well my perfectionism comes from my desire to not disappoint people - but then I have to work on figuring out why it’s so important for me to not disappoint people. And that, in turn, may lead to something else.
Now, I do want to be clear that I am not trying to absolve anyone of the consequences of our worst selves. Some of the more extreme maladaptive behaviors we can develop, like anger issues, addiction, or self-harm, can have dire consequences. Rather, this episode is aiming at trying to build that gap of empathy that we might have in regard to those behaviors.
While it may seem that we should not have empathy for these behaviors, it’s important to realize that they don’t exist in a vacuum. If we want to start modifying those behaviors, then it is also important to understand why we developed them in the first place. Coming from a place of judgment isn’t going to help us find a solution, and I often find that the judgment itself often obfuscates the reason. If I have an angry outburst and label it as me being a bad person, well, that’s not especially helpful for trying to correct that behavior in the future. But if I can step back and say, well, that was probably because I had a bad night's sleep and skipped breakfast. Okay, that’s something I can work on - and not just in terms of, hey, I need to take better care of myself, but also that I can go, hey, when I’m not taking care of myself, I am more likely to get irrationally angry at small things, I should watch out for the signs that I’m heading into that mental state so I can head those things off so I don’t blow up like that again. I can work on identifying the mental habits that lead to that kind of reaction and see if I can adjust so that even when I’m cranky, I’m not also blowing up.
This self-compassion is one of the most critical steps in managing our ADHD. It's easy to fall into the trap of negative self-talk, where we berate ourselves for perceived failures and shortcomings, especially maladaptive behaviors. However, this only exacerbates the problem by reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and creating other maladaptive behaviors.
Negative self-talk itself tends to be a maladaptive behavior that we often develop to try and preemptively protect ourselves from what we think we’ll hear from others. It can frequently come out in the form of self-deprecating humor. No one can make fun of me about how late or forgetful I am if I’m ahead of the game and making the jokes. Now, to be sure, that won’t always be the case, but more often than not, when I see someone making a joke at their own expense, you can bet that it is something they are actually sensitive about.
Again, this is where I think it’s essential for us to have empathy for ourselves. If we can understand that we’re being mean to ourselves to protect ourselves, it helps us see how maybe that isn’t the best approach for what we’re trying to achieve.
Because maybe making myself feel bad isn’t the best way to keep me from… feeling bad?
And again, having a realization like that doesn’t make the process of changing those hard-baked habits suddenly easy. If I’ve been using self-deprecating humor for years, it’s going to be hard to break out of that habit. I know when I started working on overcoming some of my negative self-talk, I had that thought:
“Man, I’m such a piece of trash.”
“Wait, no, I shouldn’t call myself trash.”
“Yeah, only a piece of trash would call themselves trash.”
Thanks for the piece of wisdom, brain!
Of course, I responded to the course correction with more negative self-talk because that was the habit I developed. Fortunately for me, I found the humor in this particular situation, and the absurdity helped me work through the moment.
We can build on these ideas as we choose to approach our worst selves with empathy. We can recognize that these behaviors are not signs of weakness or a moral failing but as a response to difficult circumstances. By understanding the root causes of our actions, we can begin to address them more effectively.
We can also consider some of the ways that some of our other “worst self” behaviors develop. I’m thinking about things like being “lazy”, which I find is something that often comes up when I’m thinking about my worst self - I mean, I’m not doing all those things I want to be doing so it fits in there real nice. Now, I’ve done episodes before about how being lazy isn’t really a thing, but for this episode, I’m going to focus on an economic idea I have a bit of a problem with but still will help illustrate what I’m talking about and that’s the idea of Maximizing vs. Satisficing.
The basic idea is that maximizing involves seeking the best possible outcome, while satisfying is about settling for a good enough outcome. My problem with this idea is that I feel like maximizing has a problem with definitions because it’s about maximizing our outcome, but the maximum outcome is subjective.
We might see this concept in terms of something like finding lunch. A maximizer will spend time finding the best restaurant that is going to give them the best lunch experience, while a satisficer is going to find one that’s good enough.
But that defines the end goal there as “best lunch experience”—what if I’m maximizing the speed of getting food into my mouth, or what if I’m on a budget and I’m maximizing my bang for my buck? Both of those are valid things to maximize that the “best lunch experience” maximizer would view as satisficing.
The point here is that we’re often maximizing for something, but it isn’t always the best possible outcome. In terms of our ADHD, we’re often optimizing ourselves for less desirable long-term outcomes in favor of immediate satisfaction. Instead of hanging up my coat, I’ll toss it in the corner because that’s faster, and I’m optimizing for speed here, even though, realistically, it would only take me seconds to hang it up.
What this means is that this whole idea is one of priorities. What’s important to me right now versus what’s important to me in the future?
So, let’s go back to laziness. I tend to find that what we define as laziness is really about us not meeting our needs. Because when we step back and look at the reason behind why we’re not doing something it’s rarely because I just don’t want to do it—although that’s a perfectly valid reason.
So let’s start with the “I don’t wanna’s”—what’s the reason behind what we don’t want to do? Is it a lack of motivation? Is it because it’s genuinely an unpleasant task?
Because those are solvable problems or at least problems where we can alleviate some of that burden. If it’s motivation, we can work on figuring out what would make it more interesting for us. Maybe you need to listen to some music while doing it or figure out a reward to go along with completing it. If it’s just genuinely unpleasant, we can figure out what would make it less unpleasant—and here I’m thinking about maybe cleaning something gross where a good pair of gloves and some air freshener could help. Of course, that isn’t going to make it all that more enjoyable, but it might make it bearable.
Or maybe we have something like we want to start going to the gym more, but we’re finding that after work, we’re just so exhausted we can’t get ourselves to make it happen. Labeling ourselves lazy here would be easy, but pushing through that resistance probably isn’t the answer. The first thing to look at here is whether or not we’re giving ourselves enough rest to have the energy. But it also could simply be an issue of timing. Maybe going to the gym right after work isn’t the best time for you, but you might have better luck working out in the morning or the evening. Our energy levels will always fluctuate through the day, so we’re going to have times when doing things like going and working out will be harder and times when they will be easier.
The point here is that often, the piece of the picture we’re missing when thinking about our “worst self” is that maybe our worst self is coming out to meet those unmet needs that we’re just trying to ignore. Sure, it would be awesome if I had infinite motivation and energy throughout the day, but no one has that. And this applies well beyond just physical energy. We also need emotional connection, mental stimulation, and doing things that bring meaning to our lives. When we’re not purposefully meeting these needs, we’ll find other ways to compensate for them. This is where we can see many maladaptive behaviors coming out - if we’re missing something like finding meaning in our lives, it’s easy to turn to things that will numb those feelings instead of seeking out what you need. This means that if you are trying to correct that behavior of, say, just zoning out in front of your TV while scrolling on your phone for hours, you need to find something that will fill the hole those behaviors are filling. And yeah, it’s not an easy path, but it is certainly a more fulfilling one.
I know a few months ago, I did an episode about Gabor Mate’s interpretation of ADHD and how I didn’t agree with him, but right now, I’m thinking of a quote of his regarding addiction, which goes, “Ask, not why, the addiction, but why the pain?”
That really sums up what this episode is about—we want to go beyond just looking at the behavior and see what’s driving it. What’s the underlying trigger driving the behavior? If we’re seeking to better ourselves, we must go beyond treating the symptoms.
While it is easy to assign a moralistic value to the behaviors of our “worst self,” I think it’s important to step back and just acknowledge that the behavior is what it is and view it as something we developed for survival. Sure, it wasn’t the best way for our brains to go about things, but we worked with what we had. With that in mind, we can work on setting realistic goals for modifying our behavior. We want to focus on making sure we’re meeting our needs and doing the things that align with who we want to be. The focus here is on creating realistic routines and habits for us to keep up with. This isn’t about instantly becoming our best self overnight. Instead, we’re just doing a bit of a course correction to try and get to the place that we actually want to end up at. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs with this process, so it’s important that we’re coming at it with empathy and understanding that it won’t be easy and it will take time.
This Episode’s Top Tips
Approach the idea of your worst self with empathy. Focus on the fact that you developed these maladaptive behaviors for a reason.
Pay attention to the situations and emotions that trigger your worst behaviors to anticipate and manage them more effectively.
Often, our maladaptive behaviors come out when we’re not doing a good job of meeting our basic needs. If we’re engaging in numbing behaviors, we can look below the symptoms to try and see what’s setting them off.