A lot of this hits home very hard for me. I’d extend it beyond school to my anger with religion and how the world generally functions. I found spite and anger started in the latter half of high school, where I found myself struggling when previously education had been a breeze. This, of course, coincides with the point where your education starts to impress conformity and a particular way of doing things, as well as increasing reliance on fixtures that I do not thrive in (such as standardized testing).

I didn’t know I had ADHD until nearly middle age. However, I didn’t notice because I didn’t have the language to even understand it let alone tools to manage it, and it “didn’t matter” because I was able to turn it into relative success.

On the other hand, the cost of this has been high. My self-esteem is very poor. This can result in unhealthy, erratic, and self-destructive behaviors to compensate or mask my insecurities from myself or others. I sometimes let myself get taken advantage of and don’t advocate for myself because I think I deserve it and I fear failure. I work below my capabilities and overestimate risk for the same reasons. I often mistake self-deprecation as humility. I set very high standards for myself which are sometimes impossible to achieve, and I treat myself brutally when I don’t, creating a terrible feedback loop which results in burn out, anxiety and panic attacks, apathy, and reclusion. I also feel pathologically compelled to prove that I’m intelligent and capable, which can be annoying and off-putting to friends and coworkers. I have compulsions to take on more than I can handle, which naturally results in falling short and ironically disappointing people and risking devaluation. I try to control things because I’m afraid if things are done a way that I don’t understand, I’ll fail.

It’s fucking exhausting, and it sucks. I don’t feel sorry for myself, but I’m tired of feeling like worthless shit and letting people (and myself) walk on me. I feel like I have untold depths of potential I’m just wasting, but I don’t know how to exploit them. I don’t want to coddle myself, but I wish I could just love and forgive myself in a healthy way and not feel shame all the time. I wish I would stop yelling at myself in my own head the entire time I’m awake.

The worse part is that all this shame, fear, depression, and anxiety colors your worldview and impacts how you treat others. I’m not wretched to other people, in fact I honestly believe my friends and coworkers find me kind, generous, respectful, and supportive. I try to be nice to others and give them the benefit of the doubt. But I sometimes demand too much, treat people paternally, and I focus on negatives. It pains me to admit but I’m not always honest (with them or myself) and I’m not always reliable, qualities that I cherish in others. When I forget there’s a real person on the other side, all that unrelenting judgement and poor self esteem can result in pettiness and trollish behavior.

I’m still trying to figure out what to do about all of this. My partner has been a great help. Part of the process is what you saw happen here: a straight forward inventory of your feelings and being honest with yourself. Then, sometimes with the help of others, you can reevaluate the severity and sincerity of a perceived problem. Discard those things that don’t pass muster, and focus on the rest. From there you start by just forgiving yourself, committing to not repeating those mistakes using quantifiable measures, and building healthy new behaviors around positive results. Be honest about what you can do, whether you _want_ to do it, and hold yourself accountable. And if you fuck it up again on the way, just recalibrate and try again, no fury or wrath is going to make it better. Celebrate appropriately when you do something right because fear of hating yourself is not a good motivator. Mindfulness seems like such a weak, simplistic, and hand-wavy solution but it’s worked better than any punishment I’ve metted out on myself in the past.

Sorry this was so long, thanks for your time if you got this far.