Every mistake I make

Is it a generational thing to feel constant guilt and inadequacy? Are women my age victims of our Gen X-ness?

A friend described me as a “rare gem” this week and all I felt was shame.

There is nothing rare or gem-like about me. I am far too flawed.

I worry constantly about these flaws … about forgetting things, failing at things, disappointing people, letting my face and body fall into disrepair.

Every week when I send out my weekly newsletter at work, for example, I quake if the phone rings or a message pings, certain it will be someone saying I’ve done something wrong.

It would be tempting to blame this on the du jour late-in-life diagnosis condition of ADHD, which I may or may not have.

I have 50 tabs constantly open on my laptop and in my head.

But there is no way anyone would have diagnosed me with ADHD as a child. I was shy, quiet, focussed, studious.

Mind you, viral ADHD guru Alex Partridge says he didn’t fit the stereotype either.

He was quiet too – the hyperactivity, which he describes as “highly caffeinated squirrels barrelling about” was confined to his brain.

There are highly caffeinated squirrels barrelling about in my brain. I don’t know when they moved in. Maybe they were there all along and I didn’t notice until menopause.

Growing up I would speed read hundreds of books during the MS Read-a-thon and pass every test on their content. I struggled with friendships and sport. I created a whole fantasy world in my head where I was from another planet. I wrote an entire history assignment about WC Wentworth on a roll of toilet paper. I hated studying and exams so much I vowed never to go to university (and never did).

Other kids thought I was weird. As I grew older I learned to put on a social mask, act like a confident person and assimilate into society.

Now that I’m in my 50s I let my inner weirdness out with increasing frequency, both socially and at work. I can sense people inwardly raising their eyebrows as I babble rabidly at them.

I dunno whether that’s proof of anything or nothing.

As for the generational thing, I do think Gen X women grew up feeling like they had to over function in their personal lives and careers.

According to Whitney Casares in a Forbes article: “We were raised, quite literally, to do it all. We’re hard-wired to over-function. It’s the reason scheduling rest feels laughable. Taking care of our own needs if it inconveniences someone else? So selfish.”

Ada Calhoun published a book in 2020 called “Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis.”

The title immediately struck a chord with Gen X women plagued by insomnia. It definitely torments me – last night was the pits.

“I thought [the title] was a good metaphor for a lot of things that women talked about when I interviewed them for the book, this thing where the more you chase satisfaction, the kind of further away it seems to recede,” Calhoun explains.

“I had a postcard over my bed when I was like a teenager — I don’t even know where I got it — but it was it was 3D and had all these horrible things on it like a mushroom cloud and war, then over on the top it read, ‘Why We Can’t Sleep.’ Almost everyone I talked to was lying awake at night because of the issues we’re facing, but also how hormones tend to affect sleep.

“A doctor told me the more stressed you are, the less you sleep, and the less sleep you get, the more stressed you are, and it winds up in this loop.”

She says she interviewed hundreds of Gen X women for the book who felt that they had not lived up to what they were told was their promise.

“Racked with guilt, convinced that they should have done more with their lives given how much opportunity they had, they — we — were teed up for a new kind of midlife crisis, something beyond the healing power of affairs, plastic surgery or flashy sports cars.

“Women growing up in the ’70s and ’80s internalized that goal, vowing not only to have it all, but to do it all.”

Psychotherapist Bryn Chafin says feeling inadequate seems endemic to our generation. She finds her midlife clients are “worried all the time.”

It might be about work, relationships, kids, fitness, the state of the world, the cost of living, but it’s always something, and it invariably coincides with judgment, guilt and shame.

This all speaks to me, but recognising it doesn’t help me solve it, whether it’s generational or neurodivergence.

The Serenity Prayer is all very well …

Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

But it’s a bit like telling someone with anxiety to stop worrying. It’s not that simple.

And on that note, I’m taking a day off from blogging. I’ll explain why on Friday.

PS I’m still loving the Portland memes …