I started a new job in early spring, a teaching position. I love the job, I love teaching and interacting with the kids. Lesson planning and making the lessons is a blast but I’ve been having issues with the admin side.
I have ADHD, inattentive ADHD and had it under control since I’ve been diagnosed two years back. However I had to move to another city and I’ve been trying to find a new psychiatrist to get back on my regular meds. For now I’m on non stimulate ADHD meds, anti-anxiety meds and meds for depression. I can tell it’s not helping me and its showing in my work performance.
I will say, before I started working I disclosed my ADHD to my job, just a CYA (cover your booty,) thing. They said it wouldnt be an issue but now I feel like maybe it is?
The admin side of the job is killing me, and I have been under a lot of work related stress. It’s made my memory like swiss cheese. I lost my appetite, my insomnia got worse and my anxiety is through the roof. I’m forgetting tasks, things I’m suppose to do. My disorganized chaos has gotten worse and I feel like there’s not enough xanax in the world that can help me.I tried to set up a system that worked for me, but it got talked down and shook my confidence. I’ve been feeling really dumb and the perfectionism I deal with has not been helping.
I have a meeting with my boss coming up. I’m just scared now it’s bad news. I’m trying but it feels like I take one step forward and four steps back. :/
17 comments
What is your employment status?
Permanent? Contractual? Dispatch?
I just wanna say that sounds like a lot of problems and sounds hard. Good luck friend
Cruel to be kind incoming…
Have you considered leaving Japan?
I will never understand why people come here and bring a string of mental conditions with them and need for meds and just expect Japan to be accommodating.
To be fair you may not have known before you came but Japan is terrible at mental health care and does not take it seriously. Anyone coming here with problems is just asking for trouble.
There was a guy worried the other day that his teaching job in Japan won’t allow his SERVICE DOG in lessons with him. He absolutely should be allowed, but why even fight it? Japan won’t change overnight. I can tell already he’ll come here, have an awful experience and it’ll end in tears.
These posts are always the same. Someone in a teaching job which even if you don’t have a mental illness you will by the end of the contract, and its always ADHD or depression or something.
Go home and get help or just go somewhere that will take your condition seriously.
Not sure I can offer any help, but sleeping and eating healthy is definitely something you want to try to work on.
I’ve zero experience but.. If you are performing well in the classroom they will let a lot slide.
Also, you are in a good position. You know what your challenges are.
Is someone helping you find a new doctor?
People don’t come here (or anywhere else for that matter) deliberately/necessarily to escape or expect Japan to deal with all their mental conditions. Mental health is a spectrum and I believe we all have our struggles because we are human; it would be weird to hear someone say they are always ok in this area. I think people just live their lives and people struggling with mental health, like many others, want to travel and see where they fit in the world. When you are overseas things are exacerbated and may loom larger under the lens of culture, etc.
that’s what life is like with ADHD, it’s really hard. I have it too and have been working here for a few years. your mental health will follow you wherever you go, but medical care and work atmosphere of course varies. maybe a company with less admin work would suit you. take time to figure out how you can still enjoy your life with ADHD , you can do it OP !
Maybe this could help some of that:
Write down everything no matter how confident you are that you are able to remember it. Make a priority list every day and look at it, and make it accessible on every device you use. Pull it up first every time you get to work and adjust it as needed. I look at mine several times a day and now I feel a lot less burdened to remember my tasks individually.
If your issues are this bad best to leave Japan. Japan lacks the infrastructure for your problems.
Another classic ‘I’m mentally unstable but came to Japan. I’ll be fine right?’ post.
CLASSIC
Sounds tough. Wishing you all the best. What was the system you set up that got talked down? Could you revive or adapt it?
The overmedication of America is not very well understood in Japan.
HAHA the ‘Japanese’ guy got deleted
Can you make a quick trip back to your old city, explain the situation to your old mental health provider, and get three months of meds? It might be worth the hassle.
Have you thought of seeing a counsellor in addition to a doctor? Even though medication might be the best, in the short term practicing some symptom management techniques from a counsellor with experience with ADHD could help until you can see another doctor.
Probably you already know, but friends of mine with ADHD have a variety of techniques like timers, reminders, task management apps, etc especially on some kind of automatic schedule that they say helps a lot with admin/paperwork kind of things. Digital tools can be good because you can set them so they pop up regularly and you don’t have to remember to turn them on everyday or every week. Anyway, good luck!
I have ADHD as well and have lived and have been successful in Japan for almost 17 years now.
If you can’t survive “teaching English” (Speaking your language for money) without complaining about others around you then I think that it would be much safer for you to be back in your home country where you will have a safety net around you.
You sound young, and you sound like you have little to no work experience and are blaming your work performance in your role on your coworkers as well as medication and ADHD.
Being young is not your fault.
You will get better over time. But please be true to yourself and recognize that this is not an ADHD problem.
This is a “you” problem and you will learn and get better and better and better as you get older.
You are supposed to make mistakes at this age… That is the only way that you (and I when I was the same age) can learn.
You will be just fine.
This thread: apparently you shouldn’t move anywhere and/or improve your living conditions if you have any kind of mental ailment. Got it