I just joined the community hoping to find others who could understand how someone could "fail' at a holiday that hasn't exactly sprung up without warning. It is late Christmas morning here in the Midwest U.S. and there still aren't any decorations on the Christmas tree (too much cleaning to do first, still so much time left to do it, and so many things more urgent to be done...), no presents under that pathetic tree (for the above reasons, and can't find where I've hidden them in the clutter), my ADHD teen son and I missed the Christmas Eve service at church (a BIG deal for me) because we were so late, and I've never managed to find the time or clean kitchen to bake any cookies. This stuff might seem very trivial to many of you, but keeping these traditions matters A LOT to me, as does trying to create happy memories in our screwed-up, chaotic, single-mom family of two.

I'm also trying-and failing BIG TIME-to model for my son how to keep trying and succeed in spite of ADHD. As I've lost my external supports (husband left and parents died all within a few years) it has gotten increasingly difficult for me to handle "life"-all the things that everyone else can seem to get a grip on. I'm on Straterra, the only drug my DR. will try, and it isn't doing any good. At age 50 I feel so beaten down by a lifetime of failures, some of them a huge deal to me or someone close to me, that sometimes I just want to stay down and quit trying.

Has anyone else had an epic failure when the stakes were "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?"