My counselor has suggested that I look into oppositional defiance. Of course, the first thing I learned is that it's considered a childhood condition. But if anything, mine appears to have increased in adulthood. Is that possible/likely? Should I be looking for something different?
Some backstory: I grew up in a good two-parent family, no trauma that I'm dealing with. My IQ is about 160, and I tested at the 8th grade level when I entered kindergarten. Some teachers let me work ahead, but schoolwork was still dreadfully dull and easy. My mom says the one thing you didn't want to tell me as a child was that I couldn't do something or was too young to do something. Apparently that would make me furious. (a clue?)
Throughout school, I developed the habit of doing my work at the last minute -- two-week essays written on the bus the morning they were due, for instance. I never had to work hard or study (another clue?). As I got older, I started turning things in late, and using the extra credit to make up for the points I'd use for lateness, or turning in A work and getting a C because it was late. I dropped out of college after one semester in which I failed a couple of classes for not showing up.
Once I got a job, I always showed up on time and did my job. I was a good worker, but I never took on more work than I needed to keep the bills paid. No second job to save up for anything, that kind of thing. I've always been punctual about being places, but not about finishing projects. About 15 years ago I became self-employed, and it's been a constant struggle to get things done, whether it's work for clients, organizing my office, filing taxes, etc. I tend to put things off and go over deadline until I absolutely have to have the money to keep from getting evicted or something like that, and then I buckle down and rip through it. Generally the work is easy and doesn't take long, and I feel stupid for putting it off.
I was diagnosed ADD a couple years ago, which seemed to make sense because I'd constantly get distracted from whatever I needed to be doing. But the ADD meds only gave me more energy; I still resisted doing the work. And when there's some sort of emergency, like a midnight call about a critical computer system that's down, I can focus like a laser on it until it's fixed. So I CAN focus, I just usually don't.
Now my counselor has helped me to understand that I'm unconsciously distracting myself from work because I simply DON"T WANT TO DO IT. We think it may be rooted in the fact that I never had to obey someone else's timetable when I was growing up, because I could always pull it out at the last second. It seems I'm still trying to do that, except it's not the last second before the deadline, but the last second before someone fires me.
I don't seem to be averse to working hard. I do very hard puzzles, and I spend time on forums helping other people with difficult computer programming problems. But those things are voluntary. It seems like as soon as something becomes work that I MUST do, I resist it. I've started projects of my own that I cruised through until I hit the point where it was time to make it public where I would have to be responsible for maintaining it, and then I hit a roadblock. My counselor thinks I hate to give anyone else control over me and my time. I think she has a point. I'm also terrible about estimating the time a project will take and setting realistic deadlines, and we think that comes from the same place -- I don't want to obligate myself to keep to a promised timetable, so I just can't come up with one.
I'm not violent, and I don't think I'm anti-social. I'm quite introverted, so I'm not a social butterfly, but I do have friends, and I get lonely if I spend a couple days alone. So an anti-social disorder doesn't seem to fit.
Any suggestions? I do think she's onto something, but I'm not sure where to go next with it. Recently I'm scheduling myself for one solid hour of work every evening, and even that is a struggle. As soon as I start to think about sitting down and starting that hour, I feel exhausted and start thinking of excuses. Many nights, I manage to forget about it altogether. So I'm hoping to find tips, some way to kick myself into starting work sometime before that absolutely last possible minute, and to learn the self-discipline I grew up without.
Sorry this got so long; maybe it'll help someone similar down the road.