Out of the box

Inanimate objects are planning my downfall

Everything is out to get me

I have often wondered if there is a malign conspiracy of inanimate objects dedicated to my downfall.

Knives leap off plates, glasses wriggle out of my fingers, hot sauces fly from pans, even railway barriers time their closing seconds ahead of my arrival!

I realise it is most likely mild dyspraxia, (fine motor control/clumsiness a common ADHD comorbidity), combined with impulsivity and impatience to get things done, but sometimes I think there’s more to it.

Accident prone

Over the years I have had many A&E admissions. I broke my elbow, aged 6 falling from a climbing frame. I cut my wrist badly, aged 14, letting our dog out the back door, my hand went through the window. In my thirties I broke the tendon to my little finger putting on a shoe. In my early forties I broke my shoulder cycling to work, clipping a post as I cycled past at too high speed.

Besides hospital admissions there have been a large number of lesser incidents involving everything from sprains, burns and cuts. My hands have a tapestry of small scars. I don’t even notice the broken glasses or cracked plates any more.

Sinister technology

But when it comes to technology problems, I am not so sure? I think sinister forces are at play. Too much goes wrong to be mere coincidence?

Mobile phones die after two months use, laptops fall to bits just after the warranty expires, screens break, newsletters disappear – last December’s newsletter is lost forever to Mailchimp mishaps, and software installations fail.

Last week the disk drive on my three month old laptop committed suicide moments before I was due to give a presentation. Despite my IT background, I had failed to back up anything or even bring a memory stick. I had been procrastinating for months previously about a backup system, but the laptop was new. All I did was plug in the projector and my PC died. So unfair.

I’m not paranoid

It just seems hard to accept this is all just a mere coincidence. Why me, why do so many things go wrong around me. What has the knife, that leaps off the plate onto the floor, got against me? Why does my laptop hate me and destroy my data? How come my phone screen breaks when I drop it just two foot from the ground, when your phone thrown across the road doesn’t even get a scratch?

There is a conspiracy. At the moment it’s just the odd attack, but I’m scared. Soon all these objects will be talking together, working together as a team. The “Internet of Things” will mean I will be no longer fighting the odd fork but a battalion of forks equipped with ARM CPUs and Google’s Artificial Intelligence systems. My fridge will talk to my toaster, the curtains will align with the book cases, my PS4 will lead the advancing soup bowls.

I need to prepare…

Andrew Lewis

Andrew Lewis is an ADHD Coach, writer and founder of SimplyWellbeing. He has over 15,000 hours and 18 years of experience in coaching over 500 ADHD executives, ADHD business professionals and ADHD creatives. Andrew ran a major ADHD support group and an ADHD diagnostic clinic for a while. He is an ADHD specialist backed with business expertise from a twenty years career in software, from roles in programming, through marketing, sales and to running a few software start-ups. His ADHD insight is personal, with decades understanding his own ADHD experience and in bringing up his ADHD daughter. He has published his writing primarily via this website, with interactive ADHD courses in development.