There is something worse than pure incompetence, and that is next-level incompetence – when your incompetence starts feeding off itself. It’s a dangerous place to be. It’s like not only feeling depressed, but feeling depressed about being depressed, or feeling anxious about being anxious. Next-level incompetence is when, being dismally aware of your incompetence, you start – with good reason – to doubt everything you do and, crucially, blame yourself for things that weren’t your fault. And this can cause yet more chaos.
An example: a couple of Wednesdays ago, I was due to interview Geoff Hurst, England football legend, at the Cheltenham literary festival, about his new book, Last Boy of ’66. On the Monday, being a consummate professional, I thought I ought to give the book a read. But I couldn’t find the book anywhere in my flat. Where had I put it? Obviously somewhere so safe that I now couldn’t find it.
All day I hunted, beneath beds, on top of wardrobes, in rucksacks and suitcases and drawers. Shelves were cleared of all their books with increasingly ill-tempered swipes of my hand. As night fell, I gave up, resolving to resume the search at first light. Tuesday morning, now assisted by weary loved ones, still nothing turned up. Yes I could read the PDF, but I needed the actual book in which to make notes and so on. Cringing apologetically, I beseeched the publisher to bike me another copy. This they agreed to, although they had an apology too – for posting it out so late. Eh? You mean I never had this book in the first place?
This is what next-level incompetence looks like. Being so used to losing things, I was sure I’d lost something that I’d never had in my possession. The bike arrived with a copy of the book, just as the other one came with the post. Another needlessly nerve-shredding 24 hours came to an end. I’ve had so many days like this when I have ballsed-up; I can’t be doing with the same thing happening when I’ve done nothing wrong.
You would have thought the transition from common-or-garden incompetence up to this new and terrible level would be a gradual thing. But for me it’s happened quite suddenly, with three examples in the same week.
Either side of the non-loss of the Last Boy I had non-disaster disasters with – if you’ll pardon the unpardonable irony – my ADHD medication. I couldn’t find my pills anywhere. I’d put the new bottle somewhere and couldn’t find it. Frantically, I rooted through boxes and bottles of meds throwing them in the air like an absurdist juggling act in which objects were tossed up but not caught.
Again, loved ones were pressed to join in the search. My sister-in-law, who happens to be a doctor, came for the weekend and spent a lot of it hunting round for my pills. No joy. I gave up. Grovellingly, I asked my doctor for another prescription. No problem, he said, explaining that he’d NEVER SENT THEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. Then, having taken receipt of them, I went away the following the weekend and found, to my unending despair, I hadn’t packed them. It was a long weekend, and not in a good way. And then, packing to go home, I found that I had in fact brought them with me but, unaccountably, had stuffed them out of sight into a running shoe. Thrilled, if despairing, I popped one straight away, too late in the day, with the result that I slept not a wink that night.
Is this all down to ADHD? I don’t know. Some of my loved ones, allowing for my neurodiversity, give me a bit of a pass. Others just take me for a buffoon. I sympathise with both points of view but essentially don’t know what to think. All I know for sure is that it’s absolutely exhausting, for all concerned.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist
