As I continue to learn about ADHD, previously unsuspected associations between ADHD and lifelong quirks and struggles arise every day. Sometimes depression and/or personality are also factors, but identifying ADHD as an additional suspect finally illuminates why it has been so effing hard to get a handle on some of these things, no matter how long or how hard I tried. I’m simply outnumbered!
Here are a few of them:
- Impossibility of maintaining a regular sleep schedule
- Frequent errors (mostly letters or words dropped or out of order) in writing and typing
- Low frustration threshold
- Extreme bouts of productivity at everything BUT the priority task
- Lifelong tardiness
- Never feeling quite confident of remembered facts
- Saying more (in quantity AND self-revelation) than I intended
- Limited tolerance for abstraction despite being highly analytical
- Spending inordinate time and effort on ordering and reordering tasks
- The mysterious reappearance of lost objects exactly where they should have been, that I looked for in that place multiple times and did not see (previous working theory: boggarts are real!)
- Shower aversion (a dirty little secret) – SO boring, and I never STAY clean!
- Taking lecture notes that I never read later. I thought this was because I remember better by hearing than seeing, but it turns out it’s also because the note-taking helps me get things into my long-term memory
- And, of course, the biggy that sent me down this path in the first place: Procrastination
Strike That from the Record
The biggest revelation to date about ADHD has been that it impacts short term memory, in particular by inhibiting the transition of memories from short-term to long-term. This explains the nagging feeling I so often have that there’s something important I should be thinking of right now, but no matter how hard I dig, there’s nothing there to find. I did not know this was a factor in ADHD.
Order in the Court!
I also never realized how much ADHD is about sequencing. Complex projects become overwhelming at least in part because of the lengthy sequence of tasks they require, even more so if some steps are a little unclear because I’m doing something new, or they depend on what happens in previous steps. It takes SO much remembering and decision-making to get – and keep – all those steps in line.
Testimony
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, can I borrow your brain for an hour to experience what that’s like? Here’s a sample internal dialogue to give you a probably less yummy taste of my daily reality:
Let’s see, I need to shower, wash dishes, water the yard, and I should probably shower last since those other things might get me dirty all over again, but will there be enough hot water left? And I need to shower while the sun is shining in the bathroom window – what time does that happen? But I also need to take care of my internet tasks early, while my focus is strongest, and I should do light therapy as soon after I get up as possible. And I was going to start taking walks in the morning. Oh and I have to pay that thing. Maybe I should look at my To Do Today list and make sure everything is on it. But I don’t want to remove the things I checked off yesterday yet, because I want to list them when I make my journal recording, so I’m not always listing everything I didn’t get done without counting what I did accomplish. Did I remember to check my calendar in case there’s anything I’m supposed to do today that I completely forgot? And I should do a couple of hours of work on my “little” job today, though I have been saying that every day for the past week, and as there is nothing too time sensitive (that I remember) and payday isn’t until next week, and I already feel overwhelmingly busy trying to do all the things I need to do today before noon when my energy level plummets, I can do that later. And I’m really hungry too, but if I take time to cook breakfast now it’s going to throw everything else off. But if I wait, I won’t be able to take my noon pills on time because my stomach won’t be empty. Oh, wait, I finally got to the grocery store yesterday, so I have cottage cheese. But I should do my audio journal while I do light therapy first, because I can’t do anything else with a bright light shining in my eyes for 45 minutes, and I can’t talk and eat breakfast at the same time. Well, I can have my coffee and that will stave off hunger for awhile. It should be ready by now. But why is it transparent? Sh*t, I forgot to put the coffee in the filter again.
Involuntary Adjournment
In the middle of that my internet goes down and I suddenly can’t add anything to my calendar or to do list. The outage only lasts about three minutes, but that is long enough for all of my balls in the air to fall on my head, pelting me into a bruised mush. I conclude people with ADHD need very fast and extremely reliable internet (which I cannot afford), and only with brute mental strength do I restrain myself from re-entering a lengthy and intensive internal debate about the available local providers, which I have researched and reconsidered many times, and which have not changed since the last time I did so. And I still haven’t decided whether to shower or do light therapy first. I’m already exhausted just trying to plan my day, and I haven’t even done anything yet.
The Defense Really Needs A Rest
On my most vigorous days, I’m lucky to have enough energy to see me through five hours of work, whether it be for pay, or routine household maintenance tasks. I thought I was just a person of lite vitality, but I’m beginning to see that it may be less a matter of low resources than of an extremely high level of background consumption. No Energy Star appliance, I.
Justice for All
The problem with calling the capacity to manage a normal day “executive function” is the image it evokes of someone wearing a thousand dollar suit in a penthouse office, making decisions that will affect hundreds of employees and thousands of shareholders. For every one of those, there are thousands in low end rentals wearing yard sale sweats, locked into a marathon wrestling match with their own brains, just trying to get the damn coffee made.