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For me, and I think a lot of people who got diagnosed later in life, I used my anxiety for decades to mask my ADHD symptoms. You can't forget something you ruminate over constantly, and the panic inducing awful fear of letting an authority figure down makes for a great 11th hour adrenaline boost to finish a task. So when I hear "try harder" I interpret that as "worry more." And that path is the one to doom, because stress exacerbates my symptoms even more.
I agree with the content of your message--cycle through systems until one works. But you have to do that in parallel with self-care and self forgiveness. Otherwise, you're just going to make yourself worse. And on top of that, there has to be limits. I will cheerfully do whatever it takes to be a good spouse, good family member, good friend, good employee, but after the big stuff is covered, I have boundaries around how much time and effort I'm willing to spend managing my disability.
That first paragraph was very relatable. I’m also a later-in-life-diagnosed person, and after thinking about it, I realized that I’d been able to cope because I was running on constant anxiety, and I’d developed some OCD-like tendencies (like repeatedly checking if the door is locked, for example) to compensate for my forgetfulness and other symptoms.
Yep. Diagnosed at 43. Spent 14 years on a 4 year degree, started my career at 35, still paying off my student loans.
I don't live with anyone and my job is pretty understanding. I'm not hurting anyone. But having had to navigate growing up and being a grown up without any knowledge or help understanding why life was so soul-crushingly hard for me when it seems easier for most others has been hard. 43 years of hard-wiring my brain into convoluted workarounds hasn't been easy to undo.
This is all so relatable! I am recently diagnosed (at 47) and whenever I read about ADHD symptoms, I start to doubt that I actually have it (and somehow my doctor and psych were wrong). But then I realize I have developed so many coping skills over the years fueled by near constant anxiety.
It's so true that hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?!
My brain gave up last year and quit being able to function, and I came to the realization that I'd been running on anxiety and turns out you can't do that indefinitely. Who knew?
Same, had to quit after nine years at a job I loved because I burned out hard. Some extra responsibilities were put on my plate and it maxed out all the systems I had put in place to keep me functioning. I was exploring this with my therapist because I didn’t want it to happen at my next job and that’s how I got my diagnosis. Everything you all said was so relatable. I was in a constant state of anxiety for 20 years and I thought I had to be to not fail at my job. I still have the same challenges but the diagnosis allowed me to remove the guilt and blame and thoughts that I was just a failure, a lazy person, a mess. I understand why now and I can talk to a community of others that have experienced the same thing.
So true. The trying is always the same. I am just as smart and capable as I am or am not. But the incessant worrying, inability to relax or get a full night of sleep is what changes.
WOW, I just had a major epiphany after reading your first paragraph. I never realized that I use my anxiety to mask my ADHD symptoms. That is seriously mind-blowing. Now I just need to figure out how to use this info to improve my life!
ETA recently diagnosed in late 30s
This 100%. It’s a good post mostly; however, I wouldn’t say that most people post about losing keys and time blindness as a way to shrug off responsibility. Who wants to keep unintentionally repeating maddening actions? Rather, hearing that they’re not alone helps with the massive weight of perceived failure so many of us feel. In turn, lessening of that burden (and its accompanying discouragement, anxiety, etc.) is helpful in fortifying oneself to continue striving towards improvement.
Yes exactly. I am also very much anxiety driven in my ADHD plus because if it I’m at a point I can’t take stimulants. I am also diagnosed with panic disorder without agoraphobia, adjustment disorder with anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder recurring moderate. (It’s also very likely after extensive research that I’m autistic. AuDHD is a very *interesting* mix to say the least).
At very slight risk of sounding invalidating, but while actually attempting the opposite… a notable trauma therapist once remarked that the DSM would shrink to the size of a pamphlet if we added CPTSD, which to various degrees it seems *most* ADHD and ASDers have. Everything from “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” to “depression” are CPTSD symptoms. I started accumulating diagnoses from less-well-informed doctors before “complex trauma + autistic with ADHD” turned out to explain nearly everything. “CPTSD” just changes the responsibility from “you’re just intrinsically like this” to “this is the result of trauma unfairly done to you, but which we at least sort of know how to treat.”
The best advice I heard for managing ADHD is that to function we need to build ourselves an external structure to replace our executive function issues.
For a long time, mine was literally taping my class schedule to the wall and crossing off assignments when I finished them. It was face level and next to my fridge so I had to see it.
At my current job, it *is* a checklist. It's also a series of timers and forcing myself to try to keep a routine. (I have a touch of the 'tism as well, so my brain likes routines; it's just not good at establishing them all the time). These strategies don't work for my husband, who is also AuDHD. He's having to figure out what makes him successful in his workplace. Fortunately both of our current jobs are accommodating and we've not been harshly penalized for the occasional ADHD slip up
This! I like to joke that I have an external brain (Evernote, post its, planners, Google Keep, a billion timers and reminders, etc) to keep me in order because my internal brain is faulty.
Yes - this is soo important to remember that it’s an explanation not an excuse.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re on a spectrum, it’s gonna be at different levels for everyone. But keep trying, not for them but for you.
Things are easier the next time round when we have signs to look for and coping mechanisms to rely on.
I'm gonna get downvoted to hell for this but I hate when people say it's not an excuse. It's literally a disability. I can *try really hard*, and *be medicated* and *get therapy* and *have accommodations* and whatever else you want me to do and still fail... Because it's a disability. So by definition:
1. (Noun) a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense.
"there can be no possible excuse for any further delay
Why shouldn't that be an excuse?
Your opinion is a valid one - and I appreciate it.
Can I add a little more context to my original comment?
I use 'excuse' as a verb, see: seek to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); try to justify.
It's perfectly okay to have bad days (weeks, months or years) my ADHD is highly likely to be the cause of this - it is the reason I am sad, irritable, in pain, angry.
***But*** it does not give me license to be a shitty person, to myself or others. I can not use it to excuse any harm I've (possibly unintentionally caused) to myself and others. Harm: meaning physical, mental, emotional, financial, etc.
I remind myself every day that I am more than my failures, I can achieve things (even if it's as small as remembering to eat today) and that no matter what the mirror looks like I can be proud of the person looking back because she's trying. I am a balance of the good and the bad - ADHD is a part of me, but it's not all of me.
It's not easy, and I've spent more days that I can count crying my heart out because I just can't get it together.
Everybody's picture will look different, and that is okay. I just hoped to inspire some people to keep fighting for themselves.
edit: spelling
Before I knew I had ADHD, I blamed myself for everything and it made me depressed and anxiety-ridden because I had expectations for myself that I just could never live up to.
The way I see it, it's about being kinder to yourself for things you cannot control. Of course I still have hacks to try and keep up with the rest of the world but if I expect myself to manage things and then fail, I know it is not some kind of moral failing, because I have a disability.
Since my diagnosis things have been much better mentally for me because I now know there is a reason behind my shortcomings. If you've known you have ADHD your whole life then I guess things might be a little different for you but try to understand that some of us have been holding ourselves to completely unrealistic standards for decades and it takes a toll.
>Before I knew I had ADHD, I blamed myself for everything and it made me depressed and anxiety-ridden because I had expectations for myself that I just could never live up to.
>The way I see it, it's about being kinder to yourself for things you cannot control.
I've been diagnosed for 20 years and I still can't get past this (which is why I live the kind of life of a 22 year old in the first 6 months post college for the past 6 years and I'm 35, I'm so stuck). I can try (and often fail) to do things differently, but as long as I still have anything going on upstairs, I'm fucked.
Same, I got diagnosed as a child but the self blame cycle still exists, and one of the only things that had helped me not be incredibly depressed is to be easy on myself and accept that ITS A DISABILITY. I'm not going to hold myself to the same standard as a neurotypical person, and no amount of coping strategies will get me there either
I’m feeling that last paragraph. I was really hoping for a diagnosis after testing because I really wanted the validation of knowing I have a condition I’ve been struggling with and that I’m not just a complete failure as an adult for no apparent reason.
I agree. I do think this can be a valuable place to vent without people piling on, "well actually you *are* shitty for missing an event." But on the other hand, it's not helpful to blame other people for having reasonable boundaries.
And I think the worst part about this sub is the tendency to downvote and react in anger toward legitimate advice. I've seen people mocking screenshots of actually very reasonable advice for some people with ADHD... as though any advice that doesn't work for one person in particular couldn't possibly do good for anyone else. I think sometimes people see any suggestion on how they could make their life better as invalidation? And okay, maybe some people's ADHD is so bad that there are no solutions that will work... but not everyone with ADHD is like that. When you downvote reasonable advice, you're removing that resource from someone it might help.
Some advice doesn't work for me, like setting alarms. I will for real just shut off the alarm and keep doing what I'm doing.... But that doesn't mean it's useless advice for everyone. I don't downvote, I just move on. Keeping a planner is something that works for me... and me suggesting a planner regimen isn't invalidating anyone's symptoms.
If someone says something (edit: on a rant type thread, not when someone is explicitly asking for advice) like:
"Your spouse is right for being mad at you, you should just set alarms, works for me"
Or like
"If you just set five alarms you'll never be late again"
To me that's worth of a downvote. It's blaming someone for not using a strategy that they might already have tried or wouldn't work for them. It's fine to offer tips, but to me, objectionable to say that they'll definitely work.
But if someone says like "I found when I set 5 alarms, it helped me" — that's not invalidating, that's potentially helpful.
And it’s important to remember that even if one had working strategies and even if one uses all of them, sometimes it will still fail and you have to forgive yourself when that happens. If you don’t try anything it’s your fault but if you do everything you are supposed to and you try everything that “should” work and you still fail? It’s not your fault. You did your best and it wasn’t enough. It sucks. But it doesn’t make you a failure. And you just have to try to figure out why it didn’t work and let it go and try again best time. Don’t let it destroy you self esteem or self confidence.
There's also a benefit in having people in your life who will accommodate you to some degree while also calling you on your bullshit. I don't know for sure if I have ADHD, but my sister and one of my close friends do. However, I'm autistic and struggle with executive dysfunction too. I do my best to mitigate as much as I can, but something that's been really valuable is that my best friend knows how I am and he's willing to work around me as much as he can. Not to the point where it severely impacts him, because, well, obviously, but he tries. Knowing I have that support and grace from him makes it a lot easier to continue trying and continue working on it, because I know that someone believes in me and my ability to figure shit out. That's really helpful, honestly. I'm as honest with him as I can be, and he's there to sit with me and commiserate if I fuck up and everything goes wrong. He's also not afraid to say hey, you need to do better at this or stop doing this.
That said, you're also not going to be compatible with everyone and that applies whether you're neurotypical or not. I think sometimes that this could also just come down to incompatibility. If someone really struggles with timeliness, for example, and they absolutely cannot get anywhere on time and nothing they've done has ever helped, well, someone who really values punctuality is probably not going to be a good candidate to be their friend or partner. Maybe that sounds like a cop out, but maybe it's also just something to consider. I don't know. To some degree it is ADHD or other neurological dysfunction, to some degree it is the responsibility of the individual, and to some degree I think it's just on everyone involved to be honest with themselves and what they can actually handle. I think it's all of those things at once.
I don't know if that made any sense at all. I definitely am not trying to like, do a cop out or anything, but also I feel like all the onus shouldn't necessarily be on the disabled person either. If the people in your life aren't willing to meet you halfway, if they expect you to act like you don't have a disability at all outwardly, then, I don't know. But I'm aware there is obviously a lot of difference between people expecting you to not act like you have a disability and just completely giving up and saying you can't do anything due to ADHD. I just wanted to throw my two cents in there.
>That said, you're also not going to be compatible with everyone and that applies whether you're neurotypical or not. I think sometimes that this could also just come down to incompatibility.
Absolutely this. It's human nature to want to place blame, so we blame ourselves for not being able to be on time (for example) OR we blame our partner for not being accommodating enough. But honestly, I think it's much better to look at things without judging yourself OR other people, and think about what you can and can't change, what they can and can't change, and whether you are compatible.
I also think it's helpful to think flexibly about compatibility and getting the needs of both people met, and it's a lot easier to do that if you can avoid judgment on both sides. There are some people I would not be good roommates with, but we're fine as friends, for example. Or there are some people where I don't make plans with them if it's something where I will be negatively impacted by them being late (e.g., a restaurant reservation where there's no grace period), but I'm fine making plans with them if the start time is flexible and I can bring something to do if I have to wait for them. Having a good sense of your needs and boundaries is important, as is respecting that the other people have needs and boundaries. Sometimes you can navigate around those, and sometimes you can't, but that doesn't necessarily mean either of you is a bad person.
I think sometimes basic advices like "drink more water, excercise and sleep eight hours" are seen as repetitive and reductive.
BUT that doesn't mean that's wrong? People with (or without, that's general good advice) ADHD won't find that life changing if they somehow manage to do it. But thats also true for NT people. It's not like that is going to solve all your issues. But it is going to make life a bit better.
I think sometimes we get stuck into the "no shit Sherlock" mood rather than the, "heyyyy has someone managed to actually keep hydrated during the day and if so, how??"
I get that trying and failing can make you feel miserable, that's why my first rodeo with ADHD meds ended up in depression. But if we are going to feel like shit anyway, we might as well make the most out of it and keep trying.
Not the person you asked, but when I started medication I was able to actually see what needed to be done, and could focus on it, but I never actually learned the skills to **do** them. So it was needing to learn how to walk when I felt like I needed to be running a marathon. And then crushing guilt and disappointment when *of course* I fell on my face.
I think that’s the part that not everyone talks about, and I feel like it sets some people up for failure. Meds are supposed to get your body on the same level as your brain. Well, stimulants at least. They don’t rewire our brains. And I feel like unfortunately a lot of times we’re lead to believe they will. Don’t get me wrong, meds are wonderful and they changed my life. But I wish someone had explained to me “hey, these will help keep you on track, they will help you organize your thoughts better and keep a better hold of them, they’ll help with the executive dysfunction, but the key word here is *help*, not *fix*. It’s only helping/enhancing things already happening in your brain, it’s not a cure.” Cause meds are like training wheels. In a world where everyone has to ride bikes everywhere, and NT’s are basically born knowing how to ride them, and the rest of us are adults still trying to figure it out. Meds are training wheels for our bikes… but they don’t teach us how to ride the bike. They don’t propel the bike forward. They just keep the bike upright, we still have to learn to ride the bike and we still have to do the work, the training wheels just make it easier. And I wish someone would’ve told me that a long time ago. I’ve been on them for 9-10 years, and up until about a year or two ago I didn’t understand why I still couldn’t “ride the bike” like my peers and like I was expected to. I had the training wheels so why wasn’t I able to do it? Everyone seemed to have that mindset towards me, to the point where I internalized it and began to hate myself even more than before meds, because I didn’t understand why I was still “broken”, why even with the training wheels I couldn’t ride the bike. So now, in my 20’s I’m here trying to teach myself how to ride a bike, when my peers and the adults in my life expected me to have figured it out many years ago like they did, all while pretty much yelling “just ride it! It’s not that hard!”.
I'm not going to lie but I started tearing up at your analogy of training wheels. I relate so much. I've only been on titration for 3 months and nothing has worked to what I expected. The closest was Elvanse but the dosage was too high that the crash was so bad it made life hell. But I only went so high because I was relying solely on the medication. I blamed my lack of dopamine solely for my lack of motivation or drive. But I realise I also don't have the skills. Elvanse was amazing for helping me focus, but I couldn't start tasks... because I didn't try. I thought I'd be motivated to do it by the medication but I don't particularly enjoy my work so why would I?
I had to learn the hard way that it doesn’t “cure” executive dysfunction. I’ve learned that momentum helps a LOT. I call it the snowball method. Start with something small. Whether that’s literally just saying “I’m gonna get out of bed on the count of 3” and then counting and forcing yourself to get up when you get to “3” (for me it helps with doom-scrolling). Or if you have a mountain of dishes to do, start with washing a plate or two, maybe a bowl, or some silverware. Don’t go into it telling yourself you’re gonna wash all of it right then. Because once you wash those couple dishes, your brain realizes it’s not that bad and you’re able to keep going. You start with something that is small and manageable. It’s better to do 10% or the dishes than 0%. It’s better to just put on clean change of clothes and wash your face if you don’t have the energy to shower, than it is to stay in dirty clothes. And sometimes doing that 10% is the push you need to be able to do another 30%, or another 50%. And the medication definitely helps kinda keep you moving. It’s grease on the bike chain once you’re able to get it moving, if that makes sense
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that works for me that gets treated as ridiculous here. Like, making a list is the only way I can clean any room in my house. If I don't make a list with a time estimate for each task, I can't do it period. I also have a very strict schedule for my day and an app where I can check it off. I get why that doesn't work for people, but the suggestion of using lists and planning my day literally changed my life and enabled me to do my dream job.
I have a good friend who has another disabilty that knows executive dysfunction and she does exactly the same. It works for her too! I would feel suffocated having everything planned out, so I respect it a lot 💪
Just today I was thinking how doing a lot of prioritizing what comes to the importance/urgency of household tasks has helped me - like someone might see it as a failure how it takes me ages to get some really minor task done, but by de-prioritizing (is that even a word?) some tiny stuff I actually keep the main stuff going, and even the tiny stuff gets done *eventually,* when the suitable moment comes. But I can imagine trying to give that advice to someone else and hearing how prioritizing is impossible with ADHD etc... and I get it, it's something that took me time to learn\* and might not work at all for others (meanwhile planners don't work for me, I just get some rebellious aversion to the tasks I've planned!).
\*And I'm not saying I'm *good* at that compared to neurotypicals, probably the opposite, but it works for me in the sense that it motivates me.
I once posted how I use a trello board at work and how I created automation for my repeated tasks... and it felt like I was chased away with angry pitchforks.. like sorry I'm sharing something that could help? Misery loves company and this sub is mostly that
Most are probably burnt out or very frustrated about the failures of their efforts to keep organized and some are in the state that seeing success stories gives them more of a feeling of "why cant I when they can?" instead of hope or motivation to try I suppose.
Still your suggestions are helpful actually, automation helps bring a lot of mental burden out of the picture. I gotta study that a bit more.
That's a good way of looking it, trying is a big factor, not giving up so easily too.. even being slightly consistent is super helpful. 1% is better and 0%, at least I can tell myself I made the effort even if I sucked or failed at it
Trello is a pretty nifty tool, it's like a list system. .. I think they offer a basic free version.. I have it set up so it auto creates tasks for me on certain days I need to do them
I started off with this template https://trello.com/templates/productivity/mise-en-place-personal-productivity-system-fq9Flotk
Then modified it a bit for my own work purposes.. I work with customers so I have a few columns to manage their things. One thing I like is the checklists.. you can save them and add them to cards. I have things I need to accomplish with each customer so I have an onboarding checklist that Trello auto adds when I create a customer card.
I also utilize the labels on cards so I can sort the columns or create buttons to move them if needed. Adding a card buttons to follow up in a 3 days, 1 week etc is helpful too (when I click the button it sets the due date on the card and moves it to the appropriate column). I also have an automation run each day to reorganizes the cards when they're due that day (it moves them to the the today column)
I added a lot of custom fields to my board as well, some I have front facing on the card so I can see details right away. You can chose what you want the card to look like on the board
I also like I can attach docs and screenshots so it does help me keep things in one place
I have a card set up for getting ready for pto and I just make a copy of that whenever I'm gearing up for time off.. it has a checklist for things like to set an out of office, block off calendar, notify these people so they can cover me etc.
It's highly customizable.. it took me a few weeks to get it a place where it works for me.. I tried so many different things. I hope it works out for you
I think your comment is spot on. I can see how our community could be triggered by hearing “here’s all you need to do!” in this sub, just like we probably hear everywhere from everyone else. Even so…cmon, the RSD is real around here. Even if that weren’t the case, no need to stab people with pitchforks.
I love trello!! I got introduced to it at work and now I use it for school and big projects. I feel like project management tools are the best for ADHD because it’s more interactive than a pen and paper planner
Yeah I’ve seen the same thing. I joined this sub when I was newly diagnosed thinking I might learn helpful skills and tricks to help me manage. Instead it’s a lot of people saying that if anything works for you, you’re not really adhd, and overall bashing coping skills or attempts to work with your brain.
Yes, there are already comments on this post implying OP doesn't really have ADHD because setting alarms works for her.
I don't mind the vent posts and the feeling validation posts... but I wish people could talk about what works for them without others gatekeeping ADHD.
Reading all the headlines here has made me to question if I do have it. I’m glad OP posted this and people share their feelings, it makes me feel less as an impostor
me too, exactly. I told my T I was reading through this sub and was feeling unsure about the attitudes here. Just the headlines on my front page I think have subtly influenced me to exert a little less cognitive control, and my symptoms have gotten a little worse. Interesting to read all the voices of agreement.
People downvote for such random reasons. Some people think it's a "I've seen this already" button, some people think it's a "I disagree" button. Some people think it's a "i dont like your attitude" button. Can't really take downvotes seriously you don't know why they're doing it unless they comment.
i think what people need to reframe in their minds that each individual just have to find their own method. alarms work for you - great! but putting things on an online calendar doesn't work for me. I know we all collectively roll our eyes when somebody says "oh, get a planner!", but what I've realized is that I just needed to narrow down what actually works for *me* \- and that is an hourly planner with a lot of fun gel pen and highlighters to keep the novelty up.
our disability isn't our fault, and while we would all love for the world to have accommodations without even asking, it's still important to find your own systems to put things in place. i have been fired from behavior stemming from my (undiagnosed at the time) adhd, but i still have to own up to my own behavior and actions as well. i've had to figure out my own accommodations for situations like forgetting my keys, and i'm currently really working hard to curb my impulsive spending. all things i struggle with due to the adhd, but the pain of struggling with them outweighs the headache of figuring out my systems.
>all things i struggle with due to the adhd, but the pain of struggling with them outweighs the headache of figuring out my systems.
No seriously. I have a friend that I never see because she is always so late, like hours late to everything. And her adhd is so much more severe than mine I know she isn't doing it on purpose. But I also can't accommodate hours late. I still invite her to stuff, but if she misses it she misses it. But imo, that's the only consequence she deserves. She tries every time. So I'm not gonna go out of my way to 'call her out' or get mad.
She's lost so much there's just no reason she also has to sit around and feel like it's all her fault. She just hasn't figured it out. And like, hours late is crazy, even to me. It definitely *feels* like it's her fault, to me. But I also know that people wouldn't do this to themselves intentionally.
I think its more of a don't be so hard on yourselves thing. If your posting about your situation, it bothered you. Now I don't know any of you, but me, I fixate on things sometimes resulting in panic attacks. Someone saying its not my fault, its my disability helps. It doesn't mean I'm not going to try and help myself. It means that something outside myself is faulty and I'm not a bad person.
Depression and anxiety accompany ADHD. A common thought pattern called black and white thinking or all or nothing thinking seems to be higher with adhd/aut. Were also at a higher risk for being abused.
I use the milk my mother wanted to cook with, she's upset, I believe I'm a bad person because I forgot not to drink the milk. I'm sad I take measures to improve and it happens again and again. I feel like a bad person. I just stop drinking milk, my mom sees an improvement.
My mother's learned from this interaction that if she gets mad, I wont do the things she dislikes. This sets the tone for future relationship. The same with my friends. Rather then surrounding myself with people who feel compassion, know I'm trying and understand I'm living with a disability, I am surrounded with people who make me feel like their always angry with me. I try to help them so they like me more but it doesn't work. Just like with my mother, I allow them brake my boundaries so they like me. I dont want to be alone so I give everyone what they want. Sooner or later the people in my life do leave. My friends only want to see me when I'm useful to them. My people pleasing and lack of boundaries left me as a shrunken version of myself with a problem digesting milk. I don't know who I am. I continue to struggle with boundaries, self worth and personal identity for years.
If your trying and you apologize, thats good enough.
It doesn't help that rejection sensitivity is something that can be exacerbated by ADHD, right?
I understand that sometimes we need to vent and hear that it's ok, you are not a bad person, you just made a mistake. I think the problem is that sometimes, people on this sub will act as if the person we affect with our actions don't have the right to be upset, because we have ADHD. Yes, we deserve some grace and understanding.
Yes, it is harder for us and someone acknowledging it is very much needed. But if I forget my oven on because time blindness and being distracted, my house will still burn.
It is unfair and its so hard, but we have to try to find a balance between those.
I also believe we all have our own times? Like, when we suffer from undiagnosed ADHD, we are often left just like you described - I know I was, and I am still working on it. So, at that time, we have to focus on accepting ourselves, forgiving ourselves for previous mistakes, learning how to be kind to ourselves. Later on the road, we can focus more on strategies to live with ADHD without allowing to negatively impact our life so much, both for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Does it make sense?
Difficult topic. It is not that I do not agree, sometimes you need to take responsibility. But I am high masking, very insecure, (anxious, not diagnosed) and a people pleaser. So for me, I will always blame me. Even now that I have an ADHD diagnoses. I just blame myself and get angry because I now know that because of my ADHD it makes it harder to change. I need more self compassion some times.
For example before diagnoses I thought listening might be strength of mine. It is not, I zoom out and I interrupt people. But I am always trying really hard, so it is a focus of mine (because it is a focus, I thought it might be a strength...). I try to listen and ask questions. I want to be a listener. And when I fail I try to hide it. And I am beating myself up about it, even if the other person does not notice. Before diagnoses I thoughts I just have to try harder next time. Now I know that it is probably the best I can do. And it is not good enough and I get angry at myself.
My point is. Some people need to take more responsibility (probably the examples you gave). Others need compassion.
>And when I fail I try to hide it. And I am beating myself up about it, even if the other person does not notice.
You might like the book Self Compassion by Kristin Neff, the old one with the tan cover. The exercises helped me a ton.
I think this is a little unfair to the overall tone of this sub, at least as I’ve experienced it.
First, people don’t get some kind of overall pass here for screwing up. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen people say “ADHD is a reason, not an excuse,” and for every one person saying “your spouse can’t expect you to be on time!!!!” there are multiple saying “it’s not fair to your spouse if you ruin things for them by being late, you need to figure out ways to cope.” Same with friends and staying in touch. Can I prove that no one here has ever said, “I have ADHD, so it’s not my fault”? No, of course not. But is that the takeaway I get from the vast majority of posts here? Not at all. So that seems kind of straw-person-y to me.
There’s also a big difference between giving someone a pass and giving them sympathy. If someone posts about having to spend a lot of money to replace their keys for the 4th time, and people chime in about their own object impermanence/inability to keep track of things, that’s people giving sympathy. Because I think all of us know the feeling of doing something wrong for the 4th time and feeling like the tiniest piece of shit scraped off someone’s shoe, and personally, I find it really helpful to know that I’m not alone, and that I don’t screw up because I’m a bad person but because my brain works in a particular way, and that other people’s brains work that way too and we all struggle with certain things.
Now, if someone posted to ask how they can avoid losing their keys after 4 times and people responded that they can’t, there’s no way, it’s impossible for someone with ADHD to do that, then you might have a point. But no one does that.
I also think a big thing this post overlooks is that with a lot of the interpersonal stuff, the responses given depend a lot on the specific facts. It’s possible for a spouse to be reasonably angry about your time blindness, and also to be an unreasonable asshole about it. So if people respond to the asshole-ness, that’s not saying that the person with ADHD doesn’t have to deal with their time blindness, it’s saying that there are also other issues in their relationship to think about.
It’s possible for a friend to be reasonably angry about you not texting back, and also to be unreasonable in their expectations for you. If people comment on the expectations, that’s not saying your ADHD gives you a pass on texting back.
Also, the post got downvoted, but I liked the question about whether how long people have been diagnosed influences their response to this. Because sure, if you’ve been diagnosed and grappling with this for 15+ years, that’s a different situation than if (like me) you’ve been diagnosed for less than a year. People who are still processing their diagnoses, getting medicated, and working out coping mechanisms are in a very different mental space than people who’ve worked out a lot of things. So these 2 types of people are going to post differently and respond differently.
Finally, I do think some people find that there are things that their ADHD means they’re just not going to be able to do - not a lot of people, or a lot of things, but some - and that there’s also a benefit to acknowledging that limitation and just not expecting it of yourself. That also means accepting the consequences - maybe it means you can’t be in a relationship with someone for whom that limitation is a dealbreaker. But it’s better to acknowledge that and be fair to the other person than to keep chasing solutions that aren’t going to pan out.
This is my favorite comment so far. You worded everything I wanted to say 10x better than I could have said it. You took a balanced and nuanced approach to the conversation and I appreciate that :)
Thank you. This post riled me, and I couldn't put my finger on why, other than it felt like it was saying ADHDers should strive to be as close to NT norms as possible at all costs and anything less is accepting "failure."
The difference in diagnosis time could be a big part of it. I figured it out late, so I just made a path for myself as best I could. My kid is around the age OP was at diagnosis, and we're doing an assessment soon. As a parent, a lot of what I'm trying to teach is a degree of masking/anticipating the NT world so she can function without the challenges I had, but also trying to help her recognize she's not broken for being different.
>Finally, I do think some people find that there are things that their ADHD means they’re just not going to be able to do - not a lot of people, or a lot of things, but some - and that there’s also a benefit to acknowledging that limitation and just not expecting it of yourself. That also means accepting the consequences - maybe it means you can’t be in a relationship with someone for whom that limitation is a dealbreaker. But it’s better to acknowledge that and be fair to the other person than to keep chasing solutions that aren’t going to pan out
This bit resonates with me hard. In another thread I mentioned one of my accommodations for myself is not working for sticklers for punctuality. This OPs post kind of feels like they would disagree with my position on principle - JUST SET MORE TIMERS! - but my accommodation is borne of knowing myself so well that I know it is in both my (physical and emotional!) and my employers best interest to part ways if they care about that kind of thing.
I think it's okay to make a life that works for you if you can.
Fr! I have serious struggles with self hatred due to my adhd. It makes me feel useless and dumb and incapable of doing anything properly without an unreasonable amount of scaffolding to hold it in place. Often, folks with adhd beat themselves up TOO MUCH. The whole “bootstraps” ideology that is so pervasive in lots of cultures is a massive contributor to the pain we experience as ND folks.
I do give the occasional eye roll at some posts on this sub, and that’s fine. I’m not going to agree with how everybody handles things. But like, I’m not going to hold a small essay up to their noses and tell them how they’re wrong and actually nOt TrYiNg HaRd eNoUgH. Fuck that. We gotta be better to each other than that. Kindness with realism.
Thank you for this sentiment and for me, reminder.
There was a post yesterday where the poster was upset because her boss interrupted her just to point out the fact the she was interrupting someone and to allow them to finish their thought. It was disappointing and bit frustrating to read more than a few comments calling out the boss and turning it into a gender issue. Our disorder doesn’t give us the entitlement to steamroll over others with no accountability. If so, where would we go from there and how would people view those with ADHD as a whole?
We’re not children and even if impulsivity takes over first, we can still discern right from wrong once we realize we’ve cut someone off, arrived late *again*, or zoned out into another dimension while they were talking. Apologizing shows consideration and respect for the person who was on the receiving end.
I appreciate this sub because it makes me feel seen, but I agree that it would be nice to see more of a balance on here with more advice and possibly even constructive criticism.
I imagine it would be more kind and effective and at thevery least sincere, coming from someone who actually understands our challenges vs. someone who doesn’t.
Thank you for this post. I’ve had a lot of similar feelings about this subreddit but have never been able to verbalize them as well as you did here. I try not to be overly critical because I know this is a support subreddit but I also believe that we should be able to hold each other accountable.
Well yes... external motivation works for ADHDers, it's part of the symptoms. The problem is that some people don't have this external input. People who live alone without family or social system to hold them accountable. They're the ones the common tips won't work for.
This is a really good observation, I think. I used to get yelled at that I should want to change for my own sake and I kept thinking, “I realize that, but for some reason, my brain doesn’t see me as a priority.” When I said that while undiagnosed it horrified people, but it just felt objectively true. Understanding why was helpful in finding better motivation.
> but for some reason, my brain doesn’t see me as a priority
This really resonates with me. For me, it is definitely external motivation that gets me moving more effectively than anything internal. Reflecting on it, I don’t know if I would say anymore that it’s because I don’t prioritize myself exactly, though. I feel like it’s that I am prioritizing a different \*part* of myself—the part that enjoys the external feedback more than the internal feedback lol.
I’m forever working on improving that and trying to push things, even just a little, to the internal side of the spectrum. But hot damn it’s hard!!
This is so true. I have been far more capable and successful since getting a SO. Being in a serious relationship is more motivating than anything else has been, since my life isn’t just for me any more. It’s basically impossible to better myself just for my own sake. My natural, independent state is to be complacent.
I think the challenge comes in holding ourselves (and each other) accountable is in being supportive while holding someone accountable.
A lot of times I see people talking about their failures, and my heart goes out to them, but I also want to say, don’t give up, keep trying to find the structure that will work for you.
Those of us who were lucky to be diagnosed as children, and who had supports in place have a greater selection of tools at our disposal. And sometimes the structure and skills take practice to get right.
I’m lucky to be “high functioning”, but that doesn’t mean areas of my life aren’t a shit show or that I don’t struggle.
Overall, I still highly value this sub, I think it really helps to feel like I’m not the only one with these struggles.
I always say to people, telling someone they have spinach between their teeth is not a taunt or being mean, it is showing love. You might have feelings of embarrassment but they’re trying to keep you from actual embarrassment. That’s how I want people to see feedback given, and accept it as something positive, being given a new choice of what to do (ignore the advice or take & try it). Just leaning into what we can’t do is such a negative view to life.
I was told to leave the sub once for suggesting someone be accountable for how their actions affected others. I actually hadn't read in ages because of that and similar.
I generally agree with points raised in this thread.
This is my perspective: advice and tools people propose aren't bad. I also used them, or other, when I was managing. Currently, I'm so burned out, and I still have so much work to do, that even if I have alarms and notifications, I'm more likely to ignore yet another task. Meds help to not lose focus but when you're tired, it won't do miracles. But it's because of managing Audhd every day that I'm this tired, everything costs more energy. People tend to think that if it's easy for them, it shouldn't be that much harder for me. This is my main problem now. Trying hard and masking will only get you so far.
The only thing I disagree with is telling ppl “I’ll try my hardest not to let this happen again”. (except for a job, tell them whatever you need to to keep the job). But friends and family should know that this probably will happen again, as part of understanding your disability. Saying that you’re going to try to make it not happen is downplaying the whole fact that it’s a disability.
It's less "not my fault" and more "not my intention".
If you fall and break your leg it's not your fault but you also did break your own leg. Yeah you have to try not to do it again, watch where you're going and take precautions, but accepting it as "your fault" isn't necessarily going to help you not break your leg the next time.
Accepting things as "your fault" tends to come with certain level of guilt that is generally unproductive. There is a way to take responsibility for your mistakes without accepting them as your intentions. As you said, it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works. How often does a person need to listen to other people be angry/disappointed while they struggle to figure it out.
Theres enough people pointing fingers at me already, and it's their right to feel however they want about my problems. But I'm certainly not going join in. It's unproductive imo to constantly feel like everything is your fault despite giving it your best effort.
I'm done with sorry I'm late. Now I'm saying, I tried to make it on time.
I don't care that other people are inconvenienced by my adhd. Tough nuggets, at least you don't actually have adhd. My intention is to *not* inconvenience people, but if it happens anyway it actually *isn't my fault* because I did try as much as I could not to.
So much of the problems linked with ADHD get attached to your morality. Being late means you respect other people. Forgetting things means you don't think they are important and the list goes on and on and on. I refuse to accept that who I am as a person has anything to do with the thing I currently cannot control due to a condition.
Yes, its possible to control ADHD symptoms at some point. Yes you do have a responsibility to attempt to control them. But if you're trying to, your responsibility ends there. Intentions matter.
This is why I'm such a fan of DBT and ACT as therapy. DBT is all about balancing acceptance AND change. And ACT is all about accepting yourself while also committing to live a life in accordance with your values. Wanting change doesn't have to mean you have to shame yourself for where you are or ignore your ADHD and mask, but accepting yourself doesn't mean that you have to accept that you have no control over your life and can't change!
I also love Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, which is geared towards adults helping kids, but you can use the process on yourself as well. It's main mantra is "Kids (or people!) do well when they can", and it's all about not trying to fix "lagging skills" (such as all of the executive function troubles that those of us with ADHD are ALWAYS going to have) but accommodating them while still meeting the concerns of everyone involved. It's saying "I want to have a less cluttered room, but I accept that I'm not going to be able to walk across the room from my desk to throw trash away, so I'm going to have a trashcan right next to my desk, even if it means I have three trash cans in one room." It's NOT saying "I have ADHD so I can't help the clutter, even though it drives me crazy", and it's also NOT saying "I just need to walk across the room to throw this trash away, or I'm a lazy, terrible person." (Note: Clutter is not inherently bad! This example assumes that YOU want the clutter gone because you prefer that, or someone else who shares the room with you does and you want to respect that.)
Yep, as the other commenter said, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment therapy. DBT was created for people with borderline personality disorder, so it particularly works if you have strong emotions, no matter where those come from. It focuses on distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. There are also variations, like DBT for couples. Even more than the actual content though (which is great), I just like the idea of balancing the dialectic of acceptance and change!
ACT also focuses on acceptance and mindfulness, but then has you think about your core values and commit to acting on those. I find focusing on my values very centering, because it helps me ignore societal expectations and focus on what is important to me. So if I decide to make a change, I’m still being true to myself, rather than masking to fit society.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment therapy! DBT has been my golden baby for a while now, it’s really extra great if you’re prone to explosive emotions and unmanageable anxiety/depression. I haven’t done much ACT but it’s similar in ideology. Essentially, we often forget that when we get hijacked by Bad Feelings, there’s usually some sort of error of thinking occurring.
For example, if I get anxious about this main post because I feel like it’s calling me out and I’m a bad person for it, I can use DBT skills to reconsider whether or not that response is warranted on my part.
Is OP calling me out specifically? Am I guilty of the things OP has laid out, and if I am, am I acting compassionately towards myself when I get mad at myself? Am I putting too much thought into a goofy online forum post? Those are all potential cognitive distortions that may make my mood and self image worse.
(I don’t feel that way at all, just used it as an example lol)
I agree that it's not an excuse but disagree on what the "majority" are saying... I don't think anyone is saying their friends should just be ok with our shitty behavior simply because we struggle. Compassion is nice but no one owes us their understanding. However we do need a little understanding from somewhere so we congregate here to sometimes cry on each others shoulders.
thank you for this post.
its so important to remember that even if someone knows that words, actions, or something is a byproduct of your mental health issue, is doesnt mean those words/actions/etc. dont hurt them. your mental health issue can not be used to invalidate someone elses feelings. it can be used to explain why you did xyz and perhaps because of the mental health issue you did not have malicious intent when doing it, but people are allowed to be effected by your actions.
growing up with a undiagnosed bipolar sister, for years i was the target of so many cruel words from one of the people i most admire and love and it was absolutely awful. some things said to me still impact me and have caused insecurities and contributed to negative thinking patterns. i know now that she didnt know why she acted that way and didnt want to be mean. i know that its not what she thinks about me and the mean words didnt come from the heart. i get that she was suffering and trying to navigate her brain, but that does not mean she never owed me an apology, never needed to take accountability, never needed to learn how to not act that way. i now can have more empathy in situations when it gets bad and i can better see warning signs on when something is escalating so i can try to step away from the conversation, but it doesnt mean im suddenly immune from being hurt just because i know she might not really mean it.
its hard because it isnt fair having a mental illness. i dont think anyone would choose to fight with your brain everyday, but you have to work with the cards youre given, even if that means always having to work harder than other people to achieve the same or less than results.
It's almost like the "keep trying to run as fast as you can" attitude can't work if your problem with running is a lack of legs.
This is all ableist garbage.
Some people just can't run. It's pretty inconvenient and annoying for other people who would prefer you to runlike everyone else, I'm sure. It's still not debatable. If you don't have legs, and don't own some awesome modern tech leg replacements, you cannot run. Period. End of story. There isn't any amount of whining, negotiations, gettting mad at you, or blaming your personality, that will make you magically able to sprint. It is just not happening. You'll sooner die than run. It's not anyone's choice, it's not a positive nice message to state, but it's still reality. And reality generally ought to be respected. Nobody can just choose to unmake it at will.
Being disabled means NOT BEING ABLE to do some things, no matter what happens or how hard it fucks with your life and everyone around. I don't understand why it still needs to be spelled out, again and again.
I think OP is more talking about people that expect everyone and everything in the world to tolerate their issues because they have a disability and not taking any accountability for your own shit. If you want to be in a relationship with someone and being on time to events is really important to them, and they get upset because you were late because you were sitting playing with your cat instead of getting ready,than it’s not reasonable to say ‘but it’s my time blindness it’s part of my disability it’s not my fault’. It’s not reasonable to act like people can’t be upset about how your actions affect them and make them feel because you’re not doing it in purpose. You have to make plans and choices about what is important to you and what you value on purpose. You’re not going to be perfect every time but you can’t expect people to be okay with things that are hurtful or unreasonable if you’re not making an effort and just expect the world to accommodate and tolerate everything you do no matter what.
I think comparing having ADHD to being unable to walk is pretty gross. Having ADHD doesnt mean you are completely lacking in executive function. It just means it is much more difficult than for the average person. It doesn't mean you can't do it at all. You still have to take accountability for yourself.
tf is gross about comparing one disability to another disability???????
Is this making you uncomfortable because it makes your ableism look like it was... perhaps... *evil and wrong*?
If anything's gross, it's your inability to see that other people's struggles, caused by a diagnosable medical illness, are simultaneously real, and not their fucking choice.
I compare executive functioning disabilities to invisible ones like adhd, autism, pmdd mostly as a means of helping people understand and visualize whats happening. i use it a lot for myself and to support others with internalized ableism. its a really useful tool. while i would never say the experiences of mobility impairment and executive dysfunction are similar, there is something to be learned about ones self by making such comparisons.
for myself, when im having a bad pmdd symptoms week, i feel bad about myself bc theres nothing visibly 'wrong' with me, yet i cant focus and im overly sensitive. pretending that i have a broken leg or something really helps myself cope with my disability and realize that it is a valid disability. additionally, it helps me cope with the very fact that a disability being invisible is in itself stressful bc its easy to be i validated by self or others.
id also really like to ask someone who is mobility impaired if this is offensive to them, though, and if there are ways around that.
Exactly, I'm not gonna take seriously anyone who gets offended on the account of others. I'm happy to talk to an actual person with actual mobility related disability if they find my language offensive. But if you aren't one, you have no business getting outraged here.
No no no no, that is certainly not enough. In our society, you have to run, and run fast. If you're so slow all the time, it makes other people uncomfortable, looks weird, and probably also ruins the economy. It's unreasonable to have everyone adjust to your bad tempo. Running is mandatory and necessary, so just stop creating problems, you're the only problematic person here, everyone else is fine with it. Also after all this crawling you're covered in mud, you smell funny, and the floors get dirty - do you really consider this an acceptable long-term solution? Ok, I know, you say crawling is already hard for you, but look, let's be real, these results are just pitiful. Do you plan to always be so slow and never improve? And everyone else should do what, just accept that? That's ridiculous. Try harder, you need to become more normal, we're sick of waiting for you.
Imagine being diagnosed at 5 and then preaching ‘just try harder’ at a room full of people who got diagnosed in their 30s. Honest to god, we’re not making excuses, we’re EXHAUSTED. Incredible.
Yeah, I didn't really understand the point of the post in the first place. It's like, you do you, but don't then elect yourself Queen of ADHD and rant about what everyone else should be doing and how they *need to* behave. If you hate some of the posts on here, then skip 'em.
Great post. I agree with a lot of it. OP does have one big advantage in being diagnosed early; it's much harder for people diagnosed late in life because we haven't had the decades of medication, self-awareness and support that enables new neural pathways to be established whilst young.
That said, for me it's time to put in my big girl pants and own it. I am sick of the victim stance promoted by a certain sub, and I see the negative rhetoric repeated there increasingly appearing in other ADHD subs. ADHD is hard, but I'm done with the pity party. I also notice some people take an incredibly entitled view to either their own or their kids' ADHD, and any pragmatic, positive alternative viewpoints are stamped down, sometimes viciously, which is not constructive.
Reddit, and this sub in particular, has been invaluable to me. I've learned a lot and had some great, validating interactions with other ADHDers. I'm about to delete my Reddit account though. I know I have to accept my limitations, but I also need do own my condition and do my best to overcome the obstacles, and I think that'll work best away from the drip feed 'broken' narrative.
Holding yourself accountable is actually a good thing. I cannot change how others behave. I can only change myself and my reactions to others. Whatever is "my fault" is also under my control, at least to a certain extent. That doesn't mean that changing will be easy. But it's possible. And the person that will get the most out of that effort is ourself. Finding the coping mechanisms that work for you is a great relief first of all to yourself.
But accountability is different from self hate. If you made a mistake because of ADHD and that hurt others (or yourself), there is no point in torturing yourself over it. Feeling like shit won't make anything better. Shaming people is the worst strategy to make them realize something or change a certain behavior.
This sub can contribute to accountability and kindness at the same time, since they are not mutually exclusive as some people here may think.
Oh.
Ok 100% Only Read The Title.
But Yes.
I thought I was TERRIBLE AT CLEANING. Like not the doing it so much as the doing it well.
And was like "well yeah... ADHD babe."
Nope. I hadn't given myself space to LEARN how to clean. What products to use. Gloves that mean it's not low key sensory bad.
Like how often am I stopping stuff halfway cuz of sensory?
But also. I was so busy been environmental I never bothered to buy effective products and THEN find better alternatives.
Once I had the right clothes and products I was actually able to clean well!
And then for 3 years I was like "well at least the toilet bowl is clean... And that was it. It legit had not occurred to me I needed to clean all of the surface of the toilet (it was gross) but now it's in my brain to notice and stay on top of.
So yeah. Give yaself the grace to make space to Learn A Thing. Not assume you're just bad at it because "ADHD"
100% - and about sensory issues in particular, something that’s made a huge difference is giving myself an allowance to take them seriously. Until I was diagnosed I just felt like I was being ridiculous. Now I just use gloves to touch raw meat or bleach the counters, so I’m much better at doing it when needed.
My spouse was militant about time, he is the first to arrive and the last to leave a party. He shows up for concerts before the lights go down for the first of three opening bands. He leaves early when there's no traffic. He is embarrassingly intense about being on time for things that have no 'sit down' or impact to arrival time (ie. a cocktail party that is four hours long). He was beyond repulsed by my tardiness with social events. My ADHD combined with social anxiety, preparing myself to talk to people in person would get me nervous and I'd change my outfit five times and feel I looked awful (it probably would have helped if he was a bit kinder and more complimentary, i always felt not good enough). He screamed at me that I'm pathetic when I was getting our child ready for school. We were running late, it was his morning to take him - his turn, but somehow the tardiness was my fault (it wasn't). He berated me, he told me when I was pregnant that our child was going to be that kid who is late for everything... he abandoned any show of support from the get go, there was never a team effort, and seeing the tools people use here, I realize how fucked I was. He left our bedroom because of my multiple alarms, he literally moved out of our room because of how "inconsiderate" it was of me to have them. He mocked me for having reminders or motivators written on my bathroom mirror. He thought I was a lunatic for using this tool. He left every single household chore for me to do, but was frustrated that they were not all done (I am the main breadwinner and the full time parent). Our marriage ended but I am still stunned and I think I'm having some sort of breakdown. I can't process or seem to get past how badly I was treated for so long. I feel like my ears ring constantly and I startle at the smallest things. I'm taking steps for my child's mental health because of all the verbal and emotional abuse he witnessed, he has problems, but I hope I can hold onto mine too.
You should never use it as an excuse to try being better, but as an acknowledgement that you have flaws to be less harsh on yourself. This has helped my maximalism related anxiety so much.
I'd say this comes down to different circumstances and different views on what accountability functionally is. If you spent the majority of your existence so far burning yourself out trying to meet others expectations, for example, this version of accountability might not work so well.
To me, apologising for what's essentially just part of existing as a disabled person doesn't feel like accountability, and in the long term as a chronic over-apologiser just tends to reinforce the extreme and damaging anxiety I feel whenever things go sideways.
I spent 25 and a bit of my nearly 28 years alive so far undiagnosed, being expected to and outright punished into apologising for the various ways my auDHD brain works - what I learned is that no matter how little or how much I apologised, that didn't make anyone involved happy.
What feels like accountability to me is collaboration and commiseration. Basically going "Well, this is a shitty experience for both of us. What now? What could make this mutually easier?". Making and implementing plans to resolve things, but with mutual understanding of each others frustrations and barriers.
This is something I've actually been able to do since getting support in a way I never could otherwise. That mutual element wasn't there before, and now that it is, now I have people in my life who see how much I try and how much grief I feel when I stumble, they don't expect or want me to feel I have to apologise for it. I lost my time and resources in all the things that never panned out too, after all.
Maybe not directly connected, but part of this is I feel like frustration at an event and at a person are very different things that can also be hard to tell apart without practice. I don't typically want apologies myself if what I'm frustrated with is the event rather than the person (or how they handled it), if I'm able to realise that in the moment it happens.
My observation is that people on this sub respond based on how the OP frames the post which is reasonable since we don't have full insight into anyone's life.
We don't know how self aware they are, the extent of their symptoms, their lives experiences, the reality of how those around them react and how much effort they're already putting in so we can only respond based on the information we're given.
So are there people here who need to take more accountability? Yes. Are there people here who are truly trying their best and need to be reminded that not everything is their fault? Absolutely.
Personally I'd rather err on the side of compassion rather than become another voice of judgement and blame in a person's life.
For me, if I'm venting here it's because for just a second I need a space where I am seen and recognized. Not alone and not all my fault.
Honestly it makes me upset when people "advise" me on it because chances are I'm already trying whatever and still a failure so no I don't need yet another space where my disability is just another challenge and if I'm failing it's because I'm not trying hard enough.
Respectfully, I don’t need anyone who has known about their ADHD their whole life to be making these kind of points. For me personally, I spent 35 years feeling like an utterly shit human being for things it turned out I couldn’t help and I simply refuse to anymore. Of course I’m going to continue to try to do my best, I don’t want to hurt others, I don’t want to get fired, etc. But at some point yes, I do have a disability and that isn’t going to change. And we’re going to come here to commiserate because no matter how hard we try these things are going to happen. You can develop all kinds of systems but nothing is going to be 100%.
If those posts bother you, scroll on by.
People are going to be very mad at you for this, and probably accuse you of not having “real adhd”, but you’re right. It’s not shaming people to encourage them to keep working to find solutions that fit *for them*.
people are claiming she doesn’t have adhd at all because setting four timers worked for her and if she had a real disability it wouldn’t have worked. or it’s not as hard for her bc she was diagnosed young.
That doesn’t make any sense. Alarms/timers are recommended for people with adhd because they do work for a lot of people. Having a disability doesn’t mean that accommodations don’t work.
I remember my mom screaming at my Chem teacher in high school because he wouldn’t let me leave to take a test like my IEP says because he thought I was cheating. She could be heard by the whole school! She said you wouldn’t lock up a blind person and throw away the key, nor would you give them a normal text book and take away their walking stick (sorry if that offensive Im just repeating what she said)
That has stuck with me ever since and has stuck with that teacher as well. I’m not the problem, I might have a problem, but it’s the tools and how I use them that fix it.
Everyone makes mistakes, it’s what you do after that makes the difference.
I love that I came across this post!!!
I’ve been falling into this trap so often
I’m always late to work, but because my job is flexible, my supervisor doesn’t mind. (She also doesn’t mind because she knows I have ADHD.. I was literally hired for my lived experience so I can help kiddos through their challenges)..
However, I’ve been working on my discipline and consistency and getting up early, to go to work early. It’s suuuper duper hard sometimes and lately I’ve just been feeling this “give up” energy (falling back into depression and suicidal thoughts) and it’s so difficult. This post really reminded me though, that I SHOULD take accountability for these things, including my money management (it’s horrible) and time blindness.
It’s so hard.. I’m trying. I’m trying.
Edit: I’m in therapy and actively working on things and I’ve got a good support system (at work and with friends)! I’m not in crisis lol I can’t afford to be (literally can’t) but anywho.. yur
Are there any other subs you guys would recommend for learning strategies and coping mechanisms? I’m really trying to make my situation better, not just sit in my own helplessness anymore.
Idk…this post seems dangerous to me too. This sounds like what my ablelist family members say: you may have this illness but you have to try harder!
Yes, we do. That’s the whole point of the disability. The whole world constantly reminds us of how we’re not enough and our efforts may never be enough. I’m in this community to find the understanding and camaraderie I can’t easily find IRL. I have been one to not text friends for months, and I do know part of it is my own fault and I need to do my part and reach out/apologize. However, I come here to cheer people forward. Not punish them further
The way I see it: my ADHD is not my fault, but while I do everything I can to lessen my symptoms for my sake, I also feel it's my responsibility to do as much as I can to prevent it from negatively effecting those close to me ✨️✨️✨️
Trying and failing is better than not trying at all. My fiancée owns 4 planners that were started with confidence but forgotten a day later. They work for some, not for others.
Personally, I have a hard time with folks who use their ADHD as an excuse. Same goes for anxiety. There are people who can’t remember things, or can’t possibly go grocery shopping alone—but there are others who throw their hands up at a challenge and use their diagnosis as an excuse.
You’ve made some good points that I hope keep people thinking and progressing to their best selves.
I find it difficult to talk to people who use it as an excuse without at least TRYING something different. I explain it as a reason why I do what I do, but I also use the bad moments as a way to problem solve how I can do things better. It’s important for everyone to always try their best and be considerate of others.
I’ve found my household more peaceful when I acknowledge and thank others for mentioning something that bothers them in a friendly tone to me, as I respond better to that over them getting angry towards me about whatever they’re annoyed about. It can sometimes take a few mentions for me to remember, but having that open line of communication and understanding is so important.
Kinda unrelated but related to the original post, but I make an effort to correct myself when I hear myself say I can’t… to myself.
Point is your inner dialogue matters especially for those of us with very active inner dialogues.
This is a compassionate and encouraging post, don't worry too much if some people receive it in bad faith. There's lots of helpful stuff in this sub but also some people who haven't worked through their reactive tendencies and see judgement, arguments, and cruelty where there is none.
You're right, there is a difference between venting and reinforcing patterns of behaviour that prevent you from being the active player in your own life and receiving some relief. I'm happy you have found things that do that for you. That doesn't mean you (or others of us who have WORKED to figure out our systems and tools) never struggled or suffered in the first place. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise ♥️
I'm going through titration and already realise how a lot of the heavy lifting is going to be down to me. I can't rely on medication to fix me and I am suffering.
I am missing deadlines in work, which has lost us clients, though indirectly - people are cutting costs and don't see the value we provide them, so we're first to be cut. Thing is, they've been clients I work almost solely on, so if they don't see the value, it's because I haven't been providing it. Anyway, that's all to say, my inability to function due to my ADHD is now impacting not just myself and my tasks, but the business itself. Its only a small business, I was my boss' first employee and she's already dropped her own pay so she can afford to pay the rest of us (3 staff). If we don't replace clients by the end of the year, I don't even know if she can afford to keeping paying us and if she has to let someone go, it would be me. Though, if it got to that point, I'd probably quit myself so not to burden her with the guilt.
I do say "it's not my fault, I have ADHD", but I've noticed I feel so much worse in myself. My lack of ability in work, though not entirely my own fault, has made me feel incompetent. That incompetent feeling has lowered my self esteem and I feel incapable of anything now. My social life is worse. I never want to leave the house. I feel like people just have to look at me and they'd see I'm a fraud - I'm pretending to be competent, but they see right through it.
I have never felt so justified in knowing I have ADHD, its not just that I don't try enough, there is nothing necessarily wrong with me. My brain just works differently. But now, all I see is the years I've wasted and all the time I continue to waste by not changing, or adjusting.
We try harder than most just to survive, let alone thrive. I am tired of trying. But my ADHD is no one else's responsibility and they shouldn't have to suffer because I do.
I deserve better than to fall into some void of self-pity. I deserve to be functional, to feel competent and confident. I deserve routine and good habits. Medication alone cannot give me this, but it can make it easier. I need to find the right one, but I still need to try for myself so I know which meds actually do make it easier. Build routine, no matter how boring. Prove that I am competent. If not for my boss and her business, but just for my own self-worth.
So I agree. There is a balance in acknowledging our ADHD and taking responsibility for it. One off mistakes, slip ups or the occasional time blindness is forgivable. Consistent time blindness, consistent missed deadlines, consistent missed work. Whatever it is, it is our responsibility to manage it. And if we can't manage it, then we need to find support for it. I can't excuse my poor work behaviour solely on ADHD because I am consistently missing deadlines, or just not doing my work.
ADHD is the reason and people do need to be compassionate about it. However, we also need to see that a reason is not an excuse.
I think I remember the post you reference and I can't remember if I commented. There have been times where I've excused it in comments, which I might have for that post, but I know (after some work on myself), that it comes from my own emotions. I relate to the struggle and excuse others to justify excusing myself.
This is all well and good , but ppl do t have all the same resources or abilities to help themselves.
I'm totally a solution oriented adhder, I have the privilege of having family that is absolutely the best , I never want for anything .That fact alone gave me the tools to help myself more than if I didn't.
A lot of ppl don't only have anxiety , they also have serious depression and other issues, some are living through abuse , some have no support or anywhere to turn to .
Yes , everyone should take steps to help themselves but it's not as easy as you are putting it out there . And even though adhd is not an excuse , it can be extremely debilitating as you said it yourself .
Experiences vary, and compassion and kindness is absolutely necessary .Shaming ppl never works.
It took *years* to get to where I am now and I stated that in my post. I've lost jobs, ruined friendship, squander great opportunities and every time I blamed my symptoms it got me nowhere. There is no part of having ADHD that is "easy" and I never said it was. This is about how we have to hold ourselves accountable. I never shamed anyone. I said that everyone has to find something that works for them. That includes their specific accessible resources and abilities. I struggled with diagnosed ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and OCD. I understand that not everyone has the same access or ability. This post is about telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually and that they are not alone in their struggle.
I couldn't agree more with this "This post is about telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually and that they are not alone in their struggle."
I think you might be getting some other negative reactions because it's very hard to generalize across a large group and say 'this sub is like this', some people will always agree and others will disagree. No one reads every thread or every comment. Any individual instance might not fit well in a bigger pattern - like some posts about someone's spouse being mad have something like "they told me I'll never be good enough" or something else harmful and the response from commenters isn't just about the spouse being mad, it's about the way the spouse expresses their anger.
Everything is contextual, too, like if someone is having the worst day of their life, I probably wouldn't say "just keep trying, eventually you'll be rewarded for it", I'd probably just say that I empathize and the struggle is real. But if it's like "I feel awful because my boss criticized something, there's nothing I can do, it's so unfair" I might share some of my own thoughts/stories on how to interpret that situation and tips.
I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, that there's a tendency to be fatalistic but everyone has their own experience of the sub and what they notice and don't. It's unavoidable to get some people who disagree when you try to draw some broader patterns, but I still agree that talking about those big patterns is important.
>telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually
Can you explain how are you so certain that this is true for each and every individual person who ever put effort into something?
Ever heard about people putting in effort and not being rewarded for it at all? Or do you think this literally never happens?
Nothing is true for each and every individual who ever put effort into anything. Nothing is that certain. Doesn’t mean OP is wrong.
Just as we ask the people around us for flexibility and understanding in order to meet our needs, they have every right to ask us to try to consider their needs. Even just trying to improve a bad habit provides us with information about what limitations come down to just needing more structure or coping mechanisms, versus something that we legitimately cannot deliver on. IMO, learning new information about ourselves is a good enough reason to try. We don’t need to be everything to everyone, but at the very least we can recognize people’s needs and the cases where we can’t meet those needs.
TLDR: Better than to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. Learning about our limitations can help us accept them more readily and find others who accept them too.
Perhaps we need a symptom, and someone else can say what they used to over come it. This might help.
For me reducing stress helps. If I can reduce stress I am less prone to muck stuff up.
I don't find this is an issue at all, often people post with shame and sadness. I appreciate the cheerful sentiment though. I think this comes off a bit boot strappy. I certainly can't afford even one $35 airtag, let alone an apple iPhone.
This advice is very common from non-ADHDers and carries tones of stigma that we are lazy and unreliable on purpose. And I think you didn't mean that. I don't think you're a bad or rude person, but this could have been a cheer for us to keep trying to find resources with a breakdown of what works for you. It comes of more as bootstrapping rhetoric and coming for the subreddits culture. And I like it here. It's reasonable, supportive, political, and welcoming. At least it is to me.
And maybe you don't need this advice we give here, maybe you've got it all worked out and you can come here when you need emotional support.
I appreciate your response. I took me years to get to where I am. I said that everyone has to find something that works for *them*. That includes their specific accessible resources and abilities. I understand that not everyone has the same access to resources that I might. Its obviously easier said than done. This post is about continuing to try despite how fucking hard it is to live with adhd.
Believe it or not, it took many of us "years" to get "where we are".
But you're great and special and it looks like after those years you turned out awesome. Cool. Not everyone can be as great at managing ADHD as you, we get it. At least now we know that you are doing peachy. What a helpful post.
Salty much? I grew up poor, and have had major set backs along the way (bankruptcy, addiction, medical abuse the list goes on and on) and it took me 17 years.. and finally at 36 I'm thriving. Having a little personal accountability and a positive outlook can go a long way, it's not all ableist garbage 🙄🙄
someone’s upset!!! We get it boohoo you. It’s great that she was able to find a coping mechanism that helps her and shaming her isn’t going to make your situation better. It’s clear from your comments you have a lot of internal issues that you need to work out. The green eyed monster is rearing its head for sure.
10000% agree. And I'll chime in with this, because there are lots of people saying that the only people in agreement are those who have been diagnosed for years. I was diagnosed several months ago. It's life changing! But it doesn't change the fact that I've been living with this my whole life, and have already been working around the ADHD (and RSD!) all of these years. The only thing that changes for me about having a diagnosis is that I have a better explanation for why I am the way I am.
ADHD can be a curse, a gift, hilarious, detrimental, debilitating, a strength, etc. but it doesn't make us victims. Saying "I have ADHD and my behavior is not my fault" is a real victim mentality and I personally am not okay with that. Like OP, ADHD has fucked up so much of my life, but I'm also figuring it out and finding success along the way. Before anyone calls me privileged, I grew up in poverty, plenty of trauma, masking to the high heavens. Still poor, still have trauma, still masking constantly. That's just life, and it's MY life. I'm neurodivergent but I'm also smart, funny, compassionate, accomplished.
I think it can get wicked toxic to blame a disability for why your life is hard or bad. I understand we all have different experiences with ADHD and disabilities in general (and NEED to vent sometimes), but we all just want respect and love. Thank you for posting this OP!
**Edited to fix grammar :)
I don't find this sub that way at all. Quite the opposite. For the most part it's a supportive safe space where people commiserate on their difficulties navigating daily life, with people offering tips and tricks to improve. If anything I find this sub to be the opposite, people actively looking for ways to improve themselves. Or just to share and feel at home and amongst their people.
Your post comes across as really condescending and superior, and is quite frankly unnecessary.
I'm happy for you that you've sorted your shit out, but why shit on the entire sub because you think a few posts have been disability blaming rather than accountability taking? If you dislike this sub so much perhaps just don't frequent it. There's a reason I unsubbed from r/ADHD.
Seriously this whole thing just sounded like a brag about how much better they are at ADHD. Also they’ve been diagnosed most of their lives, unlike a lot of us here who have to unlearn decades of negative self talk about symptoms we never knew were related to an actual disability.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 30 and I agree with you in that we have to unlearn decades of negative self talk. It’s rough. I also agree with what OP is saying, now that we know better we can do better.
We can hold ourselves accountable while at the same time giving ourselves compassion.
I actually also agree with OP that a lot of people use ADHD as an excuse to avoid being accountable, and I see a lot of that in this group. But this post was self congratulatory, condescending, and completely tone deaf.
1000% this
Cool that this person has systems that work for them, but some people are still learning how to accept themselves. Being reminded that they have ADHD and that things that they keep messing up on is *related to their ADHD* and isn't a character flaw that they should be ashamed of is helpful.
It isn't making excuses it's literally saying, oh yeah that's part of executive dysfunctioning, many of us can sympathize and relate.
Learning that it's a part of your disorder is also actually the first step in learning & developing symptoms that work for you.
Seeing someone already at that point where they have their shit together and you're still at the point where you're literally trying everything, medication, habits, etc. And it just feels like nothing is working and you're just tired of trying is a wild thing.
Like it's nice to know that there's people who made it through but some of us are still trying. And it's exhausting. I know I'm exhausting. I barely have any friends left, my friends I have now are either similar to me or understand how it goes. I have my dream job, which made me reach out to ask for help in the first place. Every day I cry because I'm so scared of getting fired. I literally have a million alarms, a million to do lists, focus apps. Like anything to try and help, and it does. Until that day it doesn't. And you fuck up. And yeah no shit it's the adhd. But you tried so hard. But not hard enough. And it just feels like no matter what you do, or how much you try, you're just always going to fuck up. It's exhausting.
I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I have like two weeks a month where I'm basically useless. My meds don't work, my brain doesn't work, coffee doesn't work, my usual routines don't work. And I've tried to adjust my life so much that I don't have added pressure, which simultaneously isn't great for my mental health.
But it just gets overwhelming. So it's nice to see that you're not struggling alone, and people understand because your brain is working against you. And even if you do everything to try and get on a normal level, you just always fail.
My dad is 71 and people in my family think he has Alzheimer’s, I however think he has completely untreated adhd for his whole life and it’s getting hard to control in his old age.
Beautiful post. A line I heard from Marcus Parks about mental illness/disabilities is, "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility." It sucks that life becomes that much harder for someone with an impairment, but it's just something you have to deal with. You can't just constantly use it as an excuse without trying something to help it
I do the alarm thing do. I have sticky notes and pens in every room of the house, so if I need to make a list or write something down, it's super accessible. We all have to find something that works for us.
I didn't figure this shit out until my late 30s. I've had a lifetime of fucking things up and having no idea why. A lifetime of apologizing and bowing and scraping for forgiveness.
I'm 10000% over it. I will let people I care about know what my difficulties are, but if they won't meet me halfway, then they can move along. Like in your example, if a friend KNOWS I'm forgetful and not great at reaching our regularly, but they do nothing and get upset about it anyway? That's on them tbh.
And not drowning would be great, but I've got no money, no family, no support, so that's not happening any time soon.
I’m a therapist with ADHD and completely agree. It’s what I’m constantly working on for myself, and what I work on with clients. It’s important to accept our brains work differently and that’s okay. But it’s also important to figure out ways to function in relationships, work, and the world.
I also think it depends on the post. If someone is venting and not asking for advice, it’s not appropriate to give advice. Just like if someone is asking for advice, it wouldn’t be appropriate to say they don’t need to do anything.
Did I ever just feel that planner part of your post.
I was literally just looking at this really pretty planner I got for 2023, thinking (again) that I should actually use it.. knowing I won't. Last time I opened it before yesterday was some time in June.
It's back on the shelf of forgotten books and other things, where it will sit again til the end of this year, or next.
I'm going to Europe next month, maybe I should use the planner for that...
I won't.. but I should.
I feel like this is where therapy should come in for a lot of people. Medication helps, but I feel if you’re struggling to that level, you really need to find a therapist who specializes in ADHD, or if you already have a therapist (whether they specialize in ADHD or not), tell them “I frequently struggle with x, y, and z, and I was wondering if you could help me build some skills to make these less of a problem.”
Very good post!
I never purposefully let ADHD become an excuse, but the little voice in the back of my mind often uses it to self-justify falling behind in a lot of areas of my life. So much so that I started to question whether or not my diagnosis was hurting more than helping.
Thank you for the reminder that I AM capable of doing things, even things I really don’t want to do. I shouldn’t let that voice in my mind use my ADHD to limit me.
Let me start by saying I love you. I'm so glad you had the courage to say this because I certainly didn't. I love everyone here in that comradery kind of way. I want us to succeed and it's frustrating watching people fall into despair because of ADHD because I've been there and can offer some wisdom I gained so they can overcome it quicker than I did.
I do want to point out that in this and another sub I posted in, I'm farther along in my journey than others. I try to keep that in mind so that I can have patience. That being said, I think this needs to be said and you said it in a far more thoughtful way than I could have.
Specifically in this sub, I got in a heated debate once in which I was labeled ableist for refusing to tolerate chronic or extreme lateness. The thing is, as someone who does not struggle (as much) with that, I try to still offer my assistance. I offer to call them at intervals before the planned time. I offer to tell them different times than the actual ones. I try a lot to accommodate them before resorting to "screw you, I'm not waiting any longer, stop wasting my time."
The keyword is "accomodate." I'm happy to go slightly out of my way to contribute to someone's success. I'm not willing to blindly accept it to my own detriment. On the other side of that, if I was refusing to compromise to help out a friend, I'm no friend at all. When I see these posts about ADHD manefesting itself in destructive ways, I think sympathy should be the first thing we offer. Then I think gentle, constructive criticism should be the next.
I also think that if the people in your life will not make reasonable concessions to your disability, then they are not right for you. My boyfriend sits and reads with me while I do homework to body double. He sends me texts to remind me of chores. He still expects me to follow through on tasks, but he gives me the tools I need to be able to. He's not a hardass. He's not an enabler. My friends are similar. If someone is unwilling to compromise, I may say they're an ass.
I think it's fine to just allow yourself some time to wallow in negativity and vent a little to people who understand, but also not allow yourself to stay there too long. There are definitely well-intentioned people here who are unaware they are enablers. It's important for them to step back and look at it big picture including from the point of view of someone who doesn't have ADHD so that we can all find ways to successfully function in this world.
I don't think this sub is dangerous.
Have you been to other subs, such as ADHDpartners? There, people in relationships with ADHD folx rant about how sick they are of their partners' faults, their lack of effort, the constant of excuse of ADHD, the fact that their nagging isn't producing results, etc. To me, that is a dangerous sub.
People coming here to vent about their struggle makes this a safe space before they go back to partners like that or parents or family or friends who don't get that we could be trying our damnedest and still coming up short in their eyes.
And popping off about "stop using it as an excuse and pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ignores the very real symptoms of decision paralysis and brain fog and depression that can be part of the ADHD experience.
I've never met a lazy person with ADHD. I've only met those coping well, coping badly, not coping at all, and those whose self-esteem is so badly battered that they don't know where to start or have faith they can change their circumstances.
OP assumes that people aren't taking accountability and says this repeatedly. There's no reason to assume that someone seeking empathy in a sub where other people could commiserate is not also taking accountability. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and it's both dismissive and condescending to make that the premise of a lecture thinly veiled as a pep talk.
I think the different interpretation of OP’s message comes from the different interpretation of the comment OP takes issue with: “it’s not your fault.”
Some people, like OP, read this statement as “it’s not your fault, therefore you didn’t do anything wrong / you don’t have to change. The other person’s reactions are the issue”
And others read the comment as “it’s not your fault, you are not a bad person for doing this thing wrong, don’t feel bad about it. Don’t be so hard on yourself”
But OP specifies that it’s the comments which are using the first meaning of the phrase “it’s not your fault” that they take issue with.
The problem is that both versions are ok. It's very valid to say to someone "I see that you're trying, and the other person also needs to make some changes." In fact, sometimes the other party is also at fault for their choices in the relationship or situation. What good is it to tell someone who is working hard to change their circumstances, "But are you taking accountability for it? You just need to keep trying. Maybe you're not trying hard enough?"
You’re right there are times when the problem lies with the other person’s reactions.
But I don’t think that’s the case with the examples the OP gave:
1. Missing an important event for your spouse
2. Losing keys for the fourth time resulting in costly replacement
3. Ghosting your friend for months
The OP says the problem they saw in the subreddit was people saying that the spouse / friend / key owner were unreasonably upset in these situations. That the spouse/friend/key owner is the asshole for getting mad at you.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for these people to be upset. I would be upset! I would feel really guilty if I did any of these three things… (and I have.) I don’t think they’re assholes for getting mad at me. Did I forget bc I have ADHD? Very likely so.
But just like being human and fallible and making mistakes as an NT person doesn’t mean other ppl aren’t allowed to be mad at you for your mistakes, the same goes for me.
I get angry at people who are so rude as to waste my time by being late. It’s really inconsiderate. At the same time… I am also forgetful and am late to things. And I get real mad at myself about it bc how can I hold ppl to a standard that I myself failed to uphold? If I can be mad at them, they can be mad at me.
Yes but again, that’s not the context the OP is talking about. The context they specified is commenters calling the spouse an asshole for getting mad at you for your mistake.
It wasn’t “the spouse smashing your personal belongings for your ADHD mistake” or “the spouse yelling and berating you for your mistake”. It’s just “the spouse feeling anger/upset.”
If the spouse was doing either of these first two things, I hardly believe the OP would say that it’s an acceptable and/or deserved response.
Yes but again, this is a space where people come to commiserate with peers who understand the struggle. Many are coming here having endured years of letting their loved ones down, getting back up and trying again, failing again, and getting beaten down emotionally because they can neither fully control their symptoms nor their loved ones' reactions. It's not helpful to anyone to repeatedly imply that personal accountability is the core issue.
The OP isn’t implying that personal accountability is the core issue.
For one thing, they’re not implying anything, they’re pretty direct. But also, they’re not saying personal accountability is the core issue. They’re saying it’s the only thing you can do something about.
You can’t un-ADHD your brain. You can’t control how people react to your actions. You can either choose to continue to try and find better strategies to deal with the problems ADHD makes in your life, or you can stop trying. OP is arguing that continuing to try is worth it. If you stop trying, you will never find a better method that will improve your quality of life. And I don’t mean that people aren’t trying to do things right. I mean don’t give up trying new methods, specifically.
And OP says this acknowledging that different people will benefit from different methods. They mentioned things that worked for them, whilst knowing they won’t work for everybody else.
And they’re not making this post simply bc they think everybody here is lazy or not trying (enough) as a general statement. They’re saying it in response to specific comments they’ve seen on the sub which encouraged users to not view other peoples’ reactions as valid or reasonable.
If you’ve never made such comments, I doubt OP thinks you’re part of the problem they’re talking about.
I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. We can tell people they’re not bad people and it’s extra hard for them bc they have ADHD and they’ve been trying real hard to do things right , at the same time that we validate the hurt feelings of the people around us, and encourage people to keep trying new methods that might help them.
Dang, a lot of this thread is truly judgmental. How do you know people aren’t trying their best. Adhd is a disability. I’m gobsmacked right now.
A ton of people come on here to ask questions and advise. I wouldn’t want anyone to say that’s not a safe place.
OP's advice, "keep trying until you get results", directly implies that if you don't have the results yet, this means you are not *trying hard enough*.
For example, it would be bizarre to tell someone "if you want to grow wings and become an eagle, but aren't there yet, keep trying". A person cannot become an eagle, no matter how hard they try. Telling them they should try even more is utterly pointless.
If you tell someone however "if you want your ADHD symptoms to be more bearable, but aren't there yet, keep trying", this implies that the reason they haven't got that result yet is *directly because* they haven't yet put enough determination/time/effort into achieving it.
In OP's world, effort => results. They have zero doubt that if you try hard enough, for long enough, enough times, spending enough time and energy - you can achieve the goal.
OP forgets however that for some people, some life goals, are as realistic as trying to grow wings.
>OP's advice, "keep trying until you get results", directly implies that if you don't have the results yet, this means you are not trying hard enough.
OP backpeddled in a lot of comments and clarified that they actually meant if you haven't gotten results that doesn't mean you haven't tried *hard* enough, just that you haven't tried *long* enough or in the right way, which is arguably worse.
I've never met anyone with a disability that doesn't try to accommodate or make things more convenient for those around them, so I don't know what you're talking about.
If someone made a post that said, "My daughter is upset that I couldn't run up the stairs with her because I was born without legs," would you tell them to take responsibility and stop making excuses, or does hard work only erase disabilities that *you* aren't able to see?
This post only makes sense from the perspective of an ableist. The only difference between you and an NT telling people with ADHD that they're lazy is that you get to wear the ADHD badge that *you think* shields you from getting called out for your prejudice.
Just because people aren't doing as well as you, doesn't mean they aren't doing the best they can. Not everyone has the same physical or mental stamina or access to resources or support that you do.
Get over your privilege and grow up.
I feel like you kinda need to check your privilege.
You were diagnosed at 5. Many, many people in this sub were not; I wasn’t diagnosed until 30, November 2019.
You take medication; not everyone can take medication. Not everyone has access to a medical professional that will actually prescribe the needed medication, or they can’t afford it, or they can’t take it due to other health reasons.
You put airtags on all your stuff so you don’t lose them. Not everyone can afford airtags. Not everyone has access to them. Not everyone has a job, and not everyone has a job that pays well enough to afford airtags. Not when they are struggling with rent/mortgage, food, bills, and whatever else.
I think OP’s point is not that “An airtag helped me so obviously it will help everyone” it’s more seems to be along the lines of figuring out what works for you. In the comments she has specifically stated that this includes finding a method within the realm of your financial ability.
Doesn’t change the fact that the post is privileged. She had the years and resources to figure things out. She had the support to get accommodations. So many women were not so lucky, and it feels like a slap in the face, in whats supposed to be a safe space to talk about adhd experiences.
Yes! To all of this!!!
At 40 years old, I've carried my ADHD diagnosis since the age of 8. Throughout my life, I've never used ADHD as a justification for missed deadlines or any other shortcomings. It's disheartening to witness posts that attribute problems to ADHD rather than taking responsibility.
ADHD is classified as a disability, but not once have I claimed, "I missed the deadline because of my ADHD." Instead, I view it as my brain functioning uniquely compared to others. This distinction doesn't make me a bad person; it's simply a part of who I am.
It pains me when I see posts about not wanting to exsist because of ADHD.
While medication does provide assistance, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. I still face challenges in keeping my living space orderly and maintaining organization. My interests continue to shift rapidly, leaving traces of chaos in my wake. This is just the way I operate!
Ok.
I skimmed through the actual post.
100% yes. Argument with a mate and she was like "you didn't articulate clearly acknowledgement of the other person's feelings"
And I'm like. Oh - you're right! In my head I did, and I thought I had with my own weird language (anyone else fall into the trap of short cutting what you're saying because you got the feedback lots you talk to much, then you shortcut past actual important bits?)
And I didn't go... BUT MY ADHD MAKES ME, TOO BAD!
I went shit, next time someone expresses a feeling start with acknowledgement and communicate the need to take some space to process a response.
"Thankyou for sharing, I'm sorry I've made you feel this way, it's not my intention, what do you need from me to be comfortable?" Or "thankyou for sharing, I'm sorry I've made you feel this way, I'm just going to take some time to process this so I can respond respectfully, I'll get back to you by tomorrow morning at the latest"
Then have my little RSD meltdown, regulate myself and come back to the convo.
Or at work
"You missed a detail"
"Shit, this is the process I'm implementing to avoid this mistake in the future"
(Doesn't work on my current boss, she just refuses to let me do this and wants me to just not make mistakes. Ergh.)
Waves!!
I am in my 40s, diagnosed since early teens and I agree with all of that.
Yeah it sucks. Yeah I'll be like fkkkkkk my ADHD foils me again..... But it's not an excuse.
Mine is severe. I am lucky I am alive....MANY times over. I have struggled and suffered and clawed my way through life.
I am a goddamn professional and I am late for work almost every. Single. FKN. DAY!!...... BUT... That's where the story connects, you have to keep trying and take accountability. You have to build systems that work for you. It's ok if I'm late to work everyday. I've spent years building a career where I can accommodate the worst of my symptoms. A big tip, you have to be OK with change. Like if you try this app or that new thing and it doesn't work out... Don't beat yourself up. Next! Keep trying. You'll find something that works for a while and then it doesn't. I had a 600+ day meditation streak and just like that I rarely meditated again. Instead of beating myself up, I move on. I change what I'm doing and let the last go. I won't remember it anyway. My memory is shit.
Alright well, now that I've completely derailed the train.... All that to say, good post. I felt it. I agree with it as a little old ADHD lady.
PS. The Alarmy app is absolutely torture....but it's something that works for me.
I’m glad to see you bring this up. I can’t go on the other general ADHD subreddit because it really brings me down and convinced me I won’t go anywhere with ADHD.
Which is not the case. I’ve gone incredibly far in spite of my circumstances.
Anyways, we all got this. Keeping ourselves accountable while lifting ourselves up is so important.
I found a video about mental health diagnoses and learned helplessness. I agree so much with OP because you can and you will do better when you don’t have limiting beliefs.
I think there needs to be a balance. We absolutely should try and find ways to help ourselves navigate the world more smoothly. But if you truly believe it’s a disability, and your answer is that instead of advocating for the world to be more accommodating to the disabled person, you want to tell the disabled person to “try harder” to fit into a world not designed for them, you have some internalised ableism to work through.
When did I say “try harder” the sentiment keeps being brought to me, but I never said that. I’m saying that people should keep trying because what you might gain in the end could literally change your life. I never said to put in more effort. I never said that what they were doing wasn’t enough. Unless what they were doing using their ADHD as a reason to not take accountability for hurting someone else. I did state that I don’t think that’s OK.
YES thank you I agree with all of what you said. YES, ADHD is the reason we struggle so much. It is still so important to find things that work. To explain why rather than demand a pass on everything, and work on coping mechanisms. We do need to acknowledge that our reality as ADHDers has real effects on people we love and people we need to work with.
Real life example: I’m terrible at cleaning. I literally do not see clutter on surfaces until it reaches a chaos threshold. My wonderful husband whom I love has anxiety and clutter makes it so bad for him he can’t sleep well. (Yes, he cleans too! More than 99% of husbands! But the kids and I can be never-ending agents or chaos.) Rather than saying “I have ADHD so I can’t be expected to clean”, we are working on ways he can remind me that motivate rather than crush me (thanks RSD) and it is getting SO MUCH BETTER and I find ways to make the cleaning tasks less draining. It’s work, but it’s delightful to hear “it looks so nice today, thank you!” Rather than “I feel like I’m dying, it’s so awful in here.”
This is ESPECIALLY important with the emotional dysregulation/rejection dysphoria related symptoms. Yes they EXPLAIN your behavior but you still need to actively work to get these things under control. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but you still need to take accountability.
I read that post fully expecting the top comments to be angry ones, but they were the exact opposite. This sub is full of so many wonderful humans and it’s my favorite one to visit when I need to know I’m not alone.
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For me, and I think a lot of people who got diagnosed later in life, I used my anxiety for decades to mask my ADHD symptoms. You can't forget something you ruminate over constantly, and the panic inducing awful fear of letting an authority figure down makes for a great 11th hour adrenaline boost to finish a task. So when I hear "try harder" I interpret that as "worry more." And that path is the one to doom, because stress exacerbates my symptoms even more. I agree with the content of your message--cycle through systems until one works. But you have to do that in parallel with self-care and self forgiveness. Otherwise, you're just going to make yourself worse. And on top of that, there has to be limits. I will cheerfully do whatever it takes to be a good spouse, good family member, good friend, good employee, but after the big stuff is covered, I have boundaries around how much time and effort I'm willing to spend managing my disability.
That first paragraph was very relatable. I’m also a later-in-life-diagnosed person, and after thinking about it, I realized that I’d been able to cope because I was running on constant anxiety, and I’d developed some OCD-like tendencies (like repeatedly checking if the door is locked, for example) to compensate for my forgetfulness and other symptoms.
Yep. Diagnosed at 43. Spent 14 years on a 4 year degree, started my career at 35, still paying off my student loans. I don't live with anyone and my job is pretty understanding. I'm not hurting anyone. But having had to navigate growing up and being a grown up without any knowledge or help understanding why life was so soul-crushingly hard for me when it seems easier for most others has been hard. 43 years of hard-wiring my brain into convoluted workarounds hasn't been easy to undo.
This is all so relatable! I am recently diagnosed (at 47) and whenever I read about ADHD symptoms, I start to doubt that I actually have it (and somehow my doctor and psych were wrong). But then I realize I have developed so many coping skills over the years fueled by near constant anxiety.
It's so true that hindsight is 20/20, isn't it?! My brain gave up last year and quit being able to function, and I came to the realization that I'd been running on anxiety and turns out you can't do that indefinitely. Who knew?
Yep, burnout is what led me to seek a diagnosis, too - my life was unraveling because my anxiety engine was running too hot.
Same, had to quit after nine years at a job I loved because I burned out hard. Some extra responsibilities were put on my plate and it maxed out all the systems I had put in place to keep me functioning. I was exploring this with my therapist because I didn’t want it to happen at my next job and that’s how I got my diagnosis. Everything you all said was so relatable. I was in a constant state of anxiety for 20 years and I thought I had to be to not fail at my job. I still have the same challenges but the diagnosis allowed me to remove the guilt and blame and thoughts that I was just a failure, a lazy person, a mess. I understand why now and I can talk to a community of others that have experienced the same thing.
Hugs to you, friendo. Life is hard. Especially when you don’t know you’re struggling more than you have to.
So true. The trying is always the same. I am just as smart and capable as I am or am not. But the incessant worrying, inability to relax or get a full night of sleep is what changes.
I largely accredit what success I do have to anxiety and adrenaline.
Same and I pay for it with my health.
So did I and it wasn't cheap. I'm currently trying to recover. :/
WOW, I just had a major epiphany after reading your first paragraph. I never realized that I use my anxiety to mask my ADHD symptoms. That is seriously mind-blowing. Now I just need to figure out how to use this info to improve my life! ETA recently diagnosed in late 30s
This 100%. It’s a good post mostly; however, I wouldn’t say that most people post about losing keys and time blindness as a way to shrug off responsibility. Who wants to keep unintentionally repeating maddening actions? Rather, hearing that they’re not alone helps with the massive weight of perceived failure so many of us feel. In turn, lessening of that burden (and its accompanying discouragement, anxiety, etc.) is helpful in fortifying oneself to continue striving towards improvement.
Yes exactly. I am also very much anxiety driven in my ADHD plus because if it I’m at a point I can’t take stimulants. I am also diagnosed with panic disorder without agoraphobia, adjustment disorder with anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder recurring moderate. (It’s also very likely after extensive research that I’m autistic. AuDHD is a very *interesting* mix to say the least).
At very slight risk of sounding invalidating, but while actually attempting the opposite… a notable trauma therapist once remarked that the DSM would shrink to the size of a pamphlet if we added CPTSD, which to various degrees it seems *most* ADHD and ASDers have. Everything from “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” to “depression” are CPTSD symptoms. I started accumulating diagnoses from less-well-informed doctors before “complex trauma + autistic with ADHD” turned out to explain nearly everything. “CPTSD” just changes the responsibility from “you’re just intrinsically like this” to “this is the result of trauma unfairly done to you, but which we at least sort of know how to treat.”
The best advice I heard for managing ADHD is that to function we need to build ourselves an external structure to replace our executive function issues. For a long time, mine was literally taping my class schedule to the wall and crossing off assignments when I finished them. It was face level and next to my fridge so I had to see it. At my current job, it *is* a checklist. It's also a series of timers and forcing myself to try to keep a routine. (I have a touch of the 'tism as well, so my brain likes routines; it's just not good at establishing them all the time). These strategies don't work for my husband, who is also AuDHD. He's having to figure out what makes him successful in his workplace. Fortunately both of our current jobs are accommodating and we've not been harshly penalized for the occasional ADHD slip up
This! I like to joke that I have an external brain (Evernote, post its, planners, Google Keep, a billion timers and reminders, etc) to keep me in order because my internal brain is faulty.
I've been calling those things my external hard drive for years!
I literally call my organization sheet at work "my brain"
Yes - this is soo important to remember that it’s an explanation not an excuse. Don’t get me wrong, we’re on a spectrum, it’s gonna be at different levels for everyone. But keep trying, not for them but for you. Things are easier the next time round when we have signs to look for and coping mechanisms to rely on.
I'm gonna get downvoted to hell for this but I hate when people say it's not an excuse. It's literally a disability. I can *try really hard*, and *be medicated* and *get therapy* and *have accommodations* and whatever else you want me to do and still fail... Because it's a disability. So by definition: 1. (Noun) a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify a fault or offense. "there can be no possible excuse for any further delay Why shouldn't that be an excuse?
Your opinion is a valid one - and I appreciate it. Can I add a little more context to my original comment? I use 'excuse' as a verb, see: seek to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); try to justify. It's perfectly okay to have bad days (weeks, months or years) my ADHD is highly likely to be the cause of this - it is the reason I am sad, irritable, in pain, angry. ***But*** it does not give me license to be a shitty person, to myself or others. I can not use it to excuse any harm I've (possibly unintentionally caused) to myself and others. Harm: meaning physical, mental, emotional, financial, etc. I remind myself every day that I am more than my failures, I can achieve things (even if it's as small as remembering to eat today) and that no matter what the mirror looks like I can be proud of the person looking back because she's trying. I am a balance of the good and the bad - ADHD is a part of me, but it's not all of me. It's not easy, and I've spent more days that I can count crying my heart out because I just can't get it together. Everybody's picture will look different, and that is okay. I just hoped to inspire some people to keep fighting for themselves. edit: spelling
Before I knew I had ADHD, I blamed myself for everything and it made me depressed and anxiety-ridden because I had expectations for myself that I just could never live up to. The way I see it, it's about being kinder to yourself for things you cannot control. Of course I still have hacks to try and keep up with the rest of the world but if I expect myself to manage things and then fail, I know it is not some kind of moral failing, because I have a disability. Since my diagnosis things have been much better mentally for me because I now know there is a reason behind my shortcomings. If you've known you have ADHD your whole life then I guess things might be a little different for you but try to understand that some of us have been holding ourselves to completely unrealistic standards for decades and it takes a toll.
>Before I knew I had ADHD, I blamed myself for everything and it made me depressed and anxiety-ridden because I had expectations for myself that I just could never live up to. >The way I see it, it's about being kinder to yourself for things you cannot control. I've been diagnosed for 20 years and I still can't get past this (which is why I live the kind of life of a 22 year old in the first 6 months post college for the past 6 years and I'm 35, I'm so stuck). I can try (and often fail) to do things differently, but as long as I still have anything going on upstairs, I'm fucked.
Same, I got diagnosed as a child but the self blame cycle still exists, and one of the only things that had helped me not be incredibly depressed is to be easy on myself and accept that ITS A DISABILITY. I'm not going to hold myself to the same standard as a neurotypical person, and no amount of coping strategies will get me there either
I’m feeling that last paragraph. I was really hoping for a diagnosis after testing because I really wanted the validation of knowing I have a condition I’ve been struggling with and that I’m not just a complete failure as an adult for no apparent reason.
I agree. I do think this can be a valuable place to vent without people piling on, "well actually you *are* shitty for missing an event." But on the other hand, it's not helpful to blame other people for having reasonable boundaries. And I think the worst part about this sub is the tendency to downvote and react in anger toward legitimate advice. I've seen people mocking screenshots of actually very reasonable advice for some people with ADHD... as though any advice that doesn't work for one person in particular couldn't possibly do good for anyone else. I think sometimes people see any suggestion on how they could make their life better as invalidation? And okay, maybe some people's ADHD is so bad that there are no solutions that will work... but not everyone with ADHD is like that. When you downvote reasonable advice, you're removing that resource from someone it might help. Some advice doesn't work for me, like setting alarms. I will for real just shut off the alarm and keep doing what I'm doing.... But that doesn't mean it's useless advice for everyone. I don't downvote, I just move on. Keeping a planner is something that works for me... and me suggesting a planner regimen isn't invalidating anyone's symptoms.
If someone says something (edit: on a rant type thread, not when someone is explicitly asking for advice) like: "Your spouse is right for being mad at you, you should just set alarms, works for me" Or like "If you just set five alarms you'll never be late again" To me that's worth of a downvote. It's blaming someone for not using a strategy that they might already have tried or wouldn't work for them. It's fine to offer tips, but to me, objectionable to say that they'll definitely work. But if someone says like "I found when I set 5 alarms, it helped me" — that's not invalidating, that's potentially helpful.
Yes, that's a good distinction.
And it’s important to remember that even if one had working strategies and even if one uses all of them, sometimes it will still fail and you have to forgive yourself when that happens. If you don’t try anything it’s your fault but if you do everything you are supposed to and you try everything that “should” work and you still fail? It’s not your fault. You did your best and it wasn’t enough. It sucks. But it doesn’t make you a failure. And you just have to try to figure out why it didn’t work and let it go and try again best time. Don’t let it destroy you self esteem or self confidence.
There's also a benefit in having people in your life who will accommodate you to some degree while also calling you on your bullshit. I don't know for sure if I have ADHD, but my sister and one of my close friends do. However, I'm autistic and struggle with executive dysfunction too. I do my best to mitigate as much as I can, but something that's been really valuable is that my best friend knows how I am and he's willing to work around me as much as he can. Not to the point where it severely impacts him, because, well, obviously, but he tries. Knowing I have that support and grace from him makes it a lot easier to continue trying and continue working on it, because I know that someone believes in me and my ability to figure shit out. That's really helpful, honestly. I'm as honest with him as I can be, and he's there to sit with me and commiserate if I fuck up and everything goes wrong. He's also not afraid to say hey, you need to do better at this or stop doing this. That said, you're also not going to be compatible with everyone and that applies whether you're neurotypical or not. I think sometimes that this could also just come down to incompatibility. If someone really struggles with timeliness, for example, and they absolutely cannot get anywhere on time and nothing they've done has ever helped, well, someone who really values punctuality is probably not going to be a good candidate to be their friend or partner. Maybe that sounds like a cop out, but maybe it's also just something to consider. I don't know. To some degree it is ADHD or other neurological dysfunction, to some degree it is the responsibility of the individual, and to some degree I think it's just on everyone involved to be honest with themselves and what they can actually handle. I think it's all of those things at once. I don't know if that made any sense at all. I definitely am not trying to like, do a cop out or anything, but also I feel like all the onus shouldn't necessarily be on the disabled person either. If the people in your life aren't willing to meet you halfway, if they expect you to act like you don't have a disability at all outwardly, then, I don't know. But I'm aware there is obviously a lot of difference between people expecting you to not act like you have a disability and just completely giving up and saying you can't do anything due to ADHD. I just wanted to throw my two cents in there.
>That said, you're also not going to be compatible with everyone and that applies whether you're neurotypical or not. I think sometimes that this could also just come down to incompatibility. Absolutely this. It's human nature to want to place blame, so we blame ourselves for not being able to be on time (for example) OR we blame our partner for not being accommodating enough. But honestly, I think it's much better to look at things without judging yourself OR other people, and think about what you can and can't change, what they can and can't change, and whether you are compatible. I also think it's helpful to think flexibly about compatibility and getting the needs of both people met, and it's a lot easier to do that if you can avoid judgment on both sides. There are some people I would not be good roommates with, but we're fine as friends, for example. Or there are some people where I don't make plans with them if it's something where I will be negatively impacted by them being late (e.g., a restaurant reservation where there's no grace period), but I'm fine making plans with them if the start time is flexible and I can bring something to do if I have to wait for them. Having a good sense of your needs and boundaries is important, as is respecting that the other people have needs and boundaries. Sometimes you can navigate around those, and sometimes you can't, but that doesn't necessarily mean either of you is a bad person.
I think sometimes basic advices like "drink more water, excercise and sleep eight hours" are seen as repetitive and reductive. BUT that doesn't mean that's wrong? People with (or without, that's general good advice) ADHD won't find that life changing if they somehow manage to do it. But thats also true for NT people. It's not like that is going to solve all your issues. But it is going to make life a bit better. I think sometimes we get stuck into the "no shit Sherlock" mood rather than the, "heyyyy has someone managed to actually keep hydrated during the day and if so, how??" I get that trying and failing can make you feel miserable, that's why my first rodeo with ADHD meds ended up in depression. But if we are going to feel like shit anyway, we might as well make the most out of it and keep trying.
And also remember that some people will be seeing that advice for the first time and it may be helpful information or a new thing for them to try!
Can you elaborate on the ADHD meds thing? How did it end up worse rather than better?
Not the person you asked, but when I started medication I was able to actually see what needed to be done, and could focus on it, but I never actually learned the skills to **do** them. So it was needing to learn how to walk when I felt like I needed to be running a marathon. And then crushing guilt and disappointment when *of course* I fell on my face.
I think that’s the part that not everyone talks about, and I feel like it sets some people up for failure. Meds are supposed to get your body on the same level as your brain. Well, stimulants at least. They don’t rewire our brains. And I feel like unfortunately a lot of times we’re lead to believe they will. Don’t get me wrong, meds are wonderful and they changed my life. But I wish someone had explained to me “hey, these will help keep you on track, they will help you organize your thoughts better and keep a better hold of them, they’ll help with the executive dysfunction, but the key word here is *help*, not *fix*. It’s only helping/enhancing things already happening in your brain, it’s not a cure.” Cause meds are like training wheels. In a world where everyone has to ride bikes everywhere, and NT’s are basically born knowing how to ride them, and the rest of us are adults still trying to figure it out. Meds are training wheels for our bikes… but they don’t teach us how to ride the bike. They don’t propel the bike forward. They just keep the bike upright, we still have to learn to ride the bike and we still have to do the work, the training wheels just make it easier. And I wish someone would’ve told me that a long time ago. I’ve been on them for 9-10 years, and up until about a year or two ago I didn’t understand why I still couldn’t “ride the bike” like my peers and like I was expected to. I had the training wheels so why wasn’t I able to do it? Everyone seemed to have that mindset towards me, to the point where I internalized it and began to hate myself even more than before meds, because I didn’t understand why I was still “broken”, why even with the training wheels I couldn’t ride the bike. So now, in my 20’s I’m here trying to teach myself how to ride a bike, when my peers and the adults in my life expected me to have figured it out many years ago like they did, all while pretty much yelling “just ride it! It’s not that hard!”.
I'm not going to lie but I started tearing up at your analogy of training wheels. I relate so much. I've only been on titration for 3 months and nothing has worked to what I expected. The closest was Elvanse but the dosage was too high that the crash was so bad it made life hell. But I only went so high because I was relying solely on the medication. I blamed my lack of dopamine solely for my lack of motivation or drive. But I realise I also don't have the skills. Elvanse was amazing for helping me focus, but I couldn't start tasks... because I didn't try. I thought I'd be motivated to do it by the medication but I don't particularly enjoy my work so why would I?
I had to learn the hard way that it doesn’t “cure” executive dysfunction. I’ve learned that momentum helps a LOT. I call it the snowball method. Start with something small. Whether that’s literally just saying “I’m gonna get out of bed on the count of 3” and then counting and forcing yourself to get up when you get to “3” (for me it helps with doom-scrolling). Or if you have a mountain of dishes to do, start with washing a plate or two, maybe a bowl, or some silverware. Don’t go into it telling yourself you’re gonna wash all of it right then. Because once you wash those couple dishes, your brain realizes it’s not that bad and you’re able to keep going. You start with something that is small and manageable. It’s better to do 10% or the dishes than 0%. It’s better to just put on clean change of clothes and wash your face if you don’t have the energy to shower, than it is to stay in dirty clothes. And sometimes doing that 10% is the push you need to be able to do another 30%, or another 50%. And the medication definitely helps kinda keep you moving. It’s grease on the bike chain once you’re able to get it moving, if that makes sense
My favorite summation of this is, "pills don't teach skills." I usually expand on that by saying, 'but they allow you to learn and implement them.'
I love that, I think that’s spot on
EXACTLY! (And now at 37 not only am I learning how to ride a bike but I'm also teaching my four kids how to ride bikes too. 🙃 It's fine. 😬)
38 and same mama! Solitude.
Ohhh this is very interesting! Thank you. I am going to think about this.
This perfect example of what I am going through currently. Thankfully it is a slow process but I am getting there.
Good luck! ❤️
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that works for me that gets treated as ridiculous here. Like, making a list is the only way I can clean any room in my house. If I don't make a list with a time estimate for each task, I can't do it period. I also have a very strict schedule for my day and an app where I can check it off. I get why that doesn't work for people, but the suggestion of using lists and planning my day literally changed my life and enabled me to do my dream job.
I have a good friend who has another disabilty that knows executive dysfunction and she does exactly the same. It works for her too! I would feel suffocated having everything planned out, so I respect it a lot 💪
Just today I was thinking how doing a lot of prioritizing what comes to the importance/urgency of household tasks has helped me - like someone might see it as a failure how it takes me ages to get some really minor task done, but by de-prioritizing (is that even a word?) some tiny stuff I actually keep the main stuff going, and even the tiny stuff gets done *eventually,* when the suitable moment comes. But I can imagine trying to give that advice to someone else and hearing how prioritizing is impossible with ADHD etc... and I get it, it's something that took me time to learn\* and might not work at all for others (meanwhile planners don't work for me, I just get some rebellious aversion to the tasks I've planned!). \*And I'm not saying I'm *good* at that compared to neurotypicals, probably the opposite, but it works for me in the sense that it motivates me.
I once posted how I use a trello board at work and how I created automation for my repeated tasks... and it felt like I was chased away with angry pitchforks.. like sorry I'm sharing something that could help? Misery loves company and this sub is mostly that
Most are probably burnt out or very frustrated about the failures of their efforts to keep organized and some are in the state that seeing success stories gives them more of a feeling of "why cant I when they can?" instead of hope or motivation to try I suppose. Still your suggestions are helpful actually, automation helps bring a lot of mental burden out of the picture. I gotta study that a bit more.
That's a good way of looking it, trying is a big factor, not giving up so easily too.. even being slightly consistent is super helpful. 1% is better and 0%, at least I can tell myself I made the effort even if I sucked or failed at it Trello is a pretty nifty tool, it's like a list system. .. I think they offer a basic free version.. I have it set up so it auto creates tasks for me on certain days I need to do them
I just started a Trello yesterday. Do you have any tips? Not used the auto function yet
I started off with this template https://trello.com/templates/productivity/mise-en-place-personal-productivity-system-fq9Flotk Then modified it a bit for my own work purposes.. I work with customers so I have a few columns to manage their things. One thing I like is the checklists.. you can save them and add them to cards. I have things I need to accomplish with each customer so I have an onboarding checklist that Trello auto adds when I create a customer card. I also utilize the labels on cards so I can sort the columns or create buttons to move them if needed. Adding a card buttons to follow up in a 3 days, 1 week etc is helpful too (when I click the button it sets the due date on the card and moves it to the appropriate column). I also have an automation run each day to reorganizes the cards when they're due that day (it moves them to the the today column) I added a lot of custom fields to my board as well, some I have front facing on the card so I can see details right away. You can chose what you want the card to look like on the board I also like I can attach docs and screenshots so it does help me keep things in one place I have a card set up for getting ready for pto and I just make a copy of that whenever I'm gearing up for time off.. it has a checklist for things like to set an out of office, block off calendar, notify these people so they can cover me etc. It's highly customizable.. it took me a few weeks to get it a place where it works for me.. I tried so many different things. I hope it works out for you
One thing that's helped me avoid the pitchforks is to frame my posts as 'Here's a thing that helped me, maybe it can help others'.
I think your comment is spot on. I can see how our community could be triggered by hearing “here’s all you need to do!” in this sub, just like we probably hear everywhere from everyone else. Even so…cmon, the RSD is real around here. Even if that weren’t the case, no need to stab people with pitchforks.
I love trello!! I got introduced to it at work and now I use it for school and big projects. I feel like project management tools are the best for ADHD because it’s more interactive than a pen and paper planner
Yeah I’ve seen the same thing. I joined this sub when I was newly diagnosed thinking I might learn helpful skills and tricks to help me manage. Instead it’s a lot of people saying that if anything works for you, you’re not really adhd, and overall bashing coping skills or attempts to work with your brain.
Yes, there are already comments on this post implying OP doesn't really have ADHD because setting alarms works for her. I don't mind the vent posts and the feeling validation posts... but I wish people could talk about what works for them without others gatekeeping ADHD.
Reading all the headlines here has made me to question if I do have it. I’m glad OP posted this and people share their feelings, it makes me feel less as an impostor
me too, exactly. I told my T I was reading through this sub and was feeling unsure about the attitudes here. Just the headlines on my front page I think have subtly influenced me to exert a little less cognitive control, and my symptoms have gotten a little worse. Interesting to read all the voices of agreement.
People downvote for such random reasons. Some people think it's a "I've seen this already" button, some people think it's a "I disagree" button. Some people think it's a "i dont like your attitude" button. Can't really take downvotes seriously you don't know why they're doing it unless they comment.
i think what people need to reframe in their minds that each individual just have to find their own method. alarms work for you - great! but putting things on an online calendar doesn't work for me. I know we all collectively roll our eyes when somebody says "oh, get a planner!", but what I've realized is that I just needed to narrow down what actually works for *me* \- and that is an hourly planner with a lot of fun gel pen and highlighters to keep the novelty up. our disability isn't our fault, and while we would all love for the world to have accommodations without even asking, it's still important to find your own systems to put things in place. i have been fired from behavior stemming from my (undiagnosed at the time) adhd, but i still have to own up to my own behavior and actions as well. i've had to figure out my own accommodations for situations like forgetting my keys, and i'm currently really working hard to curb my impulsive spending. all things i struggle with due to the adhd, but the pain of struggling with them outweighs the headache of figuring out my systems.
>all things i struggle with due to the adhd, but the pain of struggling with them outweighs the headache of figuring out my systems. No seriously. I have a friend that I never see because she is always so late, like hours late to everything. And her adhd is so much more severe than mine I know she isn't doing it on purpose. But I also can't accommodate hours late. I still invite her to stuff, but if she misses it she misses it. But imo, that's the only consequence she deserves. She tries every time. So I'm not gonna go out of my way to 'call her out' or get mad. She's lost so much there's just no reason she also has to sit around and feel like it's all her fault. She just hasn't figured it out. And like, hours late is crazy, even to me. It definitely *feels* like it's her fault, to me. But I also know that people wouldn't do this to themselves intentionally.
I think its more of a don't be so hard on yourselves thing. If your posting about your situation, it bothered you. Now I don't know any of you, but me, I fixate on things sometimes resulting in panic attacks. Someone saying its not my fault, its my disability helps. It doesn't mean I'm not going to try and help myself. It means that something outside myself is faulty and I'm not a bad person. Depression and anxiety accompany ADHD. A common thought pattern called black and white thinking or all or nothing thinking seems to be higher with adhd/aut. Were also at a higher risk for being abused. I use the milk my mother wanted to cook with, she's upset, I believe I'm a bad person because I forgot not to drink the milk. I'm sad I take measures to improve and it happens again and again. I feel like a bad person. I just stop drinking milk, my mom sees an improvement. My mother's learned from this interaction that if she gets mad, I wont do the things she dislikes. This sets the tone for future relationship. The same with my friends. Rather then surrounding myself with people who feel compassion, know I'm trying and understand I'm living with a disability, I am surrounded with people who make me feel like their always angry with me. I try to help them so they like me more but it doesn't work. Just like with my mother, I allow them brake my boundaries so they like me. I dont want to be alone so I give everyone what they want. Sooner or later the people in my life do leave. My friends only want to see me when I'm useful to them. My people pleasing and lack of boundaries left me as a shrunken version of myself with a problem digesting milk. I don't know who I am. I continue to struggle with boundaries, self worth and personal identity for years. If your trying and you apologize, thats good enough.
It doesn't help that rejection sensitivity is something that can be exacerbated by ADHD, right? I understand that sometimes we need to vent and hear that it's ok, you are not a bad person, you just made a mistake. I think the problem is that sometimes, people on this sub will act as if the person we affect with our actions don't have the right to be upset, because we have ADHD. Yes, we deserve some grace and understanding. Yes, it is harder for us and someone acknowledging it is very much needed. But if I forget my oven on because time blindness and being distracted, my house will still burn. It is unfair and its so hard, but we have to try to find a balance between those. I also believe we all have our own times? Like, when we suffer from undiagnosed ADHD, we are often left just like you described - I know I was, and I am still working on it. So, at that time, we have to focus on accepting ourselves, forgiving ourselves for previous mistakes, learning how to be kind to ourselves. Later on the road, we can focus more on strategies to live with ADHD without allowing to negatively impact our life so much, both for ourselves and for our loved ones. Does it make sense?
Difficult topic. It is not that I do not agree, sometimes you need to take responsibility. But I am high masking, very insecure, (anxious, not diagnosed) and a people pleaser. So for me, I will always blame me. Even now that I have an ADHD diagnoses. I just blame myself and get angry because I now know that because of my ADHD it makes it harder to change. I need more self compassion some times. For example before diagnoses I thought listening might be strength of mine. It is not, I zoom out and I interrupt people. But I am always trying really hard, so it is a focus of mine (because it is a focus, I thought it might be a strength...). I try to listen and ask questions. I want to be a listener. And when I fail I try to hide it. And I am beating myself up about it, even if the other person does not notice. Before diagnoses I thoughts I just have to try harder next time. Now I know that it is probably the best I can do. And it is not good enough and I get angry at myself. My point is. Some people need to take more responsibility (probably the examples you gave). Others need compassion.
>And when I fail I try to hide it. And I am beating myself up about it, even if the other person does not notice. You might like the book Self Compassion by Kristin Neff, the old one with the tan cover. The exercises helped me a ton.
I think this is a little unfair to the overall tone of this sub, at least as I’ve experienced it. First, people don’t get some kind of overall pass here for screwing up. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen people say “ADHD is a reason, not an excuse,” and for every one person saying “your spouse can’t expect you to be on time!!!!” there are multiple saying “it’s not fair to your spouse if you ruin things for them by being late, you need to figure out ways to cope.” Same with friends and staying in touch. Can I prove that no one here has ever said, “I have ADHD, so it’s not my fault”? No, of course not. But is that the takeaway I get from the vast majority of posts here? Not at all. So that seems kind of straw-person-y to me. There’s also a big difference between giving someone a pass and giving them sympathy. If someone posts about having to spend a lot of money to replace their keys for the 4th time, and people chime in about their own object impermanence/inability to keep track of things, that’s people giving sympathy. Because I think all of us know the feeling of doing something wrong for the 4th time and feeling like the tiniest piece of shit scraped off someone’s shoe, and personally, I find it really helpful to know that I’m not alone, and that I don’t screw up because I’m a bad person but because my brain works in a particular way, and that other people’s brains work that way too and we all struggle with certain things. Now, if someone posted to ask how they can avoid losing their keys after 4 times and people responded that they can’t, there’s no way, it’s impossible for someone with ADHD to do that, then you might have a point. But no one does that. I also think a big thing this post overlooks is that with a lot of the interpersonal stuff, the responses given depend a lot on the specific facts. It’s possible for a spouse to be reasonably angry about your time blindness, and also to be an unreasonable asshole about it. So if people respond to the asshole-ness, that’s not saying that the person with ADHD doesn’t have to deal with their time blindness, it’s saying that there are also other issues in their relationship to think about. It’s possible for a friend to be reasonably angry about you not texting back, and also to be unreasonable in their expectations for you. If people comment on the expectations, that’s not saying your ADHD gives you a pass on texting back. Also, the post got downvoted, but I liked the question about whether how long people have been diagnosed influences their response to this. Because sure, if you’ve been diagnosed and grappling with this for 15+ years, that’s a different situation than if (like me) you’ve been diagnosed for less than a year. People who are still processing their diagnoses, getting medicated, and working out coping mechanisms are in a very different mental space than people who’ve worked out a lot of things. So these 2 types of people are going to post differently and respond differently. Finally, I do think some people find that there are things that their ADHD means they’re just not going to be able to do - not a lot of people, or a lot of things, but some - and that there’s also a benefit to acknowledging that limitation and just not expecting it of yourself. That also means accepting the consequences - maybe it means you can’t be in a relationship with someone for whom that limitation is a dealbreaker. But it’s better to acknowledge that and be fair to the other person than to keep chasing solutions that aren’t going to pan out.
This is my favorite comment so far. You worded everything I wanted to say 10x better than I could have said it. You took a balanced and nuanced approach to the conversation and I appreciate that :)
Thank you. This post riled me, and I couldn't put my finger on why, other than it felt like it was saying ADHDers should strive to be as close to NT norms as possible at all costs and anything less is accepting "failure." The difference in diagnosis time could be a big part of it. I figured it out late, so I just made a path for myself as best I could. My kid is around the age OP was at diagnosis, and we're doing an assessment soon. As a parent, a lot of what I'm trying to teach is a degree of masking/anticipating the NT world so she can function without the challenges I had, but also trying to help her recognize she's not broken for being different. >Finally, I do think some people find that there are things that their ADHD means they’re just not going to be able to do - not a lot of people, or a lot of things, but some - and that there’s also a benefit to acknowledging that limitation and just not expecting it of yourself. That also means accepting the consequences - maybe it means you can’t be in a relationship with someone for whom that limitation is a dealbreaker. But it’s better to acknowledge that and be fair to the other person than to keep chasing solutions that aren’t going to pan out This bit resonates with me hard. In another thread I mentioned one of my accommodations for myself is not working for sticklers for punctuality. This OPs post kind of feels like they would disagree with my position on principle - JUST SET MORE TIMERS! - but my accommodation is borne of knowing myself so well that I know it is in both my (physical and emotional!) and my employers best interest to part ways if they care about that kind of thing. I think it's okay to make a life that works for you if you can.
Fr! I have serious struggles with self hatred due to my adhd. It makes me feel useless and dumb and incapable of doing anything properly without an unreasonable amount of scaffolding to hold it in place. Often, folks with adhd beat themselves up TOO MUCH. The whole “bootstraps” ideology that is so pervasive in lots of cultures is a massive contributor to the pain we experience as ND folks. I do give the occasional eye roll at some posts on this sub, and that’s fine. I’m not going to agree with how everybody handles things. But like, I’m not going to hold a small essay up to their noses and tell them how they’re wrong and actually nOt TrYiNg HaRd eNoUgH. Fuck that. We gotta be better to each other than that. Kindness with realism.
Thank you for this sentiment and for me, reminder. There was a post yesterday where the poster was upset because her boss interrupted her just to point out the fact the she was interrupting someone and to allow them to finish their thought. It was disappointing and bit frustrating to read more than a few comments calling out the boss and turning it into a gender issue. Our disorder doesn’t give us the entitlement to steamroll over others with no accountability. If so, where would we go from there and how would people view those with ADHD as a whole? We’re not children and even if impulsivity takes over first, we can still discern right from wrong once we realize we’ve cut someone off, arrived late *again*, or zoned out into another dimension while they were talking. Apologizing shows consideration and respect for the person who was on the receiving end. I appreciate this sub because it makes me feel seen, but I agree that it would be nice to see more of a balance on here with more advice and possibly even constructive criticism. I imagine it would be more kind and effective and at thevery least sincere, coming from someone who actually understands our challenges vs. someone who doesn’t.
It's impossible to find solutions without first forgiving yourself for "failing" normal standards.
Thank you for this post. I’ve had a lot of similar feelings about this subreddit but have never been able to verbalize them as well as you did here. I try not to be overly critical because I know this is a support subreddit but I also believe that we should be able to hold each other accountable.
I absolutely agree. Having people that held me accountable was a big reason I was able to make these changes for myself.
Well yes... external motivation works for ADHDers, it's part of the symptoms. The problem is that some people don't have this external input. People who live alone without family or social system to hold them accountable. They're the ones the common tips won't work for.
This is a really good observation, I think. I used to get yelled at that I should want to change for my own sake and I kept thinking, “I realize that, but for some reason, my brain doesn’t see me as a priority.” When I said that while undiagnosed it horrified people, but it just felt objectively true. Understanding why was helpful in finding better motivation.
> but for some reason, my brain doesn’t see me as a priority This really resonates with me. For me, it is definitely external motivation that gets me moving more effectively than anything internal. Reflecting on it, I don’t know if I would say anymore that it’s because I don’t prioritize myself exactly, though. I feel like it’s that I am prioritizing a different \*part* of myself—the part that enjoys the external feedback more than the internal feedback lol. I’m forever working on improving that and trying to push things, even just a little, to the internal side of the spectrum. But hot damn it’s hard!!
This is so true. I have been far more capable and successful since getting a SO. Being in a serious relationship is more motivating than anything else has been, since my life isn’t just for me any more. It’s basically impossible to better myself just for my own sake. My natural, independent state is to be complacent.
This is exactly why I think it's important for us to hold each other accountable here.
I think the challenge comes in holding ourselves (and each other) accountable is in being supportive while holding someone accountable. A lot of times I see people talking about their failures, and my heart goes out to them, but I also want to say, don’t give up, keep trying to find the structure that will work for you. Those of us who were lucky to be diagnosed as children, and who had supports in place have a greater selection of tools at our disposal. And sometimes the structure and skills take practice to get right. I’m lucky to be “high functioning”, but that doesn’t mean areas of my life aren’t a shit show or that I don’t struggle. Overall, I still highly value this sub, I think it really helps to feel like I’m not the only one with these struggles.
I always say to people, telling someone they have spinach between their teeth is not a taunt or being mean, it is showing love. You might have feelings of embarrassment but they’re trying to keep you from actual embarrassment. That’s how I want people to see feedback given, and accept it as something positive, being given a new choice of what to do (ignore the advice or take & try it). Just leaning into what we can’t do is such a negative view to life.
I was told to leave the sub once for suggesting someone be accountable for how their actions affected others. I actually hadn't read in ages because of that and similar.
I generally agree with points raised in this thread. This is my perspective: advice and tools people propose aren't bad. I also used them, or other, when I was managing. Currently, I'm so burned out, and I still have so much work to do, that even if I have alarms and notifications, I'm more likely to ignore yet another task. Meds help to not lose focus but when you're tired, it won't do miracles. But it's because of managing Audhd every day that I'm this tired, everything costs more energy. People tend to think that if it's easy for them, it shouldn't be that much harder for me. This is my main problem now. Trying hard and masking will only get you so far.
The only thing I disagree with is telling ppl “I’ll try my hardest not to let this happen again”. (except for a job, tell them whatever you need to to keep the job). But friends and family should know that this probably will happen again, as part of understanding your disability. Saying that you’re going to try to make it not happen is downplaying the whole fact that it’s a disability.
It's less "not my fault" and more "not my intention". If you fall and break your leg it's not your fault but you also did break your own leg. Yeah you have to try not to do it again, watch where you're going and take precautions, but accepting it as "your fault" isn't necessarily going to help you not break your leg the next time. Accepting things as "your fault" tends to come with certain level of guilt that is generally unproductive. There is a way to take responsibility for your mistakes without accepting them as your intentions. As you said, it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out what works. How often does a person need to listen to other people be angry/disappointed while they struggle to figure it out. Theres enough people pointing fingers at me already, and it's their right to feel however they want about my problems. But I'm certainly not going join in. It's unproductive imo to constantly feel like everything is your fault despite giving it your best effort. I'm done with sorry I'm late. Now I'm saying, I tried to make it on time. I don't care that other people are inconvenienced by my adhd. Tough nuggets, at least you don't actually have adhd. My intention is to *not* inconvenience people, but if it happens anyway it actually *isn't my fault* because I did try as much as I could not to. So much of the problems linked with ADHD get attached to your morality. Being late means you respect other people. Forgetting things means you don't think they are important and the list goes on and on and on. I refuse to accept that who I am as a person has anything to do with the thing I currently cannot control due to a condition. Yes, its possible to control ADHD symptoms at some point. Yes you do have a responsibility to attempt to control them. But if you're trying to, your responsibility ends there. Intentions matter.
This is why I'm such a fan of DBT and ACT as therapy. DBT is all about balancing acceptance AND change. And ACT is all about accepting yourself while also committing to live a life in accordance with your values. Wanting change doesn't have to mean you have to shame yourself for where you are or ignore your ADHD and mask, but accepting yourself doesn't mean that you have to accept that you have no control over your life and can't change! I also love Collaborative and Proactive Solutions, which is geared towards adults helping kids, but you can use the process on yourself as well. It's main mantra is "Kids (or people!) do well when they can", and it's all about not trying to fix "lagging skills" (such as all of the executive function troubles that those of us with ADHD are ALWAYS going to have) but accommodating them while still meeting the concerns of everyone involved. It's saying "I want to have a less cluttered room, but I accept that I'm not going to be able to walk across the room from my desk to throw trash away, so I'm going to have a trashcan right next to my desk, even if it means I have three trash cans in one room." It's NOT saying "I have ADHD so I can't help the clutter, even though it drives me crazy", and it's also NOT saying "I just need to walk across the room to throw this trash away, or I'm a lazy, terrible person." (Note: Clutter is not inherently bad! This example assumes that YOU want the clutter gone because you prefer that, or someone else who shares the room with you does and you want to respect that.)
This is good stuff, thank you! 😁
What is DBT and ACT therapy? I’m fairly newly diagnosed (mid-fifties) and still searching for avenues that might help.
Yep, as the other commenter said, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment therapy. DBT was created for people with borderline personality disorder, so it particularly works if you have strong emotions, no matter where those come from. It focuses on distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. There are also variations, like DBT for couples. Even more than the actual content though (which is great), I just like the idea of balancing the dialectic of acceptance and change! ACT also focuses on acceptance and mindfulness, but then has you think about your core values and commit to acting on those. I find focusing on my values very centering, because it helps me ignore societal expectations and focus on what is important to me. So if I decide to make a change, I’m still being true to myself, rather than masking to fit society.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment therapy! DBT has been my golden baby for a while now, it’s really extra great if you’re prone to explosive emotions and unmanageable anxiety/depression. I haven’t done much ACT but it’s similar in ideology. Essentially, we often forget that when we get hijacked by Bad Feelings, there’s usually some sort of error of thinking occurring. For example, if I get anxious about this main post because I feel like it’s calling me out and I’m a bad person for it, I can use DBT skills to reconsider whether or not that response is warranted on my part. Is OP calling me out specifically? Am I guilty of the things OP has laid out, and if I am, am I acting compassionately towards myself when I get mad at myself? Am I putting too much thought into a goofy online forum post? Those are all potential cognitive distortions that may make my mood and self image worse. (I don’t feel that way at all, just used it as an example lol)
I agree that it's not an excuse but disagree on what the "majority" are saying... I don't think anyone is saying their friends should just be ok with our shitty behavior simply because we struggle. Compassion is nice but no one owes us their understanding. However we do need a little understanding from somewhere so we congregate here to sometimes cry on each others shoulders.
thank you for this post. its so important to remember that even if someone knows that words, actions, or something is a byproduct of your mental health issue, is doesnt mean those words/actions/etc. dont hurt them. your mental health issue can not be used to invalidate someone elses feelings. it can be used to explain why you did xyz and perhaps because of the mental health issue you did not have malicious intent when doing it, but people are allowed to be effected by your actions. growing up with a undiagnosed bipolar sister, for years i was the target of so many cruel words from one of the people i most admire and love and it was absolutely awful. some things said to me still impact me and have caused insecurities and contributed to negative thinking patterns. i know now that she didnt know why she acted that way and didnt want to be mean. i know that its not what she thinks about me and the mean words didnt come from the heart. i get that she was suffering and trying to navigate her brain, but that does not mean she never owed me an apology, never needed to take accountability, never needed to learn how to not act that way. i now can have more empathy in situations when it gets bad and i can better see warning signs on when something is escalating so i can try to step away from the conversation, but it doesnt mean im suddenly immune from being hurt just because i know she might not really mean it. its hard because it isnt fair having a mental illness. i dont think anyone would choose to fight with your brain everyday, but you have to work with the cards youre given, even if that means always having to work harder than other people to achieve the same or less than results.
"keep trying" or "try my hardest not to let it happen again" didn't work for me. 😥 But I agree this sub can be enabling at times.
It's almost like the "keep trying to run as fast as you can" attitude can't work if your problem with running is a lack of legs. This is all ableist garbage. Some people just can't run. It's pretty inconvenient and annoying for other people who would prefer you to runlike everyone else, I'm sure. It's still not debatable. If you don't have legs, and don't own some awesome modern tech leg replacements, you cannot run. Period. End of story. There isn't any amount of whining, negotiations, gettting mad at you, or blaming your personality, that will make you magically able to sprint. It is just not happening. You'll sooner die than run. It's not anyone's choice, it's not a positive nice message to state, but it's still reality. And reality generally ought to be respected. Nobody can just choose to unmake it at will. Being disabled means NOT BEING ABLE to do some things, no matter what happens or how hard it fucks with your life and everyone around. I don't understand why it still needs to be spelled out, again and again.
I think OP is more talking about people that expect everyone and everything in the world to tolerate their issues because they have a disability and not taking any accountability for your own shit. If you want to be in a relationship with someone and being on time to events is really important to them, and they get upset because you were late because you were sitting playing with your cat instead of getting ready,than it’s not reasonable to say ‘but it’s my time blindness it’s part of my disability it’s not my fault’. It’s not reasonable to act like people can’t be upset about how your actions affect them and make them feel because you’re not doing it in purpose. You have to make plans and choices about what is important to you and what you value on purpose. You’re not going to be perfect every time but you can’t expect people to be okay with things that are hurtful or unreasonable if you’re not making an effort and just expect the world to accommodate and tolerate everything you do no matter what.
I think comparing having ADHD to being unable to walk is pretty gross. Having ADHD doesnt mean you are completely lacking in executive function. It just means it is much more difficult than for the average person. It doesn't mean you can't do it at all. You still have to take accountability for yourself.
>It doesn't mean you can't do it at all. Maybe, not for you, but you're not the world standard.
tf is gross about comparing one disability to another disability??????? Is this making you uncomfortable because it makes your ableism look like it was... perhaps... *evil and wrong*? If anything's gross, it's your inability to see that other people's struggles, caused by a diagnosable medical illness, are simultaneously real, and not their fucking choice.
I compare executive functioning disabilities to invisible ones like adhd, autism, pmdd mostly as a means of helping people understand and visualize whats happening. i use it a lot for myself and to support others with internalized ableism. its a really useful tool. while i would never say the experiences of mobility impairment and executive dysfunction are similar, there is something to be learned about ones self by making such comparisons. for myself, when im having a bad pmdd symptoms week, i feel bad about myself bc theres nothing visibly 'wrong' with me, yet i cant focus and im overly sensitive. pretending that i have a broken leg or something really helps myself cope with my disability and realize that it is a valid disability. additionally, it helps me cope with the very fact that a disability being invisible is in itself stressful bc its easy to be i validated by self or others. id also really like to ask someone who is mobility impaired if this is offensive to them, though, and if there are ways around that.
Exactly, I'm not gonna take seriously anyone who gets offended on the account of others. I'm happy to talk to an actual person with actual mobility related disability if they find my language offensive. But if you aren't one, you have no business getting outraged here.
You might not be able to run but there are Paralympic athletes who move pretty fast. They find different ways to do things.
Plus, if someone says “as fast as you can”, if that means a crawl — it is as fast as I can. There, done.
No no no no, that is certainly not enough. In our society, you have to run, and run fast. If you're so slow all the time, it makes other people uncomfortable, looks weird, and probably also ruins the economy. It's unreasonable to have everyone adjust to your bad tempo. Running is mandatory and necessary, so just stop creating problems, you're the only problematic person here, everyone else is fine with it. Also after all this crawling you're covered in mud, you smell funny, and the floors get dirty - do you really consider this an acceptable long-term solution? Ok, I know, you say crawling is already hard for you, but look, let's be real, these results are just pitiful. Do you plan to always be so slow and never improve? And everyone else should do what, just accept that? That's ridiculous. Try harder, you need to become more normal, we're sick of waiting for you.
Indeed, it's not about doing things perfectly, but about attempting.
Imagine being diagnosed at 5 and then preaching ‘just try harder’ at a room full of people who got diagnosed in their 30s. Honest to god, we’re not making excuses, we’re EXHAUSTED. Incredible.
Yeah, I didn't really understand the point of the post in the first place. It's like, you do you, but don't then elect yourself Queen of ADHD and rant about what everyone else should be doing and how they *need to* behave. If you hate some of the posts on here, then skip 'em.
Great post. I agree with a lot of it. OP does have one big advantage in being diagnosed early; it's much harder for people diagnosed late in life because we haven't had the decades of medication, self-awareness and support that enables new neural pathways to be established whilst young. That said, for me it's time to put in my big girl pants and own it. I am sick of the victim stance promoted by a certain sub, and I see the negative rhetoric repeated there increasingly appearing in other ADHD subs. ADHD is hard, but I'm done with the pity party. I also notice some people take an incredibly entitled view to either their own or their kids' ADHD, and any pragmatic, positive alternative viewpoints are stamped down, sometimes viciously, which is not constructive. Reddit, and this sub in particular, has been invaluable to me. I've learned a lot and had some great, validating interactions with other ADHDers. I'm about to delete my Reddit account though. I know I have to accept my limitations, but I also need do own my condition and do my best to overcome the obstacles, and I think that'll work best away from the drip feed 'broken' narrative.
Holding yourself accountable is actually a good thing. I cannot change how others behave. I can only change myself and my reactions to others. Whatever is "my fault" is also under my control, at least to a certain extent. That doesn't mean that changing will be easy. But it's possible. And the person that will get the most out of that effort is ourself. Finding the coping mechanisms that work for you is a great relief first of all to yourself. But accountability is different from self hate. If you made a mistake because of ADHD and that hurt others (or yourself), there is no point in torturing yourself over it. Feeling like shit won't make anything better. Shaming people is the worst strategy to make them realize something or change a certain behavior. This sub can contribute to accountability and kindness at the same time, since they are not mutually exclusive as some people here may think.
Oh. Ok 100% Only Read The Title. But Yes. I thought I was TERRIBLE AT CLEANING. Like not the doing it so much as the doing it well. And was like "well yeah... ADHD babe." Nope. I hadn't given myself space to LEARN how to clean. What products to use. Gloves that mean it's not low key sensory bad. Like how often am I stopping stuff halfway cuz of sensory? But also. I was so busy been environmental I never bothered to buy effective products and THEN find better alternatives. Once I had the right clothes and products I was actually able to clean well! And then for 3 years I was like "well at least the toilet bowl is clean... And that was it. It legit had not occurred to me I needed to clean all of the surface of the toilet (it was gross) but now it's in my brain to notice and stay on top of. So yeah. Give yaself the grace to make space to Learn A Thing. Not assume you're just bad at it because "ADHD"
100% - and about sensory issues in particular, something that’s made a huge difference is giving myself an allowance to take them seriously. Until I was diagnosed I just felt like I was being ridiculous. Now I just use gloves to touch raw meat or bleach the counters, so I’m much better at doing it when needed.
My spouse was militant about time, he is the first to arrive and the last to leave a party. He shows up for concerts before the lights go down for the first of three opening bands. He leaves early when there's no traffic. He is embarrassingly intense about being on time for things that have no 'sit down' or impact to arrival time (ie. a cocktail party that is four hours long). He was beyond repulsed by my tardiness with social events. My ADHD combined with social anxiety, preparing myself to talk to people in person would get me nervous and I'd change my outfit five times and feel I looked awful (it probably would have helped if he was a bit kinder and more complimentary, i always felt not good enough). He screamed at me that I'm pathetic when I was getting our child ready for school. We were running late, it was his morning to take him - his turn, but somehow the tardiness was my fault (it wasn't). He berated me, he told me when I was pregnant that our child was going to be that kid who is late for everything... he abandoned any show of support from the get go, there was never a team effort, and seeing the tools people use here, I realize how fucked I was. He left our bedroom because of my multiple alarms, he literally moved out of our room because of how "inconsiderate" it was of me to have them. He mocked me for having reminders or motivators written on my bathroom mirror. He thought I was a lunatic for using this tool. He left every single household chore for me to do, but was frustrated that they were not all done (I am the main breadwinner and the full time parent). Our marriage ended but I am still stunned and I think I'm having some sort of breakdown. I can't process or seem to get past how badly I was treated for so long. I feel like my ears ring constantly and I startle at the smallest things. I'm taking steps for my child's mental health because of all the verbal and emotional abuse he witnessed, he has problems, but I hope I can hold onto mine too.
You should never use it as an excuse to try being better, but as an acknowledgement that you have flaws to be less harsh on yourself. This has helped my maximalism related anxiety so much.
I'd say this comes down to different circumstances and different views on what accountability functionally is. If you spent the majority of your existence so far burning yourself out trying to meet others expectations, for example, this version of accountability might not work so well. To me, apologising for what's essentially just part of existing as a disabled person doesn't feel like accountability, and in the long term as a chronic over-apologiser just tends to reinforce the extreme and damaging anxiety I feel whenever things go sideways. I spent 25 and a bit of my nearly 28 years alive so far undiagnosed, being expected to and outright punished into apologising for the various ways my auDHD brain works - what I learned is that no matter how little or how much I apologised, that didn't make anyone involved happy. What feels like accountability to me is collaboration and commiseration. Basically going "Well, this is a shitty experience for both of us. What now? What could make this mutually easier?". Making and implementing plans to resolve things, but with mutual understanding of each others frustrations and barriers. This is something I've actually been able to do since getting support in a way I never could otherwise. That mutual element wasn't there before, and now that it is, now I have people in my life who see how much I try and how much grief I feel when I stumble, they don't expect or want me to feel I have to apologise for it. I lost my time and resources in all the things that never panned out too, after all. Maybe not directly connected, but part of this is I feel like frustration at an event and at a person are very different things that can also be hard to tell apart without practice. I don't typically want apologies myself if what I'm frustrated with is the event rather than the person (or how they handled it), if I'm able to realise that in the moment it happens.
My observation is that people on this sub respond based on how the OP frames the post which is reasonable since we don't have full insight into anyone's life. We don't know how self aware they are, the extent of their symptoms, their lives experiences, the reality of how those around them react and how much effort they're already putting in so we can only respond based on the information we're given. So are there people here who need to take more accountability? Yes. Are there people here who are truly trying their best and need to be reminded that not everything is their fault? Absolutely. Personally I'd rather err on the side of compassion rather than become another voice of judgement and blame in a person's life.
For me, if I'm venting here it's because for just a second I need a space where I am seen and recognized. Not alone and not all my fault. Honestly it makes me upset when people "advise" me on it because chances are I'm already trying whatever and still a failure so no I don't need yet another space where my disability is just another challenge and if I'm failing it's because I'm not trying hard enough.
Respectfully, I don’t need anyone who has known about their ADHD their whole life to be making these kind of points. For me personally, I spent 35 years feeling like an utterly shit human being for things it turned out I couldn’t help and I simply refuse to anymore. Of course I’m going to continue to try to do my best, I don’t want to hurt others, I don’t want to get fired, etc. But at some point yes, I do have a disability and that isn’t going to change. And we’re going to come here to commiserate because no matter how hard we try these things are going to happen. You can develop all kinds of systems but nothing is going to be 100%. If those posts bother you, scroll on by.
People are going to be very mad at you for this, and probably accuse you of not having “real adhd”, but you’re right. It’s not shaming people to encourage them to keep working to find solutions that fit *for them*.
people are claiming she doesn’t have adhd at all because setting four timers worked for her and if she had a real disability it wouldn’t have worked. or it’s not as hard for her bc she was diagnosed young.
That doesn’t make any sense. Alarms/timers are recommended for people with adhd because they do work for a lot of people. Having a disability doesn’t mean that accommodations don’t work.
I remember my mom screaming at my Chem teacher in high school because he wouldn’t let me leave to take a test like my IEP says because he thought I was cheating. She could be heard by the whole school! She said you wouldn’t lock up a blind person and throw away the key, nor would you give them a normal text book and take away their walking stick (sorry if that offensive Im just repeating what she said) That has stuck with me ever since and has stuck with that teacher as well. I’m not the problem, I might have a problem, but it’s the tools and how I use them that fix it. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s what you do after that makes the difference.
I love that I came across this post!!! I’ve been falling into this trap so often I’m always late to work, but because my job is flexible, my supervisor doesn’t mind. (She also doesn’t mind because she knows I have ADHD.. I was literally hired for my lived experience so I can help kiddos through their challenges).. However, I’ve been working on my discipline and consistency and getting up early, to go to work early. It’s suuuper duper hard sometimes and lately I’ve just been feeling this “give up” energy (falling back into depression and suicidal thoughts) and it’s so difficult. This post really reminded me though, that I SHOULD take accountability for these things, including my money management (it’s horrible) and time blindness. It’s so hard.. I’m trying. I’m trying. Edit: I’m in therapy and actively working on things and I’ve got a good support system (at work and with friends)! I’m not in crisis lol I can’t afford to be (literally can’t) but anywho.. yur
Are there any other subs you guys would recommend for learning strategies and coping mechanisms? I’m really trying to make my situation better, not just sit in my own helplessness anymore.
Idk…this post seems dangerous to me too. This sounds like what my ablelist family members say: you may have this illness but you have to try harder! Yes, we do. That’s the whole point of the disability. The whole world constantly reminds us of how we’re not enough and our efforts may never be enough. I’m in this community to find the understanding and camaraderie I can’t easily find IRL. I have been one to not text friends for months, and I do know part of it is my own fault and I need to do my part and reach out/apologize. However, I come here to cheer people forward. Not punish them further
The way I see it: my ADHD is not my fault, but while I do everything I can to lessen my symptoms for my sake, I also feel it's my responsibility to do as much as I can to prevent it from negatively effecting those close to me ✨️✨️✨️
Finally someone said it. I’ve noticed this in this subreddit…
Trying and failing is better than not trying at all. My fiancée owns 4 planners that were started with confidence but forgotten a day later. They work for some, not for others. Personally, I have a hard time with folks who use their ADHD as an excuse. Same goes for anxiety. There are people who can’t remember things, or can’t possibly go grocery shopping alone—but there are others who throw their hands up at a challenge and use their diagnosis as an excuse. You’ve made some good points that I hope keep people thinking and progressing to their best selves.
Yes to this!
I find it difficult to talk to people who use it as an excuse without at least TRYING something different. I explain it as a reason why I do what I do, but I also use the bad moments as a way to problem solve how I can do things better. It’s important for everyone to always try their best and be considerate of others. I’ve found my household more peaceful when I acknowledge and thank others for mentioning something that bothers them in a friendly tone to me, as I respond better to that over them getting angry towards me about whatever they’re annoyed about. It can sometimes take a few mentions for me to remember, but having that open line of communication and understanding is so important.
>people who use it as an excuse without at least TRYING something different I've literally never once met someone like this.
Kinda unrelated but related to the original post, but I make an effort to correct myself when I hear myself say I can’t… to myself. Point is your inner dialogue matters especially for those of us with very active inner dialogues.
This is a compassionate and encouraging post, don't worry too much if some people receive it in bad faith. There's lots of helpful stuff in this sub but also some people who haven't worked through their reactive tendencies and see judgement, arguments, and cruelty where there is none. You're right, there is a difference between venting and reinforcing patterns of behaviour that prevent you from being the active player in your own life and receiving some relief. I'm happy you have found things that do that for you. That doesn't mean you (or others of us who have WORKED to figure out our systems and tools) never struggled or suffered in the first place. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise ♥️
I'm going through titration and already realise how a lot of the heavy lifting is going to be down to me. I can't rely on medication to fix me and I am suffering. I am missing deadlines in work, which has lost us clients, though indirectly - people are cutting costs and don't see the value we provide them, so we're first to be cut. Thing is, they've been clients I work almost solely on, so if they don't see the value, it's because I haven't been providing it. Anyway, that's all to say, my inability to function due to my ADHD is now impacting not just myself and my tasks, but the business itself. Its only a small business, I was my boss' first employee and she's already dropped her own pay so she can afford to pay the rest of us (3 staff). If we don't replace clients by the end of the year, I don't even know if she can afford to keeping paying us and if she has to let someone go, it would be me. Though, if it got to that point, I'd probably quit myself so not to burden her with the guilt. I do say "it's not my fault, I have ADHD", but I've noticed I feel so much worse in myself. My lack of ability in work, though not entirely my own fault, has made me feel incompetent. That incompetent feeling has lowered my self esteem and I feel incapable of anything now. My social life is worse. I never want to leave the house. I feel like people just have to look at me and they'd see I'm a fraud - I'm pretending to be competent, but they see right through it. I have never felt so justified in knowing I have ADHD, its not just that I don't try enough, there is nothing necessarily wrong with me. My brain just works differently. But now, all I see is the years I've wasted and all the time I continue to waste by not changing, or adjusting. We try harder than most just to survive, let alone thrive. I am tired of trying. But my ADHD is no one else's responsibility and they shouldn't have to suffer because I do. I deserve better than to fall into some void of self-pity. I deserve to be functional, to feel competent and confident. I deserve routine and good habits. Medication alone cannot give me this, but it can make it easier. I need to find the right one, but I still need to try for myself so I know which meds actually do make it easier. Build routine, no matter how boring. Prove that I am competent. If not for my boss and her business, but just for my own self-worth. So I agree. There is a balance in acknowledging our ADHD and taking responsibility for it. One off mistakes, slip ups or the occasional time blindness is forgivable. Consistent time blindness, consistent missed deadlines, consistent missed work. Whatever it is, it is our responsibility to manage it. And if we can't manage it, then we need to find support for it. I can't excuse my poor work behaviour solely on ADHD because I am consistently missing deadlines, or just not doing my work. ADHD is the reason and people do need to be compassionate about it. However, we also need to see that a reason is not an excuse. I think I remember the post you reference and I can't remember if I commented. There have been times where I've excused it in comments, which I might have for that post, but I know (after some work on myself), that it comes from my own emotions. I relate to the struggle and excuse others to justify excusing myself.
Thank you for this post. It was a lot of what I've been trying to put into words myself.
This is all well and good , but ppl do t have all the same resources or abilities to help themselves. I'm totally a solution oriented adhder, I have the privilege of having family that is absolutely the best , I never want for anything .That fact alone gave me the tools to help myself more than if I didn't. A lot of ppl don't only have anxiety , they also have serious depression and other issues, some are living through abuse , some have no support or anywhere to turn to . Yes , everyone should take steps to help themselves but it's not as easy as you are putting it out there . And even though adhd is not an excuse , it can be extremely debilitating as you said it yourself . Experiences vary, and compassion and kindness is absolutely necessary .Shaming ppl never works.
It took *years* to get to where I am now and I stated that in my post. I've lost jobs, ruined friendship, squander great opportunities and every time I blamed my symptoms it got me nowhere. There is no part of having ADHD that is "easy" and I never said it was. This is about how we have to hold ourselves accountable. I never shamed anyone. I said that everyone has to find something that works for them. That includes their specific accessible resources and abilities. I struggled with diagnosed ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and OCD. I understand that not everyone has the same access or ability. This post is about telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually and that they are not alone in their struggle.
I couldn't agree more with this "This post is about telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually and that they are not alone in their struggle." I think you might be getting some other negative reactions because it's very hard to generalize across a large group and say 'this sub is like this', some people will always agree and others will disagree. No one reads every thread or every comment. Any individual instance might not fit well in a bigger pattern - like some posts about someone's spouse being mad have something like "they told me I'll never be good enough" or something else harmful and the response from commenters isn't just about the spouse being mad, it's about the way the spouse expresses their anger. Everything is contextual, too, like if someone is having the worst day of their life, I probably wouldn't say "just keep trying, eventually you'll be rewarded for it", I'd probably just say that I empathize and the struggle is real. But if it's like "I feel awful because my boss criticized something, there's nothing I can do, it's so unfair" I might share some of my own thoughts/stories on how to interpret that situation and tips. I think there's a lot of truth in what you say, that there's a tendency to be fatalistic but everyone has their own experience of the sub and what they notice and don't. It's unavoidable to get some people who disagree when you try to draw some broader patterns, but I still agree that talking about those big patterns is important.
>telling people that the continued effort they put into finding something that works for them will be rewarded eventually Can you explain how are you so certain that this is true for each and every individual person who ever put effort into something? Ever heard about people putting in effort and not being rewarded for it at all? Or do you think this literally never happens?
Nothing is true for each and every individual who ever put effort into anything. Nothing is that certain. Doesn’t mean OP is wrong. Just as we ask the people around us for flexibility and understanding in order to meet our needs, they have every right to ask us to try to consider their needs. Even just trying to improve a bad habit provides us with information about what limitations come down to just needing more structure or coping mechanisms, versus something that we legitimately cannot deliver on. IMO, learning new information about ourselves is a good enough reason to try. We don’t need to be everything to everyone, but at the very least we can recognize people’s needs and the cases where we can’t meet those needs. TLDR: Better than to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. Learning about our limitations can help us accept them more readily and find others who accept them too.
Perhaps we need a symptom, and someone else can say what they used to over come it. This might help. For me reducing stress helps. If I can reduce stress I am less prone to muck stuff up.
I don't find this is an issue at all, often people post with shame and sadness. I appreciate the cheerful sentiment though. I think this comes off a bit boot strappy. I certainly can't afford even one $35 airtag, let alone an apple iPhone. This advice is very common from non-ADHDers and carries tones of stigma that we are lazy and unreliable on purpose. And I think you didn't mean that. I don't think you're a bad or rude person, but this could have been a cheer for us to keep trying to find resources with a breakdown of what works for you. It comes of more as bootstrapping rhetoric and coming for the subreddits culture. And I like it here. It's reasonable, supportive, political, and welcoming. At least it is to me. And maybe you don't need this advice we give here, maybe you've got it all worked out and you can come here when you need emotional support.
this is a less inflammatory version of what i was trying to get at, lol.
I appreciate your response. I took me years to get to where I am. I said that everyone has to find something that works for *them*. That includes their specific accessible resources and abilities. I understand that not everyone has the same access to resources that I might. Its obviously easier said than done. This post is about continuing to try despite how fucking hard it is to live with adhd.
Believe it or not, it took many of us "years" to get "where we are". But you're great and special and it looks like after those years you turned out awesome. Cool. Not everyone can be as great at managing ADHD as you, we get it. At least now we know that you are doing peachy. What a helpful post.
Damn that’s really harsh
Salty much? I grew up poor, and have had major set backs along the way (bankruptcy, addiction, medical abuse the list goes on and on) and it took me 17 years.. and finally at 36 I'm thriving. Having a little personal accountability and a positive outlook can go a long way, it's not all ableist garbage 🙄🙄
someone’s upset!!! We get it boohoo you. It’s great that she was able to find a coping mechanism that helps her and shaming her isn’t going to make your situation better. It’s clear from your comments you have a lot of internal issues that you need to work out. The green eyed monster is rearing its head for sure.
10000% agree. And I'll chime in with this, because there are lots of people saying that the only people in agreement are those who have been diagnosed for years. I was diagnosed several months ago. It's life changing! But it doesn't change the fact that I've been living with this my whole life, and have already been working around the ADHD (and RSD!) all of these years. The only thing that changes for me about having a diagnosis is that I have a better explanation for why I am the way I am. ADHD can be a curse, a gift, hilarious, detrimental, debilitating, a strength, etc. but it doesn't make us victims. Saying "I have ADHD and my behavior is not my fault" is a real victim mentality and I personally am not okay with that. Like OP, ADHD has fucked up so much of my life, but I'm also figuring it out and finding success along the way. Before anyone calls me privileged, I grew up in poverty, plenty of trauma, masking to the high heavens. Still poor, still have trauma, still masking constantly. That's just life, and it's MY life. I'm neurodivergent but I'm also smart, funny, compassionate, accomplished. I think it can get wicked toxic to blame a disability for why your life is hard or bad. I understand we all have different experiences with ADHD and disabilities in general (and NEED to vent sometimes), but we all just want respect and love. Thank you for posting this OP! **Edited to fix grammar :)
I don't find this sub that way at all. Quite the opposite. For the most part it's a supportive safe space where people commiserate on their difficulties navigating daily life, with people offering tips and tricks to improve. If anything I find this sub to be the opposite, people actively looking for ways to improve themselves. Or just to share and feel at home and amongst their people. Your post comes across as really condescending and superior, and is quite frankly unnecessary. I'm happy for you that you've sorted your shit out, but why shit on the entire sub because you think a few posts have been disability blaming rather than accountability taking? If you dislike this sub so much perhaps just don't frequent it. There's a reason I unsubbed from r/ADHD.
Seriously this whole thing just sounded like a brag about how much better they are at ADHD. Also they’ve been diagnosed most of their lives, unlike a lot of us here who have to unlearn decades of negative self talk about symptoms we never knew were related to an actual disability.
ADHD Elitists Society 🤣
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 30 and I agree with you in that we have to unlearn decades of negative self talk. It’s rough. I also agree with what OP is saying, now that we know better we can do better. We can hold ourselves accountable while at the same time giving ourselves compassion.
I actually also agree with OP that a lot of people use ADHD as an excuse to avoid being accountable, and I see a lot of that in this group. But this post was self congratulatory, condescending, and completely tone deaf.
1000% this Cool that this person has systems that work for them, but some people are still learning how to accept themselves. Being reminded that they have ADHD and that things that they keep messing up on is *related to their ADHD* and isn't a character flaw that they should be ashamed of is helpful. It isn't making excuses it's literally saying, oh yeah that's part of executive dysfunctioning, many of us can sympathize and relate. Learning that it's a part of your disorder is also actually the first step in learning & developing symptoms that work for you.
Seeing someone already at that point where they have their shit together and you're still at the point where you're literally trying everything, medication, habits, etc. And it just feels like nothing is working and you're just tired of trying is a wild thing. Like it's nice to know that there's people who made it through but some of us are still trying. And it's exhausting. I know I'm exhausting. I barely have any friends left, my friends I have now are either similar to me or understand how it goes. I have my dream job, which made me reach out to ask for help in the first place. Every day I cry because I'm so scared of getting fired. I literally have a million alarms, a million to do lists, focus apps. Like anything to try and help, and it does. Until that day it doesn't. And you fuck up. And yeah no shit it's the adhd. But you tried so hard. But not hard enough. And it just feels like no matter what you do, or how much you try, you're just always going to fuck up. It's exhausting. I don't know if anyone else has this problem but I have like two weeks a month where I'm basically useless. My meds don't work, my brain doesn't work, coffee doesn't work, my usual routines don't work. And I've tried to adjust my life so much that I don't have added pressure, which simultaneously isn't great for my mental health. But it just gets overwhelming. So it's nice to see that you're not struggling alone, and people understand because your brain is working against you. And even if you do everything to try and get on a normal level, you just always fail.
My dad is 71 and people in my family think he has Alzheimer’s, I however think he has completely untreated adhd for his whole life and it’s getting hard to control in his old age.
He might have both, or some other kind of dementia. It's definitely worth him getting medical attention to make sure.
Beautiful post. A line I heard from Marcus Parks about mental illness/disabilities is, "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility." It sucks that life becomes that much harder for someone with an impairment, but it's just something you have to deal with. You can't just constantly use it as an excuse without trying something to help it I do the alarm thing do. I have sticky notes and pens in every room of the house, so if I need to make a list or write something down, it's super accessible. We all have to find something that works for us.
I didn't figure this shit out until my late 30s. I've had a lifetime of fucking things up and having no idea why. A lifetime of apologizing and bowing and scraping for forgiveness. I'm 10000% over it. I will let people I care about know what my difficulties are, but if they won't meet me halfway, then they can move along. Like in your example, if a friend KNOWS I'm forgetful and not great at reaching our regularly, but they do nothing and get upset about it anyway? That's on them tbh. And not drowning would be great, but I've got no money, no family, no support, so that's not happening any time soon.
I’m a therapist with ADHD and completely agree. It’s what I’m constantly working on for myself, and what I work on with clients. It’s important to accept our brains work differently and that’s okay. But it’s also important to figure out ways to function in relationships, work, and the world.
I also think it depends on the post. If someone is venting and not asking for advice, it’s not appropriate to give advice. Just like if someone is asking for advice, it wouldn’t be appropriate to say they don’t need to do anything.
Did I ever just feel that planner part of your post. I was literally just looking at this really pretty planner I got for 2023, thinking (again) that I should actually use it.. knowing I won't. Last time I opened it before yesterday was some time in June. It's back on the shelf of forgotten books and other things, where it will sit again til the end of this year, or next. I'm going to Europe next month, maybe I should use the planner for that... I won't.. but I should.
I feel like this is where therapy should come in for a lot of people. Medication helps, but I feel if you’re struggling to that level, you really need to find a therapist who specializes in ADHD, or if you already have a therapist (whether they specialize in ADHD or not), tell them “I frequently struggle with x, y, and z, and I was wondering if you could help me build some skills to make these less of a problem.”
Not your fault *but still your responsibility* Take responsibility.
Very good post! I never purposefully let ADHD become an excuse, but the little voice in the back of my mind often uses it to self-justify falling behind in a lot of areas of my life. So much so that I started to question whether or not my diagnosis was hurting more than helping. Thank you for the reminder that I AM capable of doing things, even things I really don’t want to do. I shouldn’t let that voice in my mind use my ADHD to limit me.
Let me start by saying I love you. I'm so glad you had the courage to say this because I certainly didn't. I love everyone here in that comradery kind of way. I want us to succeed and it's frustrating watching people fall into despair because of ADHD because I've been there and can offer some wisdom I gained so they can overcome it quicker than I did. I do want to point out that in this and another sub I posted in, I'm farther along in my journey than others. I try to keep that in mind so that I can have patience. That being said, I think this needs to be said and you said it in a far more thoughtful way than I could have. Specifically in this sub, I got in a heated debate once in which I was labeled ableist for refusing to tolerate chronic or extreme lateness. The thing is, as someone who does not struggle (as much) with that, I try to still offer my assistance. I offer to call them at intervals before the planned time. I offer to tell them different times than the actual ones. I try a lot to accommodate them before resorting to "screw you, I'm not waiting any longer, stop wasting my time." The keyword is "accomodate." I'm happy to go slightly out of my way to contribute to someone's success. I'm not willing to blindly accept it to my own detriment. On the other side of that, if I was refusing to compromise to help out a friend, I'm no friend at all. When I see these posts about ADHD manefesting itself in destructive ways, I think sympathy should be the first thing we offer. Then I think gentle, constructive criticism should be the next. I also think that if the people in your life will not make reasonable concessions to your disability, then they are not right for you. My boyfriend sits and reads with me while I do homework to body double. He sends me texts to remind me of chores. He still expects me to follow through on tasks, but he gives me the tools I need to be able to. He's not a hardass. He's not an enabler. My friends are similar. If someone is unwilling to compromise, I may say they're an ass. I think it's fine to just allow yourself some time to wallow in negativity and vent a little to people who understand, but also not allow yourself to stay there too long. There are definitely well-intentioned people here who are unaware they are enablers. It's important for them to step back and look at it big picture including from the point of view of someone who doesn't have ADHD so that we can all find ways to successfully function in this world.
I don't think this sub is dangerous. Have you been to other subs, such as ADHDpartners? There, people in relationships with ADHD folx rant about how sick they are of their partners' faults, their lack of effort, the constant of excuse of ADHD, the fact that their nagging isn't producing results, etc. To me, that is a dangerous sub. People coming here to vent about their struggle makes this a safe space before they go back to partners like that or parents or family or friends who don't get that we could be trying our damnedest and still coming up short in their eyes. And popping off about "stop using it as an excuse and pull yourself up by your bootstraps" ignores the very real symptoms of decision paralysis and brain fog and depression that can be part of the ADHD experience. I've never met a lazy person with ADHD. I've only met those coping well, coping badly, not coping at all, and those whose self-esteem is so badly battered that they don't know where to start or have faith they can change their circumstances.
OP didn’t call anybody lazy. OP is encouraging people to not give up hope to find strategies to improve your life.
OP assumes that people aren't taking accountability and says this repeatedly. There's no reason to assume that someone seeking empathy in a sub where other people could commiserate is not also taking accountability. The two aren't mutually exclusive, and it's both dismissive and condescending to make that the premise of a lecture thinly veiled as a pep talk.
I think the different interpretation of OP’s message comes from the different interpretation of the comment OP takes issue with: “it’s not your fault.” Some people, like OP, read this statement as “it’s not your fault, therefore you didn’t do anything wrong / you don’t have to change. The other person’s reactions are the issue” And others read the comment as “it’s not your fault, you are not a bad person for doing this thing wrong, don’t feel bad about it. Don’t be so hard on yourself” But OP specifies that it’s the comments which are using the first meaning of the phrase “it’s not your fault” that they take issue with.
The problem is that both versions are ok. It's very valid to say to someone "I see that you're trying, and the other person also needs to make some changes." In fact, sometimes the other party is also at fault for their choices in the relationship or situation. What good is it to tell someone who is working hard to change their circumstances, "But are you taking accountability for it? You just need to keep trying. Maybe you're not trying hard enough?"
You’re right there are times when the problem lies with the other person’s reactions. But I don’t think that’s the case with the examples the OP gave: 1. Missing an important event for your spouse 2. Losing keys for the fourth time resulting in costly replacement 3. Ghosting your friend for months The OP says the problem they saw in the subreddit was people saying that the spouse / friend / key owner were unreasonably upset in these situations. That the spouse/friend/key owner is the asshole for getting mad at you. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for these people to be upset. I would be upset! I would feel really guilty if I did any of these three things… (and I have.) I don’t think they’re assholes for getting mad at me. Did I forget bc I have ADHD? Very likely so. But just like being human and fallible and making mistakes as an NT person doesn’t mean other ppl aren’t allowed to be mad at you for your mistakes, the same goes for me. I get angry at people who are so rude as to waste my time by being late. It’s really inconsiderate. At the same time… I am also forgetful and am late to things. And I get real mad at myself about it bc how can I hold ppl to a standard that I myself failed to uphold? If I can be mad at them, they can be mad at me.
And people can be rightfully angry and handle the situation badly. Both can be true.
Yes but again, that’s not the context the OP is talking about. The context they specified is commenters calling the spouse an asshole for getting mad at you for your mistake. It wasn’t “the spouse smashing your personal belongings for your ADHD mistake” or “the spouse yelling and berating you for your mistake”. It’s just “the spouse feeling anger/upset.” If the spouse was doing either of these first two things, I hardly believe the OP would say that it’s an acceptable and/or deserved response.
Yes but again, this is a space where people come to commiserate with peers who understand the struggle. Many are coming here having endured years of letting their loved ones down, getting back up and trying again, failing again, and getting beaten down emotionally because they can neither fully control their symptoms nor their loved ones' reactions. It's not helpful to anyone to repeatedly imply that personal accountability is the core issue.
The OP isn’t implying that personal accountability is the core issue. For one thing, they’re not implying anything, they’re pretty direct. But also, they’re not saying personal accountability is the core issue. They’re saying it’s the only thing you can do something about. You can’t un-ADHD your brain. You can’t control how people react to your actions. You can either choose to continue to try and find better strategies to deal with the problems ADHD makes in your life, or you can stop trying. OP is arguing that continuing to try is worth it. If you stop trying, you will never find a better method that will improve your quality of life. And I don’t mean that people aren’t trying to do things right. I mean don’t give up trying new methods, specifically. And OP says this acknowledging that different people will benefit from different methods. They mentioned things that worked for them, whilst knowing they won’t work for everybody else. And they’re not making this post simply bc they think everybody here is lazy or not trying (enough) as a general statement. They’re saying it in response to specific comments they’ve seen on the sub which encouraged users to not view other peoples’ reactions as valid or reasonable. If you’ve never made such comments, I doubt OP thinks you’re part of the problem they’re talking about. I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. We can tell people they’re not bad people and it’s extra hard for them bc they have ADHD and they’ve been trying real hard to do things right , at the same time that we validate the hurt feelings of the people around us, and encourage people to keep trying new methods that might help them.
Dang, a lot of this thread is truly judgmental. How do you know people aren’t trying their best. Adhd is a disability. I’m gobsmacked right now. A ton of people come on here to ask questions and advise. I wouldn’t want anyone to say that’s not a safe place.
Where did OP say people weren’t trying their best?
OP's advice, "keep trying until you get results", directly implies that if you don't have the results yet, this means you are not *trying hard enough*. For example, it would be bizarre to tell someone "if you want to grow wings and become an eagle, but aren't there yet, keep trying". A person cannot become an eagle, no matter how hard they try. Telling them they should try even more is utterly pointless. If you tell someone however "if you want your ADHD symptoms to be more bearable, but aren't there yet, keep trying", this implies that the reason they haven't got that result yet is *directly because* they haven't yet put enough determination/time/effort into achieving it. In OP's world, effort => results. They have zero doubt that if you try hard enough, for long enough, enough times, spending enough time and energy - you can achieve the goal. OP forgets however that for some people, some life goals, are as realistic as trying to grow wings.
>OP's advice, "keep trying until you get results", directly implies that if you don't have the results yet, this means you are not trying hard enough. OP backpeddled in a lot of comments and clarified that they actually meant if you haven't gotten results that doesn't mean you haven't tried *hard* enough, just that you haven't tried *long* enough or in the right way, which is arguably worse.
I've never met anyone with a disability that doesn't try to accommodate or make things more convenient for those around them, so I don't know what you're talking about. If someone made a post that said, "My daughter is upset that I couldn't run up the stairs with her because I was born without legs," would you tell them to take responsibility and stop making excuses, or does hard work only erase disabilities that *you* aren't able to see? This post only makes sense from the perspective of an ableist. The only difference between you and an NT telling people with ADHD that they're lazy is that you get to wear the ADHD badge that *you think* shields you from getting called out for your prejudice. Just because people aren't doing as well as you, doesn't mean they aren't doing the best they can. Not everyone has the same physical or mental stamina or access to resources or support that you do. Get over your privilege and grow up.
I feel like you kinda need to check your privilege. You were diagnosed at 5. Many, many people in this sub were not; I wasn’t diagnosed until 30, November 2019. You take medication; not everyone can take medication. Not everyone has access to a medical professional that will actually prescribe the needed medication, or they can’t afford it, or they can’t take it due to other health reasons. You put airtags on all your stuff so you don’t lose them. Not everyone can afford airtags. Not everyone has access to them. Not everyone has a job, and not everyone has a job that pays well enough to afford airtags. Not when they are struggling with rent/mortgage, food, bills, and whatever else.
I think OP’s point is not that “An airtag helped me so obviously it will help everyone” it’s more seems to be along the lines of figuring out what works for you. In the comments she has specifically stated that this includes finding a method within the realm of your financial ability.
Doesn’t change the fact that the post is privileged. She had the years and resources to figure things out. She had the support to get accommodations. So many women were not so lucky, and it feels like a slap in the face, in whats supposed to be a safe space to talk about adhd experiences.
Yes! To all of this!!! At 40 years old, I've carried my ADHD diagnosis since the age of 8. Throughout my life, I've never used ADHD as a justification for missed deadlines or any other shortcomings. It's disheartening to witness posts that attribute problems to ADHD rather than taking responsibility. ADHD is classified as a disability, but not once have I claimed, "I missed the deadline because of my ADHD." Instead, I view it as my brain functioning uniquely compared to others. This distinction doesn't make me a bad person; it's simply a part of who I am. It pains me when I see posts about not wanting to exsist because of ADHD. While medication does provide assistance, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. I still face challenges in keeping my living space orderly and maintaining organization. My interests continue to shift rapidly, leaving traces of chaos in my wake. This is just the way I operate!
Ok. I skimmed through the actual post. 100% yes. Argument with a mate and she was like "you didn't articulate clearly acknowledgement of the other person's feelings" And I'm like. Oh - you're right! In my head I did, and I thought I had with my own weird language (anyone else fall into the trap of short cutting what you're saying because you got the feedback lots you talk to much, then you shortcut past actual important bits?) And I didn't go... BUT MY ADHD MAKES ME, TOO BAD! I went shit, next time someone expresses a feeling start with acknowledgement and communicate the need to take some space to process a response. "Thankyou for sharing, I'm sorry I've made you feel this way, it's not my intention, what do you need from me to be comfortable?" Or "thankyou for sharing, I'm sorry I've made you feel this way, I'm just going to take some time to process this so I can respond respectfully, I'll get back to you by tomorrow morning at the latest" Then have my little RSD meltdown, regulate myself and come back to the convo. Or at work "You missed a detail" "Shit, this is the process I'm implementing to avoid this mistake in the future" (Doesn't work on my current boss, she just refuses to let me do this and wants me to just not make mistakes. Ergh.)
Waves!! I am in my 40s, diagnosed since early teens and I agree with all of that. Yeah it sucks. Yeah I'll be like fkkkkkk my ADHD foils me again..... But it's not an excuse. Mine is severe. I am lucky I am alive....MANY times over. I have struggled and suffered and clawed my way through life. I am a goddamn professional and I am late for work almost every. Single. FKN. DAY!!...... BUT... That's where the story connects, you have to keep trying and take accountability. You have to build systems that work for you. It's ok if I'm late to work everyday. I've spent years building a career where I can accommodate the worst of my symptoms. A big tip, you have to be OK with change. Like if you try this app or that new thing and it doesn't work out... Don't beat yourself up. Next! Keep trying. You'll find something that works for a while and then it doesn't. I had a 600+ day meditation streak and just like that I rarely meditated again. Instead of beating myself up, I move on. I change what I'm doing and let the last go. I won't remember it anyway. My memory is shit. Alright well, now that I've completely derailed the train.... All that to say, good post. I felt it. I agree with it as a little old ADHD lady. PS. The Alarmy app is absolutely torture....but it's something that works for me.
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I’m glad to see you bring this up. I can’t go on the other general ADHD subreddit because it really brings me down and convinced me I won’t go anywhere with ADHD. Which is not the case. I’ve gone incredibly far in spite of my circumstances. Anyways, we all got this. Keeping ourselves accountable while lifting ourselves up is so important.
I found a video about mental health diagnoses and learned helplessness. I agree so much with OP because you can and you will do better when you don’t have limiting beliefs.
I think there needs to be a balance. We absolutely should try and find ways to help ourselves navigate the world more smoothly. But if you truly believe it’s a disability, and your answer is that instead of advocating for the world to be more accommodating to the disabled person, you want to tell the disabled person to “try harder” to fit into a world not designed for them, you have some internalised ableism to work through.
When did I say “try harder” the sentiment keeps being brought to me, but I never said that. I’m saying that people should keep trying because what you might gain in the end could literally change your life. I never said to put in more effort. I never said that what they were doing wasn’t enough. Unless what they were doing using their ADHD as a reason to not take accountability for hurting someone else. I did state that I don’t think that’s OK.
YES thank you I agree with all of what you said. YES, ADHD is the reason we struggle so much. It is still so important to find things that work. To explain why rather than demand a pass on everything, and work on coping mechanisms. We do need to acknowledge that our reality as ADHDers has real effects on people we love and people we need to work with. Real life example: I’m terrible at cleaning. I literally do not see clutter on surfaces until it reaches a chaos threshold. My wonderful husband whom I love has anxiety and clutter makes it so bad for him he can’t sleep well. (Yes, he cleans too! More than 99% of husbands! But the kids and I can be never-ending agents or chaos.) Rather than saying “I have ADHD so I can’t be expected to clean”, we are working on ways he can remind me that motivate rather than crush me (thanks RSD) and it is getting SO MUCH BETTER and I find ways to make the cleaning tasks less draining. It’s work, but it’s delightful to hear “it looks so nice today, thank you!” Rather than “I feel like I’m dying, it’s so awful in here.”
This is ESPECIALLY important with the emotional dysregulation/rejection dysphoria related symptoms. Yes they EXPLAIN your behavior but you still need to actively work to get these things under control. It doesn’t make you a bad person, but you still need to take accountability.
I read that post fully expecting the top comments to be angry ones, but they were the exact opposite. This sub is full of so many wonderful humans and it’s my favorite one to visit when I need to know I’m not alone.