Excuse or Explanation?

I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 33. I just always assumed a lot of what I dealt with in my life were things everyone dealt with. I never wanted to do homework (and just straight up didn’t do it for most of my life). I struggled with doing basic things like cleaning, doing dishes, etc. I wouldn’t just put it off, I would simply just…not do it.

I had trouble focusing on anything that didn’t interest me, but if it did, I could focus on it for hours at a time. I couldn’t do anything that required a little bit of variation from my normal patterns, even just going up to put my dish in the sink if I was sitting down. And then when I eventually did get up, I would forget that dish completely.

I had this obsessive fear that I would forget details when repeating a process-to the point where I was crippled from doing it in the first place. It’s hard to describe without an example (that I don’t currently have here).

I couldn’t stick to external or self-imposed deadlines.

I have a cabinet in my house that has a bunch of my drinks in it that I will often just forget exists for months at a time.

I’ll buy food for lunches/dinners and then simply forget that I have it. Or when I do remember, sometimes I won’t have the energy/motivation to make it. Or maybe I just won’t be in the mood for it.

So with my diagnosis, a lot of things became a bit more clear to me. The real benefit of the diagnosis is that I now have self-reflection and words to describe my reasons for the things that I do (or don’t do). I have a decision making tree to trace. I think it has helped in a lot of ways, but it also gives me a conscious excuse to do or not do something I don’t want to.

For example, right now I know I have two trash bags to take out to the can outside, but I haven’t worked up the motivation to move them. I can consciously say that “yeah, my ADHD is keeping me from being motivated to do it,” and the troubling question is “Am I using it as an excuse to do something I don’t want to do?” Or am I just tracing my motivation back to its root of my ADHD?