Thank you Nome @NomedaBarbarian
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@NomedaBarbarian on Twitter:
Thinking about how I’ve been lied to as an #ADHD person about what habits are.
That apparently is not what neurotypical folks get to experience.
Habits are things that they do without thinking.
They don’t have to decide to do them. They don’t have to remember to do them. Things just happen, automatically, because they’ve done them enough for that system to engage and make them automatic.
That system…which I lack.
Every single time I have brushed my teeth, it’s been an active choice. I’ve had to devote thought and attention to it. It’s not a routine, it’s not a habit, it’s something that I know is good to do, and hopefully I can remember to do it.
Every single time I exercise, or floss, or pay my rent, or drink water, or say “bless you” when someone sneezes,
It’s because I’ve had to actively and consciously engage the protocol.
It never gets easier.
Just more familiar.
It’s part of my struggle with my weight–exercise never becomes a habit, and every single time I do it, it is exactly as hard as the first time. It takes exactly as much willpower & thought.
I got lied to about how it would just “turn into a habit”. And blamed, when it didn’t.
Drinking water isn’t a habit. Feeding myself isn’t a habit. Bathing isn’t a habit.
I spend so much more energy, so much more time, so much more labor on just managing to maintain my fucking meat suit.
And now you want me to ALSO do taxes?
ON TIME?
Thanks for speaking to the other side, because that’s so hard to believe. I don’t know about everyone with ADHD, but it definitely seems to be a common shared experience. The only habits I do completely without thinking are a) putting my seatbelt on in the car, and b) picking my phone up like 100 times a day. Anything bigger, even something like eating, is something I have to will myself to do.
And when I’m trying to form a “habit,” like certain types of note taking or task planning at work, no matter how effective it is and how much I like it, I never manage to do it more than about 3 weeks before my brain just completely shuts off that pathway and it’s like I forget that process exists altogether.
If I don’t put my meds on my nightstand AND have a reminder on my phone, I will forget them most of the time. Daily activity, takes almost no brain power, and it still doesn’t trigger in my head as something I need to do unless I physically see it.
Agree, add in locking doors behind me when I go into a house lol, I do it in other people’s places and feel bad when I lock someone out lol
Oh that one’s still usually a thought for me, lol.
I have two things that are habitual upon arriving at home: 1) I don’t open my house door until I’ve put my key back in my purse from unlocking it. Rain, cold, whatever? I don’t tempt fate. And 2) upon walking into my house my purse goes down on a table by the door. That one I sometimes break when I have things in my hands, but then I think about it obsessively until it gets done. I do those so I don’t lose my stuff everywhere and sometimes I don’t think about them, but if I don’t went on total autopilot I know I’d misplace them sometimes.
Oh shit the seatbelts are a great example, I’d maybe add that typing on a keyboard is another thing that feels habitual. Everywhere else the 3 month rule applies pretty well in terms of maybe picking them up and randomly immediately dropping.
Can a neurotypical chime in and say whether seatbelts and typing are habits to them like brushing teeth?
Neurotypical here. I don’t call it habits, I prefer autopilot. My autopilot is so strong that I’ve made dinner/cleaned house while on the phone without even realizing I did it. Like seriously get off the phone and look around and wondered when did I do that? I also have driven to work instead of shopping because I am so used to only leaving the house for work. You can set a clock by my daily routine down to the minute.
Sometimes I finish showering, and I was so heavily on autopilot while thinking about other things that I have no memory of if I actually washed my body or not, I just trust that I did
The more I hear about ADHD, the more I wonder if I have it. Is there something I should be doing?
If not experiencing those things would dramatically make your life better, might go see a psychiatrist about evaluation?
Sure. Favorite stuff that sounds relatable, and don’t stress. Many ADHD traits are relatable to everyone. Once you have a good amount of things that seem relatable, though, bring it up at your next doctors visit or read some posts about how to seek diagnosis or treatment. If it’s only a few things here or there and everything in your life is going just fine, don’t worry about it. :)
Also, I’m so happy for the internet. ADHD isn’t becoming more common, but awareness of it is.
ugh, I constantly forget to eat. People would ask “how the hell can you FORGET to eat, for two days” and I’d be like. “three days… I think”.
This happens to me all the time. People will ask about the last time I ate, and I’ll tell them “Uhh… I think I had a granola bar for breakfast… two days ago.” Today I ate two full(ish) meals. The last time I remember eating that much is almost three weeks ago. It’s gotten to the point where people think I’m intentionally starving myself, but I just genuinely don’t get hungry. I have no urge to eat, so I constantly forget.
My girlfriend takes me out to dinner twice a week. Most of my calories come from those two weekly nights out. Add in my time blindness and I’ll think that I ate breakfast in the morning, but then realize that it was the previous morning and that I just never noticed the passage of time.
My mom. Super skinny her whole life. People thought she took care of herself, but I knew that she forgot to eat for days.
I used to think that would be nice. I have the other end of it where I am constantly nibbling for dopamine hits.
LOL, relatable. I also had to literally train myself over years to feel hungry, and all that training goes away when I’m really stressed. Living with a partner is the best thing for my eating habits. He needs to eat, so I eat… at least once a day.
How did you train yourself to feel hungry? I need to take medicine to feel hungry and I want to take control of it
The range of ADHD is wild, I’m just always hungry, I have to consciously stop myself from randomly eating any food in my proximity. If there’s a box of crackers, or leftovers in the fridge, I’ll eat them, even if I ate an hour ago, if I don’t make a conscious effort to remind myself that I ate a meal already. Adderall has helped with me being aware of when I’m not actually hungry, but when the drugs wear off in the evening, I have to be careful about cruising the kitchen/pantry.
I wonder how we can make some of this other etuff like the seat belt thing. It is an intriguing point you make. Obviously seatbelt use for people alive today that are within a certain age range has been ingrained in the formative years so I wonder if that has something to do with it. I wonder if one day scientists figure out how to trick neurotypical brains into forming these kinds of memories (I dunno whether it is long term or short term), but I am out of my depth here. Pretty sure short term memories when the neural pathways for them are activated enough times, they eventually becomeong term memories and a part of working memory I guess? Like, I wonder how muscle memory ties into this. If an ADHD person successfully completes an action a certain amount of times, can it then be turned into a muscle memory thing? Surely it can, right? I need to do some research on this, but I’m not sure where to start…
As I thought on this more, I realized I taught myself a new habit to use the parking brake in my car after I’d been driving for a year, and then I trained myself to turn on a driving setting in my car every time I drive.
What it made me realize is that I can form habits when they are 1) simple actions, 2) there’s specific context (being in my car), and 3) there’s a physical reminder.
For the drive setting, I put a post-it note on the dial I have to turn. Seeing that every day for a few weeks reminded me to use it, and when it’s used my dashboard changes color (blue to red). After a few weeks using the post-it, I got used to the red dash, and eventually turning the dial has become a pretty automatic thing. And if I forget it, I quickly notice the blue dash and remember to make the change.
I mentioned taking my meds is tough, but as long as I have it by my bed I actually take it ~5 days a week without the reminder on my phone going off. Because it’s a simple task and it’s next to my bed and done when I wake up, and my phone provides a physical backup when I forget.
On the other hand, I have been giving my cat 2x daily meds for a year longer than I’ve taken daily meds myself. I remember it’s a task I need to do, but I am 100% dependent on a phone alarm to actually do it (and I must snooze the alarm until I do it, because if I don’t act immediately there’s a >50% chance I’ll forget again). I think the biggest difference is that context is not the same. I might be anywhere in my house doing anything at that time. For the morning dose 5 days a week I’m working and we’re in my office, but my meetings are different every day so the context isn’t the same.
Oh, I’ve also made a habit of scooping my cat’s litter! I have flushable litter (game changer!!) and I can see the litter box while using the rest room, so I just do it right away before flushing and washing my hands. Simple task (even though I sometimes I skip it when I’m stressed or tired, but it’s a choice to skip it), triggered by physical context, and it’s in my line of sight multiple times a day.
I’m totally “thinking out loud” in what I’m writing here, so I apologize that it’s long and rambly. I wonder how I might use those 3 things to build other habits… oh! When I worked in my office, my gym was next door and I worked out with a coworker. I also kept my gym bag in my office in the same place I put my purse. Thankfully I don’t sweat much so I didn’t have to change my workout clothes daily (which was a habit I couldn’t get into), but seeing the bag and my coworker going to the gym did get me to do it 3x a week for over a year.
I never manage to do it more than about 3 weeks before my brain just completely shuts off that pathway and it’s like I forget that process exists altogether.
This is me. How can you just “forget” something you’ve developed into a routine and done daily for a month? I do though. Shit.
Oh! I remembered one more but can’t edit my comment: I use my parking brake every time I park my car and take it off when I start driving. I did manage to build that one into a habit a couple years after I started driving.
So I guess it is possible for me to create habits, but they have to be small, specific, and have specific contexts they trigger in (like the car).
