Thread by @dustychipura

I think one thing people forget about #ADHD is that it creates a variable capacity. People don't understand how someone can be so high-performing and then the next time, forget something completely basic and important or make a really careless mistake.

This also has ramifications for the person WITH ADHD... imagine thinking "i've got this! I've done this before!" and then goofing up big time in a way that is frankly embarrassing and just... not being able to explain how that happened 🤷‍♀️

In a sense you know; you can look back and realize, "I was distracted", "I wasn't paying attention" etc... but it seems infathomable. To have a variable capacity costs us our relationship with ourselves because adults with ADHD come to mistrust their own capacity.

Every commitment is a russian roulette; will this be the time I totally pull it off, or completely blow it? I DON'T KNOW, LET'S ROLL THE DICE!

I often hear from clients with ADHD that after a time they just stop trying to implement new solutions and strategies because it's too hard when they fail *yet again* to stick to something or follow through with something. We become pessimistic.

We start to buy into our stories about ourselves; maybe we ARE just lazy stupid or careless. If we weren't, wouldn't we have changed by now? Wouldn't we have taken steps to fix the problem? It's hard to understand how we could continue to struggle with the same issues over & over

This is a result of a really important executive function; self-monitoring. Because we have low self-awareness, in the moment that we commit to something, promise to do something or even pick up a great new habit that can help us...

..., we fail to 'time travel' to the past and remeber what happened last time and adapt our strategy to THIS time. As @blkgirllostkeys says, 'guard your YES with your life' ... because we don't! We really believe that we have an endless amount of energy, time, etc

We don't look to the past to say "what happened last time I overcommitted?" nor do we look to the future to say "how busy will I be six weeks from now when I have committed to this thing? Will I have enough time and energy?"

"what happened last time I was supposed to lock up the store? What did I forget? What do I need to do differently this time?"

This is self-monitoring, AND awareness of time/the 'not-now'. When you only live in the now, the not-now isn't relevant.

It costs us other people's opinions of us, it costs us our trust in ourselves, it costs us our ability to try, and it costs us our ability to protect and guard our energy and time.

If you have #ADHD you have a variable capacity. Don't make commitments based on your absolute best-case-scenario, hyperfocus-all-the-stars-aligned self. Don't look to those examples of times you pulled it off *just in the nick of time*.

Slow down, breathe, think about what happened last time. Ask yourself what you have to do in the future to follow through on whatever you're committing to, whether you have time.. and whether the future version of yourself will want to.

LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN

DONT MAKE PLANS AND COMMITMENTS BASED ON WHAT *YOU* WANT IN *THE NOW*, THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE VERSION OF YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU THINK *THEY* WILL WANT

are they going to be too tired? too stressed? Are they going to have needs that are different than your needs?

Start looking out for your future self so they can be more successful and begin to recultivate trust with themselves. It starts with guarding your yes, slowing down, pausing and remembering to remember the past and the future.