Examples:
- Kid’s electronic toy that we loved is broken. Instead of throwing it away, I put it in a box because “surely, I’ll find the time to fix it”
- After moving, valuables are “temporarily” in plastic bags, because I’ll buy & assemble a showcase soon enough.
None of these things ever happen. I make the planning as if I did not an attention disorder. Although I had it all my life.
Now that I’m in treatment, I would have thought that my brain works in a way I’d need to get used to. But no, it just works in the way I always assumed when I made a plan.
It’s just so strange that the planning seems to assume an intact prefrontal cortex, rather than adjusting to how it actually works.
Absolutely. Part of it for me is that there’s a horrible realist grief if I face facts, admitting to myself how little I am likely to achieve is a downer and part of me would rather live in the fantasy of optimism.
But I’m in the middle of a huge project of building a home, and for the next few years will not have any time for those extra little tasks I used to imagine I’d easily do some evening. So now I have to confront the choice - is this more important than the other tasks on my list? If not, is there a easy temporary solution that will be OK for a while? Or is this something for the far future when my life is completely different? If so I pack it up and put it in the attic.
So maybe it’s fine that your valuables are packed away, because it doesn’t really matter if they’re on display, and you shouldn’t feel bad about that. Or maybe putting some of them out temporarily on a bookshelf would be a compromise. Or maybe giving yourself the internal deadline of “I’ll move these to the basement this weekend since I’m never getting round to the display case dream” will be the push your adhd brain needs to suddenly feel like it’s actually super important and you’ll find yourself hyper-fixated and driving to a late night store to buy your showcase…