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?
Damn as a neurotypical person reading this it blows my mind. Yes, my habits are absolutely automatic, to the point I daydream through them. Am I just misunderstanding something or are you saying every adhd person struggles to form habits?
Jesus, that's insane. Either I have 0 habits, or OP is right. Everything I do, I do "manually" , and have to put effort and thought into it.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
Dude. Three days isn’t even my record, and I don’t feel hungry during that time, like at all. Or if I do it’s this vaguely distant feeling that isn’t nearly as important as whatever I’m hyper focusing on at the moment.
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.
Yeah. I’m super skinny. I have trouble keeping weight on. I’m 6’1, male, and like 144 lbs. It’s not good for ya.
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.
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.
Oh my god
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
Same with the seatbelt. Perhaps because it’s not a standalone activity, but a part of the already manually engaged “do car” process.
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?
Doesn’t bother me, but my SO is of an other opinion
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).
Ah, I engage it, but forget to disengage it about half the time.
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.
It's very common among autistic people and neurodivergent people in general, it's called executive dysfunction. Essentially your brain has trouble both making and initiating plans. Every time I brush my teeth I have to remember to do it (this is not automatic, all my toothbrush stuff is set up as a visual cue any time I'm near the sink), focus on my task as I go to the bathroom so I don't forget why I went there, remember to take my medicine first so that I don't have to swallow them after brushing my teeth, floss, and brush.
The last two parts sound very simple (and they are, which is why this is so frustrating for many people), but sometimes I will stand in front of the bathroom sink for 5 or 10 minutes, knowing I need to brush my teeth, WANTING to brush my teeth, but it's like whatever 'go juice' neurotypical people have a limitless supply of is just limited for me. Finally after standing there and psyching myself up I can do it, but it does take legitimate effort to initiate the process even if I follow through on all the parts smoothly. I couldn't tell you exactly why this happens even though I can obviously recognize that it is happening, I kind of suspect it has to do with wonky sensory integration problems (common in ADHD and autistic people).
HOW ARE YOU IN MY BRAIN
I hate that feeling of knowing I need to do something and wanting to start, but actually doing it is like my body and mind are weighed down by concrete.
Ah, that sounds familiar. I don't actively psyche myself up, but I'll distract myself and procrastinate on it for like half an hour. Which always feels silly, when that task only takes ten minutes or so.
I’m not sure if it’s every ADHD person, but I have accidentally quit smoking.
If you can accidentally quit a physically addictive habit, things like brushing your teeth don’t stand a chance.
Bonus lifehack!
I was blown away when I first saw this meme. I had no idea habits were supposed to LITERALLY become automatic. When people would tell me “Do something every day until it becomes a habit” I thought they meant “Do something until you stop forgetting to do it” Not “do something until your body just takes over and autopilots through it and you never have to think about it again”. Now I really understand why productivity advice is so useless. They’re all designed to “hack a habit loop” and I have no habit loop.
It actually kinda pissed me off when I learned what it’s like for neurotypical people. I felt like I’ve been unfairly misled and then judged for being misled.
Trust me, our minds are equally blown by how your brain works. Like, what ? It’s automatic ? How does that even work? For me, automatic is things like clenching my teeth or flinching at a certain type of sound, but I wouldn’t call that a habit. For me, a habit is something I can’t stop the impulse for, like smoking. All daily practical functions are intentional or not at all. Even “routines” are just forcing yourself through the checklist, it’s never automatic. You’re like fucking robots I swear.
That gave me a good laugh. I guess I never thought of myself as fortunate in that way, fascinating. But hold on, I have another question now. What about playing musical instruments like learning guitar? Wouldn't that constitute a habit that becomes automatic after enough practice?
I see where you’re going with this. But no. My partner is a musician. It’s a habit for him. He needs it. He plays religiously. Me though ? One day I might decide I absolutely have to learn the guitar right now, then I’d force myself through enough practice to be passable, then put the guitar down and never touch it again. Or even more likely, I’d rush out, spend $5k on gear, bring it home, set it up and by then I’ll have lost interest completely, so I’d tell myself I’ll actually play tomorrow. And then never touch that stuff again. I tell people I’m an oversharer (also an adhd thing) because there’s no room for skeletons in my closet. It’s already full of all my forgotten hobbies.
I’ll hyperfocus on a new thing, like playing an instrument, or painting, or whatever and I’ll become very good at the thing very quickly. Then I’ll walk away and forget I even have an instrument, or forget that I like to paint. As a result I have a fuck ton of skills and I hardly ever use any of them. Hell, I learned book binding. I bound leather books that were gorgeous, and then after three or four I never did it again. Oh, then there was that month where I learned video editing and production, which I also never did again. I was a draftsman for awhile, where I got really good at autoCAD, and aside from a few things I did for pay I haven’t used that skill in a decade.
I am not every ADHD person, but this could have been written by me. I had NO IDEA that you could have something be so ingrained that you don't think about it. Even if I develop a "routine" of doing something, it is NEVER automatic. I have to put mental effort, even if small, into every task or it won't get done.
After reading this my definition of habit would be better termed routine. I develop a routine and I try to stick to it. Also I could have a great routine and it lasts for a month or so and then it's just, I don't know what else to call it but 'gone'. It's gone. That routine is gone.
I thought I was just lazy most of my life because I could never wrap my head around how people just do things without getting overwhelmed by 500 things in their head about it first lmfao. Showering is a good example, I'm sure most people find them relaxing and/or do them on autopilot but to me it feels like an elaborate process
Very few things are true for every person with a given neurodivergence. But this is one of the more (most?) common things that people with ADHD struggle with, some to a lesser, some to a greater extent.
I realized when I was 20 that I can’t form habits. I’ve tried my whole life, but everything I do is an active choice, which makes it difficult to do anything at all long term. Things get boring and repetitive and after a while they aren’t interesting enough for me to get my executive functioning to do them anymore. Most things that I do daily, like brush my teeth, are actually things I do out of fear of the consequences of not doing them.
When I worked as a CS rep and had to log into my phone every time I sat down, it was a conscious effort that required active management, every day, for four years. When I get up in the morning to take care of and feed my pets, it’s an active checklist, and while I have a routine of sorts, different parts get missed often, like turning on my coffee machine, opening windows to cool the house, or even turning lights on. I’ve been on a mission to automate as much as possible in my home because things like my fish die otherwise.
The only time I’ve ever experienced auto-pilot has been while driving. And frankly, that scares the hell out of me because I lose time when that happens and have no idea if I did anything dangerous (I’m reasonably sure not because it’s happened often with others in the car, but the feeling is still there).
Yes. That's exactly it. And as soon as you try to form a habit with no visible short-term results or gain, and some form of annoyance in its performance (I know of one person who hates how loud teeth brushing is), it is super-hard-mode.
I can daydream through some actions, but it's rare, and I fuck up whatever I'm doing. This is because I'm splitting my attention and not actually following a habit.
Starting any activity, including brushing my teeth, is always a conscious choice. I cannot "sleepwalk" into the bathroom to start my day.
A story here. I was in a relationship years ago, every morning this person would wake up and slap the button on their alarm. If they woke up before the alarm, or if the alarm failed, they would still reach over and slap the button. It was a habit.
I cannot develop habits like that. But I'm also not tripped up by habits. There's no "walk down the hall and automatically turn left".
The only upside to my particular situation is that I've never been hyperactive. Attention deficit, but no hyperactivity. It allows me to have at least some discipline in my day. But that has to be planned out and actively adhered to. It's a constant struggle, but not as bad as some people I've known over the years.
Maybe? Once I get started at something, I can zone out and not consciously think about it, but even getting ready for work, is a different adventure every day.
Sometimes I jump up, get ready, and I leave early, and on the other 24 work days of the month, I'm distracted by the laundry that didn't get in the dryer, trying to find my keys, reading an article that's much longer than I thought, and my cats.
I know what I need to do and I go through the checklist, but I wouldn't call any of it automatic.