I'm Sorry, I Forgot! Please Don't Be Mad At Me... It Was My ADHD #210
Appointments, birthdays, permission slips, library books, names, the one thing you went into the store for…
In today's episode, I delve into one of the most frustrating features of ADHD: forgetting important things.
From my personal experiences of forgetting to pick up THE ONE THING that my husband had requested while I went backpacking through Spain to missing my child's swim lesson due to a mix-up in scheduling, we’ll explore the guilt and shame that often accompany these forgetful moments.
But it's important to remember that having ADHD is not an excuse for forgetfulness, but rather an explanation. But how do you clearly make the distinction in your intention so everyone’s not mad at you for forgetting the thing for the 300th time???
In this episode, we explore the delicate balance between understanding the role of ADHD and taking personal accountability for our actions. Join me as we uncover strategies and insights to navigate through forgetfulness and rewrite our stories from shame spiral to success story.
Get ready for a powerful (and uncomfortable) discussion on forgetfulness in motherhood and ADHD.
Links mentioned in this episode:
The Same Fight Again: How to Improve Your Romantic Relationship When it's Impacted by ADHD with Melissa Orlov Episode 202
Time blindness. YES. It's a very real thing and it can be a challenge for lots of people with ADHD.
I'm here to tell you there IS HOPE!
I created a resource for mamas like you so you can stop waiting until the last minute to complete the project, send in the forms, or do the shopping.
Stop stressing about time. It doesn't have to be that way.
Grab my Secrets for Overcoming Time Blindness, a free resource on my website here: https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead
Patricia Sung 00:00
One of my major I forgotten moments is when I forgot to bring my husband home the literally the one thing he asked me to get him when I was backpacking through Spain. One thing he asked me to get one thing on my trip, did I get him nothing? I got something different. I didn't get him to share to Yesware. How he literally asked me for one thing, how did I forget what he wanted? Let's discuss. Are you overwhelmed by motherhood and barely keeping your head above water? Are you confused and frustrated by how all the other moms make it look so easy. You can figure out how to manage the chaos in your mind, your home, or your family? I get your mama, parenting with ADHD is hard. Here is your permission slip to let go of the Pinterest worthy visions of organization and structure fit for everyone else. Let's do life like our brains do life creatively, lovingly, and with all our might. When we embrace who we are and how our brains work, we can figure out how to live our lives successfully, and in turn, lead our families. Well, at the end of the day, we just want to be good moms. but spoiler alert, you are already a great mom. ADHD does not mean you're doomed to be a hot mess mama, you can rewrite your story from shame spiral to success story. And I'll be right here beside you to cheer you on.
Patricia Sung 01:20
Welcome to Motherhood in ADHD. Hey there successful mama. It's your friend Patricia Sung. Today we're talking about all about forgetting stuff. It's just literally like one of the worst features of ADHD. I am recording this right now. It's still the summertime. And I just asked you all like what are the main things you're struggling with right now? Because I have 10,000 ideas. How do I just pick one to talk about? So I'm like, What y'all need right now? I think I did an Instagram poll. Yeah, one of the things that you said you're struggling with the most is forgetting. And immediately I can think of like 400 examples of things that I forgot. Like the time I messed up my kids swim lesson I thought that or like the teacher was sick or something or out of town. And so they move the lesson but like I gotta flip flopped, so that like I showed up on the day, there wasn't a lesson and I missed the week before when I was like the lesson got moved to it was like a hot mess disaster like, and then like staring at my kid who's like, but I thought I got to go swimming today. And then you feel just like total crap. Or the time I told you the intro, like, my husband asked me for one thing when I went backpacking through Spain granted, this is like many years ago was before we were married, he asked for a shirt. He's like, can you please give me a shirt from Spain? I'm like, Of course I can get you a shirt or what happens in my head.
Patricia Sung 02:33
I wanted to get him a jersey for his favorite soccer team. But I met up with his best friend who was also backpacking. Yes, we were much younger in our 20s Like his best friend tells me Oh, he already has like a soccer shirt. So now I'm trying to find him something else because in my head I had then like overwritten his want for a shirt with my I want to get him a soccer Jersey than his friends. Like here. He has center jersey. So I like deleted the whole thing out and started over with like, what do I get him? And I was really happy about the thing that I got him is super cute. But it's not what he wanted. He asked for a shirt. And like here, I come back to my boyfriend and be like, here's this cool figurine. I got you have a bowl because I ran with the bowls. And he's like, but where's my shirt? Like?
Patricia Sung 03:15
It took me a hot second to figure out what How did I lose? You want a shirt and come up with this adorable little mosaic bowl, which is clearly not well, like a 20 year old dude ones, one of the shirt, and you just feel awful. There are so many of these things that I can go through and think of like, all the times that I've messed things up. And not only is it frustrating for us, but you know that you've hurt the person that you forgot the thing for. So here comes in this layer of the guilt and the shame of like, how did I mess this up? And you go down like the Doom spiral of like, How can I possibly mess this up? Then you feel awful, because you heard the other person you disappointed them You didn't come through for them and like it just layers on and on and on. What I want to underscore here is like this is not an excuse having ADHD is not an excuse for being forgetful, but it is an explanation.
Patricia Sung 04:15
Like how do we navigate the difference between the two in being an excuse versus being an explanation? And what do we do about it? So first, let's look at like how does it show up as an excuse? It shows up as an excuse when something bad happens. And then we place all of the blame on ADHD but then we don't take any personal accountability for it. And it's like well, how do I take personal accountability for something that I didn't realize I was doing? Yeah, I gotcha. When we know that we struggle with something with ADHD part of our responsibility the society we are in there are certain expectations we have to uphold have to is the flexible word here because there's you know, there's always different have Jews but like As a mom, like, you know, we're trying to get our kid to school on time and make sure they got to their doctor's appointments and like, we don't have the luxury to just whatevs through life because we're responsible for other people. So when it feels like an excuse, that's when we've said like, Oh, I'm blaming it on the ADHD, and not only am I not responsible, but I'm not going to do anything about it. And here's where it feels tricky.
Patricia Sung 05:24
So like when I said to my husband, which was then my boyfriend, like, I lit it was like, I don't know what you're talking about. Like you didn't ask me for a shirt. Like I knew you wanted a souvenir. But I You didn't see a shirt. He's like, I most definitely set a shirt. And it took me a while to figure out like, Well, why is he telling me that I that I, he asked for a shirt, but I have no recollection of this. It's like, I had to walk backwards and be like, what happened? I can't just brush it under the rug. Because then I'm not being respectful. The fact that I like let him down and sitting here me like, Okay, what happened? Oh, I get it. I overrode that here. So like, what am I going to do about that? Young Patricia was just like, No, it didn't happen. But like, more responsible software patrician, I was like, Ooh, okay, I need to say like, Hey, I'm so sorry that I did not get you a shirt. I realize what I did.
Patricia Sung 06:12
I messed up the blah, blah, blah situation, because I was putting getting this shirt, but your friends that you had on already, so I didn't get that shirt. I'm like, saying like, owning up to like, ooh, like I did my setup. It didn't do it on purpose. And making sure that person you know, knows that I wasn't trying to hurt them on purpose. But like, also, what am I going to do about that next time? What's my plan for avoiding that? Like, do I need to write that down somewhere? Do I need to choose ahead of time, like how I'm going to check to make sure that I fulfilled that request? Like, it can't just be Oh, that's my ADHD is fault, not mine. I'm out brush my hands of it. It's like I still have to own who I really hurt your feelings like the same thing with my kid when he missed swim lessons. I was like, I'm so sorry, buddy. I messed up the deeds. And like, it doesn't change the fact that I screwed up. But it does lie on my responsibility to make amends for what I did. And then figure out how do I help myself? Like, where do I support myself? Where do I scaffold myself? So they don't have that problem? Again, as frequently, it's not going to make it disappear. Like, how am I taking care of it. So what I have noticed is that when we see this pattern ourselves of like forgetting things, a lot of times, it's like a very common thing with us, like, really like seems kind of like silly like I forget to eat, sometimes I forget to go to the bathroom.
Patricia Sung 07:38
Like I have to have a system in place where like, I have to stop at a certain time to go eat lunch, what am I going to do to ensure that I actually stop and eat lunch, one of the things I have to do is make sure that I have easy grab and go lunches for the days that I'm working. Because I know that if I don't have something I can make or reheat pretty quickly, I'm not going to go down there because it's going to feel too hard. So that's a way that I set myself up. So they make sure I go eat, I make sure that I have my water bottle filled up on my desk before I start, because then I'll at least drink the one cup of water while I'm doing all this talking. So we have struggles in many areas when it comes to forgetting it can be these like body cues, but also is like in working memory. Like I don't hold information for long periods of time. I know that I have actually been tested for what like when I was doing my original ADHD testing, I have the short term memory of a third grader. So I know that I can't rely on my memory to uphold things for me, the moment I hear myself utter, oh, I'll do that later, a new new new note. No, you won't, you will not do that later, you will never again remember this thing.
Patricia Sung 08:42
I have to have a system in place to take care of it right now. Because I have never going to remember this later. Until it's a problem. I also see this a lot in myself and in my clients like the thoughts swirling, there's so much going on in your head that like it's hard to keep track of the one thing that's needs to get done because your heads full of 472. To do so again, like we need a system here to combat that mental hyperactivity that happens for a lot of us. What's your system for keeping track of all that stuff? And I've also noticed that I run into this issue a lot of like, when I put the information in my head is in like brainstorm mode of like, I'm trying to figure out how this is going to work. What are all my options. When I'm in brainstorm mood, nothing gets saved. It's just swirling around until I decide, okay, this is what I'm going to do. If I don't say like, Okay, here's my plan. Out of all those brainstorms I came up with what's the actual plan and like write down the plan.
Patricia Sung 09:37
It's not going to happen. So like example, on Fourth of July, I tried to finagle hanging out with both my family in the morning and my husband's family in the evening. Then everything went to you know what, in a handbasket because my husband got COVID And so I then had to juggle hanging out with both families by myself with two small children. You in two different cities, and when my husband and I walked through, like, can I make this work? We brainstormed lots of different things. We came up with the thing at the end, like okay, this will work if we do it this way. Well, I was like, okay, I can make this work plan made. Got it. No, I didn't do plan meet. That was the problem. I was like, Oh, I can make this work great. And I moved on. And I didn't like make note of my plan of like what I needed to do. Well, then here I am at a swimming pool, trying to get my two kids out of the pool, trying to figure out lunch when like, my family is on like a significantly later schedule than I am. Like, we're pretty punctual on the like, the mealtimes and bedtimes and they aren't. And so I'm trying to like I got to feed my kids, I gotta get them out of the pool. I gotta get them changed. We got to drive from Austin to Houston. Like, that was a hot mess. And I couldn't remember my plan.
Patricia Sung 10:46
I was like, What am I supposed to be doing right now? I literally texted my husband. I'm like, What time was I supposed to leave? I realized that I had no idea because I didn't write down my plan. And he's like, oh, you should have left already. And so it was a big hot mess. And then I forgot to text my in laws that was running behind drove all the way from Austin to Houston. FYI, that's like two and a half hours didn't tell them I was running behind my husband's like, What is wrong with you? And I'm like, it's that I didn't I didn't follow my system. I didn't follow my plan. So one, I feel you because I forget things all the time. But I also know that like, that was a moment I had to own up of like, I'm so sorry, I did not text you and tell you I was running behind. And like apologizing to my husband, I'm sorry, I didn't write down the plan. I realize what happened. And now I know like, my brain does things in like brainstorm mode and plan mode. And I have to transition the things from brainstorm mode into this is the now the plan mode, or else it doesn't happen. So given that this is all near and dear to my heart, here are the ways that are working for me, in order to stay on top of the forgetting.
Patricia Sung 11:48
Are you constantly scrambling to get things done? You never seem to have quite enough time to do it all. And it feels like you're drinking from a firehose, and then you get mad at yourself because you should have been ready because you knew about that birthday party or that field trip or that vacation for a long time now and yet somehow, you still aren't ready. As ADHD moms, we spend a lot of time living reactively you're playing Whack a Mole throughout the day dealing with one emergency or surprise after another. You feel like you don't even have time to catch your breath. This is a really stressful way to live every day. The hard part is it we live in the now not the not now. And all those things the birthday party, the vacation the field trip, they're all not now until suddenly, they are now how do you move those things from not now to now before they are emergency.
Patricia Sung 12:36
Now, by doing some proactive planning. Every month, I look ahead at what's coming up so that my brain recognizes that it's coming soon it brings the knot now into the now temporarily, I'm sharing this tried and true strategy with you. So head over to my website https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead. It's all one word month ahead lowercase letters, and you can download it for free how in just 1015 minutes, you can walk through what's coming up and help your brain move from reactive to proactive this 10 or 15 Min activity once a month saves future me tons of hours of stress and panic. And I want that for you too. So go to my website, https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead and grab your free ADHD friendly strategy, which is my secret on how I overcome time blindness and lower your stress a whole bunch future you will thank you so much in a couple of weeks. So go grab it now. https://www.patriciasung.com/monthahead.
Patricia Sung 13:44
So, number one going back to earlier when I was saying about like a lot of times this forgetfulness hurts other people number one is like these, this is a lot more forgivable when we show that we're actively working towards a solution. And we take ownership of like I didn't do that on purpose. But I am sorry, because I did hurt you. Even though I didn't do it on purpose. Like it can't be like a well it wasn't trying to do it on purpose. Like it has to be this like Howard felt like I am sorry, I messed up, I genuinely want you to know that I was not trying to hurt you. Here's what I'm doing to work on it like it's a lot more forgivable when we take ownership of what we did do and what we're going to do about it. We talked about this with Melissa Orlov a couple episodes ago when we're talking about relationships in ADHD.
Patricia Sung 14:23
So go back and listen to that episode. And it was to to hopefully my brain remembers correctly so like interwoven in that like that's two different things that make a big difference for me is one actively trying to find a solution and then to owning up to the mistake I made because I also like I'm not going to find a solution for something if I'm not owning up to the fact that I had a problem like I can want to also box here about how I wish we weren't upheld to like a lot of standards that like we can't keep up with but here we are. That's not the soapbox for today. Just know I have one and I still have to own up to the fact that it hurt somebody in the mistake that I made. Okay, so those are the first two. Number three, one of the things that really helps me is planning ahead like this is the whole reason I started like teaching planning in the first place daily planning, like how to use a planner was my original course, like, planning ahead makes things so much easier.
Patricia Sung 15:13
And I'm less likely to forget things like not because I want to be this like fortress human that doesn't forget things. And it's so organized. The reason I plan is because when I have a plan, it makes me think of the things ahead of time that I probably missed. So things don't fall through the cracks as much or as frequently because I stopped to be like, Ooh, what do I need to do about the next day? Like this is also why we have successful meetups. It's like, that's the 30 minutes set aside of being like, Okay, what's coming up this week? If I had done that the week before, which now I'm like, Why didn't I plan I must have announced I am so who knows? My husband COVID. And I just need to let go that that was a rough week. Who knows why I didn't get my point in time a week. But like that time that we set aside to be like, I'm going through my calendar, that is what allows me to think ahead and being like, oh, right, okay, Fourth of July, this is going to be a really hard day. What do I need to prep ahead of gym? What do I need to have packed? What do I need to know like my exit time and all that, especially with it being on my own? Oh, you know what, when we did the planning meeting, my husband wasn't sick. Yeah, that's probably why Okay, anyways, that planning time is what allows me to see the holes and see the obstacles coming up.
Patricia Sung 16:26
Like when you plan one minute a planning saves you 10 minutes on the back end. So for sure, planning this Fourth of July better would have saved me way more minutes in that. But it allows me to stop and bring the future into the present because we live in this like now not now sense of time when we have ADHD quite frequently try not to be stereotypical here is that like, the leaving of Fourth of July was not now until it was now and then I realized, Oh, I'm struggling to get two small children out of the swimming pool with their cousins, we gotta go like that bringing of the future into the present allows me to like walk through it, otherwise, it just doesn't exist. Now, the other thing that really helps me here on the same vein of planning is like having all of my routines and rhythms in place. Because when I have all these routines, and like rhythms like the point of having systems, again, it's not to be this virtuous human who has routines and systems. When I have routines and systems in place, they run on autopilot, and they greatly decrease my decision fatigue and reduce my mental load. Like that's why I have systems. That's why I have routines, because they go through and sort out like what has to get done, who's doing it when where all the logistics that's already decided when I have a routine. And all I have to do is spend my energy on doing the thing. I'm not trying to figure out all the questions that go with it. So when we have these routines that we can drop into, and we've already like done all the hard work of deciding things that lessens my mental load, so that I'm able to conserve my energy on what really matters. And the last thing that really helps me in the forgetting area is creating calm.
Patricia Sung 18:01
So when I am very stressed out seem for you like when you're very stressed out, you cannot critically think you cannot problem solve. You can't plan when you're super stressed out your brain is in fight or flight mode. And it is conserving all of its resources for survival, not problem solving. So when we create space, and we create calm, and we create peace, and we create like a pause, that gives us the ability to actually slow down and give our bodies the capabilities to take care of itself to make a plan to problem solve. So that's one thing that I've spent a ton of effort on in the last year between my coaching and learning how to rewrite these unhelpful patterns in my brain where normally I would just go down the Doom spiral and be like, ah, everything's terrible. And engineering Rose was doing it. Instead now I'd be like, Oh, that was hard. Fourth of July was hard, you know, Madhu. I can look through and be like, Wow, that was rough. Here are the things that support me, here's where I need to like put more effort into is making sure that I've got my plan written down. I know what I need to do ahead of time.
Patricia Sung 19:09
I have myself prepped, I know that's going to be a really tough day because I'm doing all the things by myself, how can I take care of myself in that day, so I have capacity to be able to deal with all of the extra stuff that I'm going to be carrying in creating that calm and creating that space where I'm talking more about this in the next couple episodes is like that is what is allowing me to make good choices and take care of myself. Because when I am present in the moment, and I can lower my stress, I then have more capacity to deal with all the stuff that's going on, and that creates space for my brain to be able to foresee the issues coming up. This is the entire reason that the conference theme is create the calm because I know that when we slow it down and we create the space for you take care of yourself and lower your stress response and rewrite these unhelpful patterns like this is what's going to allow you the ability to make better decisions to create the routines that serve you to find different ways to deal with the stress instead of yelling at everybody in your family or just associating or hiding or addictions or like whatever else your favorite coping mechanism is, when you have created the stability for yourself to deal with all those in a healthier way, then you don't need the unhealthier ways always aren't serving you as much.
Patricia Sung 20:31
And you can start to rewrite like, it takes time for us to like, do all the self improvement work. And I want you to know how valuable that is for your family. Like all this work that you're doing. A lot of times it feels like it's not adding up because you don't see this big jump this big difference. But like know that as you are taking time to take care of yourself as you are learning new things is your understanding your ADHD as you are taking care of yourself and learning how to help your family. Each of these little things incrementally are adding up so that when you look back six months from now you're like, wow, I've made it so far. Even though day by day, it didn't feel like it was mounting too much of anything. All of these little things that you do for yourself add up and they matter. It really matters. And you matter, I am with you this forgetting thing is really hard. We can move from it feeling like an excuse to an explanation, and then learn to work with it. So that this part of ADHD doesn't feel so painful and hurtful.
Patricia Sung 21:32
It feels like something that we don't have to like carry around Oh, by guilt and shame, we can actually move forward and be like, I know that this is part of who I am. And I have supports in place so that hopefully this part of me is not hurting my family or my kids. And when it does, because inevitably, sometimes things happen. You know, we know how to deal with that in rewriting those unhelpful patterns in our brain to deal with. Okay, how am I going to deal with this instead of how am I going to beat myself up about it and moving forward and creating those new pathways in your brain that will support you in taking care of yourself? Have a really awesome week successful mama, and I'll talk to you next time. For more resources, classes and community head over to my website motherhoodinadhd.com