I have memory for many many things. What I don't have is the ability to recall them when I want. Also I wonder how can I have good long time memory while having zero short memory, it's a mystery to me.
The ability to consistently recall words/names of things is one of the most apparent changes when I'm medicated vs non-medicated.
For this reason I refuse to take any actions that would mark a message as read until I'm confident I have time to reply to it.
This just leads me to have them unread forever.
My problem is I don't answer in my head. I think to myself, I need to craft a reply but I need time to do that, but then I don't want to make the time to do it, and then I just don't do it or I wait until way later when I crack and think "well I gotta say something" and send a half-assed reply just to put it out of mind.
Answering texts is virtually no different to doing homework in my brain.
This is exactly why I keep the messages unread so that I don't forget to reply later, and eventually keep them unread for weeks making it useless to reply after so long, therefore giving up and not replying anyway
Does it cause you anxiety thinking about replying? Because that's what it's like for me
It gives me guilt every time I see the unread notification from weeks ago.
I never understood this, if you read the msg, why not just respond to the msg, this isn't the first time I've heard this either, like "I read your text but forgot to reply"... ok so why not just reply to the text when you read it that way you can't forget to later lmao
It saves us so much hassle for both parties in the long run
For lots of people with ADHD, they'll put things off until a future moment when they're more focused. It's just an attempt to conserve a limited resource, but it doesn't always work well.
In case anyone else could benefit from this knowledge, you should be able to mark texts unread on most phones now. I need that little red dot to remind me!
The red dot means nothing to me. My brain has apparently learned to block it out nearly completely.
It's a constant arms race in my brain between finding methods to remind myself and my ability to ignore any and all reminders.
The lighter side of ADHD
