01/10/2024
ADHD tax. No Cayman Islands will help you avoid it if you have an ADHD brain.
Thousands-worth of insurance claims rejected due to late submission. It will take me many hours of work to make up for this lost money.
Stupid, right? Surely you know to submit your claims on time - duh?
So why did I not? Why do most people with ADHD pay ADHD tax in various forms every day?
Here are some of the forces, (yes, they feel like uncontrollable forces) that are at play:
Knowing but doing something different. Multiple times. I often manage to submit on time because of the systems I have in place or because I’m lucky. And sometimes I don’t manage because the combination of the below factors. The reason why we need less teaching and more support with creating and utilising strategies…
Sticking to a thought, which seems correct, acting as if the impression was true and never properly verifying the facts. My previous insurer had 180 days submission window, not 120. The current one has 180 days for not for my kind of claims. The 180 number was in my head and that was it.
Low-level risk taking that sounds like “it’s fine”. I observe this thought-pattern and force myself (it takes an enormous amount of self-regulation), to act against it (and choose the cautious action that considers potential consequences). With decades of adulting I have had a lot of (costly, painful) practice so I am often able to do it. Until I’m not.
Procrastination on tasks that seem time consuming and boring. They feel huge. We stand at the foot of Mt Everest of these tasks most days. With what feels like no climbing equipment and no prior training. But with unmedicated pneumonia.
These ‘damn-I-still-need-to-dos’ cost tons of emotional energy and mental space as we spend ages agonizing, working around and making excuses about them. They also cost us small (but painfully ripped-out) chunks of self-esteem as we walk around bearing the weight of all the “little, easy” things unfinished and yet another “mistake”…
Avoiding thinking about it to avoid the emotional discomfort of still having these tasks on the to-do list (if such exists), the memories of the previous ‘failures’ and the knowing that we will have to actually get it done sometime.
My experience gives you a gist of the cognitive-emotional-behavioural complexity involved in a daily. ADHD goes way beyond inattention and hyperactivity. Notice the prominent role of emotions powerful enough to overshadow reality. The overwhelm that keeps us frozen. Resistance. Self-disappointment. Defeat. Hopelessness. Sadness. Grief. Frustration. Anger.
This is our lived experience. If you don’t have the first-hand experience living with this brain, this is some nuance of ADHD’s impact. Consider emotion dysregulation even though it is not in the diagnostic criteria. Understand before telling us to “just do it”.
We really do try.
