I’m 20f, recently diagnosed with ADHD, and I’ve basically been developing coping mechanisms my whole life without even knowing why I needed them, bringing everything with me everywhere so I don’t forget things, showing up an hour early to work so I’m not late, that kind of thing. I figured all of this out on my own, no help from anyone.
The problem is my mom still sees all of my struggles as laziness. It’s been this way my whole life. As a kid when my room got messy one time she would take everything out of my drawers and closet and throw it all on the floor, leaving me to clean up the even bigger mess. Now that I’m older and she knows about my diagnosis, not much has changed, she sees ADHD as more of a personality flaw than an actual neurological disorder.
When my routines fall apart she’ll mock my appearance,the state of my room and threaten to cut my locs because they look messy from not being re-twisted, and compare me to other people my age and younger. it’s always just felt like something I’m dealing with alone.
What really gets to me is that she doesn’t see the effort. She doesn’t see me trying to build routines and watching them slowly fall apart despite genuinely trying. Executive dysfunction is real and exhausting, especially when the people closest to you treat it like a character flaw.
I’m not trying to play victim I know I have areas to work on. I just wish she could see that shaming someone has never actually helped them improve.
I know I’m never going to change her mind, so I’m just trying to figure out how to keep improving without internalizing the comments or blowing up when she says them.
Also does anyone else completely lose their train of thought mid-argument? I’ll jump between topics and suddenly it looks like I’m the one not making sense even when I know what I mean. Makes it really hard to advocate for myself.