I Can Only Handle One Habit at a Time
I'm sorry, you will have to wait until next week to be annoyed with me.
Every day, I become increasingly aware of the weird things I do that are because my brain doesn’t work. This mainly happens because I am still fascinated with researching all the signs of ADHD and trying to figure out how to break past them. And, of course, sharing them with you.
Many of these things I worked hard to find an excuse for so that I could make it feel like something normal people would do because there was a REASON for the behavior. If I could explain why something I did made sense, even if it didn’t really, then I would be fine.
Enter masking and my kitchen cabinets.
My issue with cabinets was brought to my attention by a coworker about seven years ago. We had a small kitchen in the office, and I would grab a coffee mug, sugar, a spoon, or whatever. She would laugh and close cabinets and drawers behind me.
I would immediately feel embarrassed, except I had no idea why. I felt bad that I randomly left things open. Like I fled the room in a hurry to avoid certain harm.
Except there was no certain harm. There was just… well… I forgot to close them. My ex-husband was a law enforcement officer while we were married. My coworker’s husband was a corrections officer. This was her connection to my behavior.
She was very kind about it and smiled while shutting the cabinet doors (multiple), telling me, “It’s okay. Bart works the third shift. When he’s home, I hate to have to close the cabinets because I don’t want the sound to wake him up.”
BOOM! Thank you, coworker. I now had a reason for why I did what I did. And it made sense. It made sense even though I have not lived with said former spouse for nine years. I latched on to it. I was going to own the behavior and the excuse.
About five years later, I started dating a guy who routinely would hit his head on cabinet doors that I left open. He was mildly annoyed by it, so I offered my explanation as to why I had a hard time closing them. It felt kind of weird, given that I had, by then, 13 years to correct the behavior.
He was understanding but would come into my house and immediately go to the kitchen and close all the cabinets, and smile at me while he did it. He KNEW they would be open. Every time.
A few weeks ago, in doing some research, I realized that not closing cabinets and drawers was a sign of ADHD. Mind. Blown. I was overjoyed. Not because I had yet another sign of ADHD, but because I could let go of my sham excuse and gain real understanding.
My brain works in squiggles, not lines. When I grab something from the cabinet, my mind jumps ahead to the next thing and jumps ship on the last thing. This isn’t linear; it just is.
This past week, the man I am seeing has been visiting from California. We met a little over a month ago, and it was our first visit to see each other. I was nervous, mainly because he was going to get a front-row seat to the weird things I do, and I was scared of how he would react.
It took about three days for him to notice the cabinets. He has been kind about my recent diagnosis. I explain it was my brain not working as it should. But, I decided that for that week, my biggest focus was going to be one thing: remembering the cabinets. Every time. Well, as best I could.
I put a massive amount of energy toward that and damn nearly nothing else. And, it worked. Hyperfocus. One habit. That’s all. I just wanted to make a dent. After a few days, I would look at the cabinets and smile when I saw none of them open.
This was slightly dashed when I realized that cute new man had been doing two things all week: hanging up my bathmat so the dog doesn’t pee on it and turning off the light in my closet. He didn’t poke fun at me, make a snide comment, or judge me. He just did things.
Still, I felt the same amount of embarrassment that he might find it annoying. That was when I told him the cabinets were getting all my energy. The closet would be next week, the bath mat after that, remembering my turn signal after that.
It’s okay if we have a huge list of things we do “wrong” or “differently.” Life’s just hard for us in ways that are easy for other people. Our part is to do the work to try and create better habits and reprogram our actions, so things seem automatic. That takes time. A whole lot of time.
Give yourself grace. Take your time. Don’t worry about growing on someone else’s timeline. Grow on yours. And I highly recommend finding a person who will pick up some slack while you focus on your one thing at a time.
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