No, it’s not. This post is about my executive dysfunction. It’s my performance anxiety and my depression. It’s dozens of people with ADHD in the comments remarking that this is the only way they can make appointments– often with each stage of this process tied to an alarm. Many of those people routinely fail even with that forethought. It’s people with chronic pain or disability who clock every activity in their day by how long it takes, when they have to prepare, how long they’ll have to stand or work, etc.
I am sure “functional adults with basic organization and planning skills” go through a milder experience of this thought process. But it’s comfortable to them– not something they think twice about, let alone make a post about. I made this post when I was dreading going to get my hair cut. A haircut. I made this post because I was reflecting about how crazy a simple visit to the salon was making me. It was an appointment I called for myself, on my own terms, an experience I enjoy and actively wish I did more often. But I don’t. Because making appointments is so hard for me, because I have executive function problems. It’s been about 9 months since my last haircut.
I almost flubbed college because I dreaded meeting with a single professor once at the beginning of a semester even though I wanted to. I haven’t gone to the doctor since I got new insurance. I just struggled for three weeks to bring myself to arrange for a mandatory safety recall upgrade for my car so its airbag won’t explode into metal shards and kill me if I’m in an accident. I often fail to go out, to arrange meetups with my friends, to achieve my personal functional goals simply because all of that is going through my head whenever I have to make simple appointments or complete basic tasks.
Does that sound like “literally just being a functional adult with basic organization and planning skills?”