Them: Hey I would like to meet with you on a Thursday.

Me: SURE! I'm usually free on Thursdays, that's just fine.

Narrator: But she was not usually free on Thursdays, and this is why she had to learn to STOP agreeing to meet with people without checking the calendar.

It took me YEARS to realize that my brain literally never registers the fact that I'm busy. Like in my own mind if you ask me if I'm free the first thing my mind says is "Of COURSE you are free to meet with that nice person and don't worry about the calendar, you'll remember!

It took me even more time to stop being annoyed that I couldn't "just remember" to show up without any kind of reminder that I was supposed to be there.

Why do so many of us think neurotypical people do this naturally? I don't think they do. They write it down too.

So eventually I gave in and finally accepted what I already knew: my brain doesn't do that. There's plenty of tools that can do what my brain doesn't do, and I can use them. So I do. My pride really got in the way and made trouble where acceptance got the job done.

My brain and I also went rounds about taking ADHD medication. Because I just wanted my brain to do what it does on meds without having to take meds because "if you just work harder" you'll get there. Past René needed to stop with the internalized ableism and take her damn meds.

One of the things that made my ADHD easier to manage was treating myself like a person with ADHD instead of a person who would be neurotypical if she would shape up and put some more effort in. It's funny because we tell other people not to do that to us while we do that to us.

So the place to start working through these things is self-acceptance. If we are in denial about who we are, we cannot accurately identify and accommodate our needs.