To say if you have something to ask me don’t demand a phone call?

Yes, some things in life are a pain. They are exhausting, they are difficult, they are not something we want to do or enjoy.

But…. We do them anyway.

It is life. Ups and downs. Ebbs and flows. Good with bad.

And even if you do have a ND that means a quick call to your dad “exhausts” you…. Grit your teeth.

It is like quite a few things in life. I am going to pick up my teen from a sporting event tonight because trains are messed up. It’s a 3 hour round journey. I won’t get home until gone midnight. And I have to be up at 5.30am to walk the dog before heading in to work. All I want to do is curl up in bed with Netflix. But for others.. I’m going to temporarily “exhaust” myself

I had an inkling that that might be the case - there's so much undiagnosed illness, low level health issues and neurodiversity about on top of all the stuff that's actually diagnosed but that people don't think to mention because it doesn't sound relevant. And that other people often don't understand. But good for you for making the call! Hope it wasn't too painful!

Incidentally, I came across this blurb on an ADHD Facebook page and it does a good job of breaking down why phone calls are so unpleasant for some people with ADHD (I've heard it's very similar for many people with autism and other ND) and are also such a time sink - you don't just lose the time on the call - you lose the time you need to spend trying to psych yourself up into going through with it which can be many times longer than the call itself and is very unpleasant in and of itself. And then you often need to factor in a lot of recovery time afterwards for your nervous system to get back to normal too. So while it might "just" be a quick call to the other person it isn't necessarily to the ND/health compromised person. I haven't checked to see if this has actually been confirmed by researchers but it describes my experience to some degree (well, it's a much milder version of what I experience but have other conditions on top of the ADHD which compound the stress - and the advice at the bottom doesn't help, only not talking on the phone helps!).

You need to call the doctor. Urgent. Medication refill. You pick up the phone. Heart racing. Finger hovering. Can’t press it. “I’ll do it in 5 minutes.” Two hours later, still haven’t called. No medication. But you still can’t do it. Everyone says: “It’s just a phone call.” But here’s what researchers discovered: ADHD brains process phone calls as threats. Not because you’re socially anxious. Because phone calls require four executive functions simultaneously: Working memory to track conversation without visual cues. Real-time processing with no pause button. Managing unpredictability you can’t prepare for. Performance pressure with no edit or delete. Neurotypical brains handle this automatically. ADHD brains get overwhelmed before the call starts. Your nervous system treats the phone as danger. And triggers the same freeze response. This is why you can text easily but can’t call. Talk in person but phone feels impossible. Avoid urgent calls even with severe consequences. It’s not laziness. It’s executive function overload triggering threat response. What helps: Script it first. Body double on silent call. Set exact timer. Do it while scared. If phone call paralysis is costing you medical care and job opportunities, check my profile bio for systems that work with your ADHD brain. phoneanxiety, ADHDparalysis, executivedysfunction, neurodivergent, adhdwomen

“Can you call me, please” is a request, NOT a demand. Get a grip and stop being dramatic and offended by perfectly ordinary communications by people who give a damn about you.

You are being utterly unreasonable op. If you don’t want to answer your phone, don’t, but your father is doing nothing wrong asking you to call him back (unless there is some huge backstory, in which case yabu not to mention that. Grow up.

Your dad wants to talk to you and you don't want to talk to him. It's not really about anyone being reasonable. Either call him or text to say you can't speak today and can he message you instead. Why the drama?

Ah, but it's only efficient if you both want to have the conversation at the same time.

And tbh, I find it unlikely that people are "efficient" in speech but not in writing.

I adapt to my colleagues, and try to engage with people in their preferred medium. But I have a 65yo colleague who will drop a "quick call" on me and launch straight into extensive detail about something when I've been working on something else.

I much prefer to schedule calls with a couple of bullet points first in mind so I can get in the right subject.

My siblings are fuckers for this.

They're always moaning at me saying I never answer the phone. My response is "and yet you keep trying."

99.99% of what they have to say is textable. I have spent years telling them that if they want to tell me something, they can text it. For some reason. It falls on deaf ears. They're all older than me. (Youngest is 50s). I don't know if it's generational but It's Easier To Phoners are the scourge of the planet!

I do, however, always answer the phone to my elderly parents so that probably doesn't help you. Congratulations on the thesis!

Just put him on loud speaker, give the odd grunt, and scroll away on mumsnet. It's what I do with my mother!

I think you need to chill out a bit. Submitting your thesis really shouldn't be this taxing.

Oh do fuck off. It's always people who find phone calls exhausting who have to suck it up. Why doesn't op's father suck it up and type the question he want to ask her in message? It would take him as much time as typing "call me, I have to ask you something" did.

Absolutely agree with this. Bloody
madness you couldn’t just give him a quick call

I don't see the issue with this. Anyway, surely you wouldnt want him to text you if he did in fact have cancer or something.

Yeah, this I don't understand. The call could have been over quicker than posting here.

All of this. I can do WhatsApp for little things but not for five minutes back and forth. And if you want an answer quickly, call me. I don't check for messages more than a couple of times a day. I schedule phone calls, though, if it's for a catch up.

I (in my 50s) hate phone calls. Find them exhausting. For Dad though (in his 70s), they are his default. He's actually more likely to call urgently about trivial things ("do you want this thing I've unearthed from the cupboard?") than anything serious ("oh and I fell down the stairs last week and have 15 stitches"). I love him, I put up with it. I wish he'd embrace WhatsApp.

Mind you, FIL won't use a mobile phone at all.

Plenty of room for everyone's opinions, but telling someone they're being ridiculous to find the phone exhausting just because some people don't is unhelpful. We're all different.

Once again, I will repeat, SHE says she finds phone calls exhausting. That is all anyone needs to know.

Oh well thread closed then.

In fact if only you'd been the first poster there'd be no need for anyone else's opinons.

Once again, I will repeat, SHE says she finds phone calls exhausting. That is all anyone needs to know. Because so many people seemed so lacking in awareness, I highlighted the many things that might cause someone to find phone calls exhausting and also pointed out it may be none of them. Regardless, she is allowed to find the phone an exhausting and unpleasant experience and to expect that someone as close to her as her dad might know this about her by this point and might hold off suggesting a phone call at such a busy and exhausting time for her. If it's an emergency he should say this.

And people continue to post comments along the lines of - you've managed to talk on here for hours, why can't you manage a call? Clearly people don't understand that there is a massive difference for a large section of the population.

You have plenty of time and energy to chat on here, just give your dad a call.

She has said she finds phone calls exhausting. I'm saying there are some very obvious reasons as to why that might be the case for her or for anyone

This thread is about her.

It's not about anyone.

If the OP has all these issues you're clutching at, she should mention them.

Otherwise you're just taking her thread on a tangent.

She has said she finds phone calls exhausting. I'm saying there are some very obvious reasons as to why that might be the case for her or for anyone - I lived with a dozen or so undiagnosed conditions for about 30 years until I inherited money and was able to access competent private medical care and this situation is incredibly common. The NHS were beyond useless and I lived for some of those years thinking maybe there was nothing wrong and I was just making "excuses" as some of the many low-competence NHS doctors I went to for help implied. Before that I could not tell people I had a condition or conditions but I would tell people I found phone calls exhausting and while some people were incredibly understanding and considerate, a small number of people in my life were dismissive, inconsiderate arseholes. Now I''m in online support groups for all of my conditions, this topic comes up frequently in many of them, with people being subjected to unwanted calls from friends and family members who just will not be dissuaded from the notion that they are doing something nice for the other person when it's anything but nice if you have limited energy for reasons you either understand or don't.

And even if the OP doesn't have any health issues causing the exhaustion, the fact still remains that she has said she finds phone calls exhausting under normal circumstances and has indicated that she is not under normal circumstances at the moment, having just finished a major and exhausting piece of academic research.