AIBU to think that this level of executive disfunction is human and normal?

[Threekandles]

Last Wednesday I took the upstairs bathroom bin bag out. There were no replacement bags in the drawer and I made a mental note to bring a bag up.

Every time since then I walk into the bathroom and think, oh yeah!! Bin bag!! And I mean to bring one up.

Every time I leave the bathroom, poof, clean out of my mind. Totally oblivious until the next time I walk into the bathroom.

The little pile of floss and loo roll tubes is neatly stacked and waiting for the bin bag. (this is not bothering anyone but me).

AIBU to think that while plenty of people would have remembered by now, there are also a great many people for whom this is entirely normal and typical?

Someone close to me is suggesting I have ADHD. I don't think I do. Or, I don't think my way of being is a problem for me or anyone around me.

I just don't think that forgetting a bin bag for a week is a big deal!!

(and yes, I could have replaced it 5 times in the time it took to write this post.)

Ah, the debris pile.
You leave it on the side cos the rubbish bin needs cleaning before you put it a new bin bag in.
Then the debris pile gets a bit big, so you put it in a bin bag independently of the rubbish bin.
Meanwhile, you haven't cleaned the rubbish bin that's really a bit manky and needs cleaning before you put a new bin bag in...

Surely that’s normal. Whatever normal is. Maybe someone needs to do an online test for ‘Normal’ness’ 🤔

Yeah, I do stuff like that all the time. I have to do an online training course. I’ve had to do it for a year. Every time I’m reminded about it I say yes, will get straight on it and yet I inevitably forget about it for a while - and then remember at times like this when it’s past 9pm and I don’t have the patience for it.

I’ve seen loads of videos that basically diagnose me as having ADHD but to my mind I’m a perfectly normal, functioning adult. I expect most people who see similar videos also see themselves reflected in them. It’s like any little ‘quirk’ or even general preference can’t just be part of a person’s personality, it has to be part of a diagnosis. Mad!

Yes completely normal.

There is a name for it - when you walk through a door and forget what you were doing - I can’t remember the name.

For me there doesn’t necessarily have to be a door for me to forget.

I do things like take the bathroom bin lid downstairs with me so I remember to get the bin bag right there and then.

If I need more toilet roll I’ll take an empty one around with me until I’ve written it on my shopping list.

I do stuff like this but then I also have (diagnosed) inattentive ADHD so… 🤣

It's literally never occurred to me that the bathroom bin might need a bag. The tiny plastic inner bit just gets emptied into the kitchen bin when full. So my advice is get a new bin. Problem solved.

If you had ADHD, you would know, because it wouldn't just be the small, relatively inconsequential things you'd forget to do. It'd likely also be stuff like ordering and collecting prescriptions, and, err, probably what day it is and where you're supposed to be as well 😂

I live with ADHD and horrific executive dysfunction and get annoyed with people diagnosing themselves and each other based on things like this and Tiktok videos.

I have been like this all my life. I have got coping mechanisms. Its normal for me. I don't forget or miss the important stuff, its the minor things that fly out of my brain.

I do have adhd, and honestly, this doesn't sound at all like adhd to me. Assuming that you function pretty normally the rest of the time.

I keep the bin bags in the bottom of the bin under the bin bag.

I keep forgetting we have a bathroom bin. 🙈

Yes normal. Turns out diagnosing people by lists on tiktok is a terrible was to try and diagnose people

Just put the roll in the bottom of the bin attached to the one you are using, then when its full you tear it off and you have the next one ready.

Depends. If the bathroom bin is the only thing… normal, probably. If life is a chaotic mess of half finished and forgotten small jobs that would take minutes if not seconds… not so normal.

I do have ADHD. For me, the bathroom bin would be one of a million things piled up and waiting and feel completely overwhelming that I just cannot fricking remember to do it! Bonus points for forgetting to actually buy the bin bags, forgetting to put the rubbish out, etc etc.

This is just normal.for me. For example, I often forget to get toothpaste as I only notice we are low when brushing my teeth but my standard way to not forget to replace things i notice we are getting we are low on, is to write it on the weekly supermarket 'dont forget list pad in the kitchen. By the time I.leave the bathroom to come downstairs in the morning, I have forgotten it.

I keep spares of most things I need in the bathroom but this just delays the same issue, I still have the problem of no toothpaste or no bathroom spray or no loo roll or shower gel for days just less often than if I didn't keep 3 in the bathroom at a time.

Yes but when the last bag is used I still have several days before I remember to get a new pack to put in the bottom

But nobody would be diagnosed with ADHD based on just continually forgetting one task? If that's a constant feature on your life, along with other features of ADHD like RSD that's a whole different thing

I think everyone forgets stuff, doesn't get round to stuff, has unfinished projects, loses track of time etc.

The real question is not whether those traits are "normal" or not. All of them are, to a certain degree.

The real question is whether or not your particular combination of traits, and the extent of those traits, is having a significant negative impact on your ability to function effectively in your daily life to the extent that this seriously affects your overall quality of life. If not, it is not adhd.

That reminds me, I keep meaning to restock the loo rolls in the downstairs loo.

I’ll forget again by the time I get there.

Could be normal, yes. I have diagnosed (for a long time) ADHD and this is very familiar but it’s multiple incidences of these sorts of things all the time so multiply the bin bag situation x 5 for every room in the house. Then you have all the other bits e.g. currently object impermanence is giving me a hard time because my mum died a few weeks ago and I keep forgetting and then something will trigger a memory and it’s like fresh grief all over. This is a particular tricky one.

Then you layer things like RSD and how complex the effects of this are to overcome as an adult when it’s been like this for decades.

So yes, maybe this is normal, ADHD is measured on a spectrum but in order to be diagnosed (following guidelines) it has to affect many, many areas of your life and also, this should have been evident, to some extent, from childhood e.g. underachieving in school, getting in trouble, lack of safe boundaries in adolescence etc.

I actually forget meetings at work reasonably often . Maybe 4-5 times a year .

. I might have a meeting at say 9.30am thrn have another one due at 12pm but get so focussed on something at 11am that I suddenly realise at12.15 that I am 15 mins late for my next meeting. This happens often enough to be quite embarrassing. It happens more often when I am very busy and stressed and if a meeting changes at short notice.

I set timers and reminders but they don't always go off or I see them and know I have a meeting in 10mins but try to finish one more thing first then suddenly I am 10 min late without realising where the time went...

I've been like this all my life and have lots of strategies that mean I mostly don't miss meetings and am on time 90% of the time but I really have to work hard and have time consuming strategies in place or I'd be late or missing meetings much more often than the 10% i am now.

I can genuinely check my diary at 8.30am and as soon as I am not longer in my diary, I forget the time of my next meeting or I know when it is but lose track of what time or day it is.

Very normal.

I keep small bin bags in the bathroom cupboard. Also, the plastic packaging from those big loo roll packs are just the right size to line my small bathroom bin, so I also store those in the bathroom cupboard to be reused as bin bags.

If this happens to you a lot and you are under 60 I would talk to my GP and rule out anything organic. It doesn't sound particularly abnormal but to keep forgetting for a week seems odd.

Yeah, I do that. It works really well.

Am I the only person who doesn't have a bathroom bin? I'm incapable of remembering to buy bin bags though. Or coffee. No idea why but it's always those two things I forget. I do the main food shop but my husband is now responsible for coffee and bin bags.