ADHD

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A casual community for people with ADHD

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Relevant Lemmy communities:

Neurodivergent Life Hacks

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How do you stop making excuses? (lemm.ee)

submitted 7 months ago by boonhet@lemm.ee to c/adhd@lemmy.world

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the issue of making excuses for everything. I don't just mean excusing your unfinished chores by saying "I have ADHD", I mean excuses and fabrications in general - at work, you might say you're nearly finished with a project, but really you're halfway done at best, at home you might say you couldn't start the dishwasher because of how angry your pregnant wife was at you for choosing the wrong program on the washing machine, so you were scared to start the dishwasher - fully ignoring the fact that you were supposed to start the dishwasher BEFORE even being confronted about the washing machine. The last one is a stupid example, but it happened an hour ago and it's a pattern I hate about myself.

If you've had a similar issue and identified it, what has helped you improve yourself? I may never be perfect to the point I'll get everything done that I need to, but I'd like to at least stop making stupid excuses that just bring up fights that could've been avoided.

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[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 32 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Just stop. The end.

No need to explain why you didn't do something, and honestly, most people don't even care why.

Just apologize, sincerely, and move on.

This isn't an ADHD issue, it's a maturing thing. Many people rationalize their mistakes while apologizing, which just devalues the apology.

Own the mistake, apologize for it, and move on. By doing this, you show respect and consideration for those you've affected, while also freeing yourself from the justification/rationalization feedback loop in your head.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.de 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That might work once or twice but if you're apologising 10 times a day, I don't think you're getting off that easy.

[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Then work on that.

An apology is just that - an apology, not an explanation.

Who wants to hear someone's excuses "ten times a day"?

If you're fuckin up that much, you got a lot of work to do to not fuck up so much.

[–] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This is worse than useless advice for someone with ADHD that can’t mitigate their procrastination in a way that is acceptable to the people around them and you should be ashamed of yourself for giving it to someone who is hurting and doing everything within their power to stop procrastinating.

The entire point of apologies being hard is that nobody ever wants to hear them. That doesn’t change that sometimes sincerely apologizing is literally all we can do, promising it won’t happen again is just an empty lie.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.de 0 points 7 months ago

Talking about in the meantime. Working on this bullshit takes years if not decades. In the meantime, I have to react SOMEHOW when I fuck up, meaning I can apologise or try to explain what went wrong so the other person doesn't think I'm a total piece of shit AND apologise.