There’s a sentence people throw out like it’s helpful. Like it’s a tiny, sensible nudge.
“Stop using your ADHD as an excuse.”
And I know what they usually mean. They mean: You’re capable. They mean: You can do hard things. They mean: I believe in you.
But what it lands as – in my body, in my throat, in the part of my brain that already runs hot with shame – is something else entirely.
It lands like: You’re not trying. Just be better.
And as I write those words, I can hear the voices that have said versions of them over the years. It genuinely brings me to tears to think about how often I swallowed that message and carried on anyway.
And the maddening thing is that, in the moment, I often can’t explain the difference.
I can feel the words somewhere in the back of my mind, like they’re queued up behind a locked door. I can feel myself getting flustered, going blank, sounding vague – with tears right on the brink of spilling. Then later (three hours later, in the shower, or at 1:17am) I’ll suddenly have a flawless, calm, articulate explanation.
Classic.
What people think they’re hearing
When someone hears “ADHD”, they often picture a hyperactive little boy – bouncing off the walls, interrupting the teacher, unable to sit still. So if you’re not doing that, the assumption becomes: you’re just lazy. A bit forgetful. A bit bored. A quirky brain that works best with colourful notebooks and a Pomodoro timer.
So when I say, “I couldn’t do it,” they translate it into:
- You didn’t want to.
- You didn’t prioritise it.
- You chose something else.
- You’re making excuses.
Which makes sense – if you believe effort automatically turns into action.
But that’s not how my brain works.
What it actually feels like
ADHD isn’t a refusal. It’s not me sitting on the sofa, smugly deciding the dishes can rot.
It’s me standing in the kitchen thinking about the dishes so hard I can practically taste them – and still not being able to start.
If it was an excuse, I’d feel relaxed.
I don’t feel relaxed. Honestly, I’m not sure I’d recognise relaxed if it tapped me on the shoulder. I feel like I’m dragging tasks around in my head all day, like a shopping bag cutting into my fingers.
This is the piece people miss:
Sometimes my brain knows what to do, but the start button doesn’t respond.
It’s like pressing a lift button that never lights up. You can stand there pressing it harder, faster, with more intensity, and nothing changes – except you get more stressed.
And stress does not unlock executive function.
“But you’re smart.”
Yes. And also: that’s not the point.
One of the strangest parts of ADHD is that intelligence and capability can sit right beside utter stuckness.
I can plan. I can analyse. I can solve problems. I can be sharp and creative and insightful.
And then I can get taken out by something that looks absurd from the outside:
- sending an email
- making a phone call
- starting a simple household job
- switching from one task to another
People see the mismatch and assume it must be willpower.
But what I’m learning (slowly, begrudgingly, and with effort) is that ADHD isn’t a lack of wanting. It’s a problem with doing – especially starting, switching, prioritising, and sustaining effort.
It’s not “I won’t.”
It’s “I can’t make my brain line up behind the decision.”
The “excuse” accusation (and why it stings)
Here’s why that word hurts: it turns struggle into a character flaw.
An excuse suggests manipulation. Laziness. A convenient story.
But what I’m trying to do is name the terrain so I can navigate it – and so the people around me can understand the shape of what’s happening.
Because there’s a difference between:
- responsibility (I’m accountable for my life)
- blame (I’m a bad person when my brain doesn’t cooperate)
ADHD doesn’t remove responsibility. I still have to live here. I still have to pay bills and do laundry and answer messages and feed myself something that isn’t crisps.
But blame – especially the kind that comes disguised as motivation – makes everything harder.
Not because I’m fragile.
Because shame is heavy.
And heavy brains don’t move well.
What blame looks like in real life
- Someone says, “Come on, it’s not that hard,” and my brain stops being able to think about the task and starts trying to defend my worth.
- I go from “How do I start?” to “What is wrong with me?” in about three seconds.
- I start rewriting the story in my head: You always do this. You never follow through. Everyone must be sick of you.
And then the task doesn’t get easier – it gets further away.
Bills don’t get paid because I’ve spent the last 20 minutes spiralling about being a useless adult. The washing doesn’t get hung up because I’m stuck in that horrible freeze where I’m standing there, tense, trying to brute-force movement with shame. The email doesn’t get sent because now it feels like proof of whether I’m competent or not, so I avoid it completely.
Blame turns the task into a referendum on my character. And once that happens, my brain does what it always does under threat: it shuts down, escapes, or picks a different task that feels safer.
Which is why “motivation” that’s actually criticism doesn’t make me do more.
It just makes everything cost more.
The extra twist of combined ADHD
And this is the part a lot of people don’t understand about combined ADHD: it’s not just “distracted” or “restless”. It’s both, braided together.
So I’m not only fighting the task itself – I’m fighting the internal noise and the urge to escape the noise. My brain can be hyperactive and exhausted at the same time. I can be mentally sprinting while my body is stuck in place.
That’s why simple things can feel expensive. Not because they’re objectively huge, but because they ask my brain to do ten little jobs at once: notice the task, choose the task, start the task, ignore everything else, stay with it, remember what I’m doing, and not dissolve into self-criticism halfway through.
And when someone adds blame on top, it’s like paying a tax on every step.
When I try to explain and the words don’t show up
This is the part I wish more people understood.
Sometimes I do have the words. Sometimes I can explain exactly what’s happening.
But when I’m put on the spot – when I feel judged, interrupted, rushed, or like I have to justify myself – my brain goes into a kind of shutdown.
It’s not a dramatic panic. It’s quieter than that. It’s like the lights flicker, the background noise turns up, and suddenly I’m trying to speak while my brain is also doing twelve other things at once.
I’ll be halfway through a sentence and I can feel it dissolving in real time. The thought I just had vanishes. The point I was building towards slips out of reach. I lose the thread, then I lose the confidence, then I lose the ability to sound like a person who definitely knows what they’re talking about.
And the worst part is: I can see how it looks from the outside.
It looks like I’m backpedalling. Like I’m inventing an answer on the spot. Like I’m being vague because I don’t have a good reason.
But what’s actually happening is more like this:
- Someone asks, “Why haven’t you done it yet?” and my brain instantly starts scanning for the correct answer instead of the true one.
- Someone interrupts or corrects a tiny detail, and my whole train of thought derails – not because the detail matters, but because switching tracks costs more than people realise.
- The conversation moves slightly too fast, and I can feel myself trying to catch up – trying to translate what I mean into words while also monitoring the other person’s face for signs I’m failing.
It’s like trying to tell a story while someone keeps changing the channel. I’m still holding the remote. I’m still trying. But the signal isn’t stable enough to land the point.
And even when I do manage to say something that feels clear in the moment, it slips away almost immediately. If you asked me five minutes later what I actually said – the exact words I used – I often couldn’t tell you. It’s like my brain deletes the transcript as soon as the conversation ends, and I’m left with a vague sense of I tried, and a horrible suspicion that I sounded ridiculous.
And then I hate myself for sounding like I’m making it up.
It’s a grim little loop: I struggle to explain myself, I sound less coherent than I am, and then I punish myself for not sounding coherent. The shame becomes its own second conversation running underneath the first – narrating, criticising, keeping score.
And the thing is, I’m not even always trying to be persuasive. Most of the time I’m trying to be understood. But when I feel like I’m being evaluated – like my explanation has to be “good enough” to earn basic compassion – my brain starts performing instead of communicating.
If you’ve ever wondered why someone can be articulate online but struggles in real-time conversations, this is one reason.
Writing gives me time. Time to find the thread again. Time to shape what I mean, instead of grabbing for words in mid-air. Time to be accurate, not just fast.
Speaking, under pressure, sometimes doesn’t.
And that doesn’t mean the thoughts aren’t there. It just means the route between thought and speech gets crowded – and I don’t always make it through with the right words intact.
What actually helps (instead of “just try harder”)
If you care about someone with ADHD – or if you live with someone whose brain works like this – there’s a different kind of support that helps way more than calling it an excuse.
It looks like this:
- Help me find the first step. (Not the whole staircase. Just the first step.)
- “Open the laptop” is a first step. “Write the entire email” is not.
- “Put the laundry in the basket” is a first step. “Sort, wash, dry, fold, put away” is a saga.
- Ask what the friction is. (“Is it unclear? Too big? Too many steps? Are you tired?”)
- Sometimes the task is clear but the order isn’t.
- Sometimes it’s the transition that’s impossible – stopping one thing to start another.
- Sometimes it’s not the task at all, it’s the shame attached to the task.
- Offer to sit with me while I start. Not as a supervisor – as a body-double.
- You don’t have to do anything magical. Just be present.
- A quiet “Shall we both do ten minutes?” can be more effective than a whole lecture about discipline.
- Make it collaborative, not corrective.
- “Do you want me to help you break it down?” lands differently than “Why haven’t you done it yet?”
- “Which one matters most today?” helps my brain choose, instead of drowning in every possible option.
- Separate the task from the shame. (“This is hard for your brain. That doesn’t mean you’re failing.”)
- This is the one that changes everything.
- Because once my nervous system isn’t in self-defence mode, I can actually problem-solve.
- Offer a menu of support.
- “Do you want reminding, company, or help making it smaller?”
- I might not know what I need until you give me a few shapes to pick from.
Sometimes the biggest difference isn’t motivation. It’s a gentler entry point. A bit of scaffolding. A little less judgement in the room.
Because the goal isn’t to push me harder.
It’s to help me get moving without paying for it in shame.
A few scripts for the moment you go blank
These are sentences I’m practising for the times my brain turns to bees and I can’t explain myself properly.
You’re welcome to borrow them.
When someone says “Stop using ADHD as an excuse”
- “I’m not excusing it – I’m explaining what’s blocking me. I still want to do the thing.”
- “If shame fixed this, I’d be the most functional person alive.”
- “An excuse is ‘I don’t care.’ This is ‘I care, and my brain is stuck.’”
When you can’t find the words fast enough
- “My brain’s gone blank. I do have a reason, I just can’t access it quickly right now.”
- “Give me ten minutes and I’ll be able to say this properly.”
- “I’m overwhelmed, not unwilling.”
When you need help getting started
- “Can you help me pick the first step? Once I start, I can usually continue.”
- “I need the task smaller. What’s the tiniest version of this?”
The quiet truth underneath it all
This is what I’m trying to hold on to:
I am not asking for a free pass.
I’m asking to be believed about what’s happening inside my brain.
Because believing it changes what’s possible.
When I stop treating my stuckness as a moral failure, I can actually problem-solve. I can adjust the environment. I can make the task smaller. I can ask for support. I can build scaffolding.
When I treat it as an excuse, I just drown in shame and do nothing – while thinking about doing everything.
Which is, frankly, the worst of both worlds.
If you’ve said it (and you meant well)
If you’ve ever told someone to stop using ADHD as an excuse, and you meant it as encouragement, I’m not here to shame you. Most of us inherited the same story: that productivity is the measure of a person.
But if you want something more useful to say, try one of these instead:
- “What part feels hardest to start?”
- “Do you want help breaking it down?”
- “Would it help if I stayed with you while you begin?”
- “What would make this 10% easier?”
Those questions treat ADHD like what it is: a real difference in how the brain manages tasks and energy.
Not an excuse. Not a flaw.
Just the terrain.
A small invitation
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of “Stop using it as an excuse,” what did you wish you could say back – if your brain had handed you the words on time?
(And if you’re reading this and you’re the one with ADHD: I see you. You’re not lazy. You’re not making it up. You’re doing your best with a brain that doesn’t run on shame.)
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