the brain only pays attention to what it THINKS IT NEEDS to pay attention to. the brain is remarkably good at filtering out a ton of nonsense. so good that it filters out its own nonsense from time to time. so even though there are times when your brain might think "hey i should pay attention to whether or not my car is locked" there are plenty of other times when the brain just doesnt give a fuck about it. so even though muscle memory makes it happen, the brain has no care. ADHDers know this struggle because the brain struggles to find things to care about for long so there are a lot of muscle memory things that fly under the radar
I always said I'm on autopilot, I do a LOT of things without even thinking about it.
And also forget to do a LOT of things because I don't think about it.
Wait did I lock it this time? locks it but wait is it actually locked? pulls car door. Wait maybe that unlocked it? Locks it Wai-
Is this a sign of ADD or something. Becuase I do this about so much stuff. Locking my car. Turning off the oven. Flushing the toilet. Whatever it is. But this happens to me multiple times a day. I dont have anxiety about it when it happens but I feel like I need to go double check whatever it is.
Everyone has this from time to time, and it can be made worse by a lot of causes, from hypoglycemia, fatigue, poor sleep, depression, and a lot more. But, the official diagnosis for ADHD generally comes down to doing this stuff much more often than the general population, to the point of being disruptive to your ability to live your life, while also ruling out all the other more common causes.
If it's that much of a problem, look into getting a diagnosis, because it'll tell you what's going on and start you on the path to solving it no matter what's the root cause.
Everyone does it sometimes, but people with ADHD do put a lot of stuff on autopilot to reduce mental load, which causes stuff like this to happen more.
Followed immediately by a hopefully brief panic over "WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY KEYS!?"
Literally anything:
My adhd brain: https://sh.itjust.works/post/1756068
I recently had a moment like this. I was on a phone call and the person I talked to requested some information I knew I had on my phone. So I started searching my phone for a bit.
This is me when I get distracted by a cool bug on my way out of the house
It's my garage door for me. I turn around at least twice a week to make sure it's closed, I should really throw a camera in there to make that easier.
Everytime I've ever left on a vacation, I drive around the block once and come back and make sure I locked the door.
