Taking Responsibility Without Taking All the Blame

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Taking Responsibility without Taking All the Blame

 

 

How many times have you genuinely intended to do something, then forgot about it, and then felt like the worst human ever when someone pointed it out?

Maybe you were late (again). Maybe you promised to email someone but it completely slipped your mind. Maybe you told your partner you’d get milk on the way home and arrived home with no milk.

You know it matters. You know your actions affect other people. And chances are, you’re already frustrated with yourself before anyone else has to say a word.

Here’s the thing: Having ADHD doesn’t mean we are never responsible for our actions.

But – it also doesn’t mean that every struggle is a personal failure.

There’s a difference between taking responsibility and taking on a bunch of blame.

And that difference matters – it’s important.

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An Explanation Isn’t An Excuse

Let’s talk about the phrase, “ADHD isn’t an excuse.”

Honestly? I have mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, having ADHD doesn’t give us a free pass to disregard other people’s feelings or ignore the impact of our actions. That’s fair.

On the other hand, that phrase gets thrown around an awful lot when someone with ADHD is simply trying to explain why something happened.

And explaining is not the same as making excuses.

Take running late, for example. If you struggle with time blindness, estimating how long things will take, or transitioning from one thing to another, getting somewhere on time can be genuinely difficult.

That doesn’t mean the person waiting for you isn’t allowed to be frustrated. Of course they are. But telling you to, “just leave earlier” probably isn’t going to solve the problem.

If it were that simple, you would have done it already.

Understanding why something keeps happening isn’t about avoiding responsibility.

It’s about having enough information to actually do something differently.

 

Responsibility Doesn’t Require Shame

A lot of ADHD adults have spent years hearing that they are lazy, careless, irresponsible, or are just not trying hard enough.

After hearing those messages enough times, we sometimes start saying them to ourselves.

I know that by the time I was a teenager, I’d been told I was lazy so often that I leaned way into it. And then believed it.

The dishes pile up and suddenly it’s not just about the dishes, it’s about being a terrible partner, or an incompetent adult, or someone who just can’t manage even the simplest of things.

That’s a pretty big leap from a sink full of cups and bowls.

Here’s what I want you to consider: Feeling bad about something isn’t the same thing as doing something about it.

You can spend an entire afternoon beating yourself up over the state of your house and still have a messy house at the end of it. Now you are feeling exhausted and lousy, too.

Taking responsibility might mean acknowledging that the current approach to household chores isnt’ working and trying to figure out what needs to change.

Taking all the blame sounds like, “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just do this thing?”

One opens the door to possibilities.

The other tends to leave us stuck.

And for those of us who have been carrying around years of ADHD-related guilt and shame, learning the difference can take some practice.

 

 

 

What if Accountability Looked More Like Support?

When the word accountability comes up, we often picture someone being held responsible for what they did wrong.

But what if we spent less time figuring out who messed up and more time figuring out what could actually help?

Maybe you’re consistently running late. Instead of another promise to “try harder,” you experiment with transition reminders, planning backwards from your departure time, or figuring out which part of getting ready throws you off so often.

Maybe keeping up with chores feels impossible. Rather than deciding you just need to “buckle down and have more discipline,” you and your partner look at how the chores are divided, which ones take more or less energy for you, and if there’s a more realistic system for your brain.

Or maybe you’re the person who reads a text, mentally responsds, and then discovers 3 weeks later that the response never actually left your brain.

You can acknowledge that someone might feel hurt by your silence while also explaining that forgetting to respond isn’t a reflection of how much you care.

Maybe you can agree on a different way to stay connected, or maybe your friend can send another text if it’s been a while. 

None of these approaches guarantees that the problem disappears.

And asking for support doesn’t mean you are handing someone else the responsibilitiy for managing your life. It means that recognizing doing things differently sometimes requires different tools, different expectations, or help from other people.

I have a couple of very close friends who have accepted that I forget to text back or get overwhelmed and that I will get back to them and still love them.

Having that understanding and compassion from them goes a LONG way towards being able to keep a good friendship.

That’s not avoiding accountability. It’s participating in it.

Two Things Can Be True At The Same Time

I think we could all use a little more practice with remembering that two things can be true at the same time.

You can have ADHD related challenges that make certain things genuinely difficult.

AND someone else can be affected by those challenges.

You can care deeply about a person and still forget to text them back.

You can be working really hard to manage your time and still be late.

You can be a thoughtful and loving partner and still struggle to keep up with your share of the chore.

None of those things automatically cancel out the other.

We don’t have to choose between acknowledging our ADHD and also acknowledging someone else’s feelings.

And we don’t have to turn every difficult situation into a courtroom drama where someone must be found guilty.

Sometimes the most useful conversation isn’t about who’s right or wrong.

It’s about what each person is experiencing, what isn’t working, and what might make things easier.

That doesnt’ mean every situation will have an easy solution or that everyone will always agree, but understanding gives us a much better starting point than blame.

 

 

A Little Less Blame, a Little More Curiosity

The next time something doesn’t go the way you intended, here are a few things you migh try:

• Acknowledge the impact without attacking yourself. “I’m sorry I was late. I know that affected your plans” is enough. You don’t need to follow it with a speech about what a terrible human you are.
• Get curious about what happened. What is time blindness? Overwhelm? Forgetfulness? Too many competing demands? Understanding the obstacle helps you choose a useful response.
• Ask for what would actually help. Maybe you need a reminder, a different way to process, clearer expectations, or somethign else. Support isn’t cheating. Be willing to experiment. If the same problem keeps happening, the same solution probably isn’t working. You’re allowed to try something else.
• Make room for other people’s experiences, too. Their frustration can be valid without your ADHD struggles being invalid. 

And maybe instead of asking yourself, “Why can’t I just get my act together?” you could try asking: What’s making this difficult? What part is in my control and where might I need support? What could responsibility look like here without adding another layer of shame?

Because here’s what I hope you’ll remember:  You can take responsibility for your actions without taking the blame for your your brain works. 

ADHD doesn’t erase the impact of our actions. But understanding ADHD can change how we respond to those challenges, how we support each other, and what we try next.

And that seem sa whole lot more useful than the 8 millionth refrain of, “just try harder.”