I’ve been thinking a lot about stress, because it is stress that is preventing me from living. When I was experiencing periods of debt and institutional gaslighting and never-ending assessments, I remember feeling like I was dying. Like I could feel my life getting shorter. Then, of course, my inner meanie chastises me for being stressed over trivial things, like finding files, forgetting appointments, or losing my vape.

When everyday stress becomes constant

But the other day, a conversation with an acquaintance brought it all into perspective. She was due to go on holiday a few days later and had misplaced her prescription sunglasses. She had spent the previous evening getting increasingly stressed, calling around friends in a panic, snapping at family members and generally not getting anything done.

She located them eventually, and all was well. While she was telling me about this experience I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that this kind of incident, whilst stressful, is not something I would ever bother to mention. Mishaps like this are so frequent that the chronic stress they cause has become as much a part of life as the air that I breathe.

Missing trains, getting on the wrong train, getting off at the wrong stop, losing valuable items, losing important documents, or important contacts. These are things that plague me all day, every day. Relaxing on holiday is hard when every day you lose the most basic tools you use to enjoy life. From hair bobbles to glasses to medication to water bottles. Living is hard when staying hydrated or keeping the hair out of your face or being able to read cooking instructions are adrenaline-fuelled missions that take you time and energy to complete.

For a while, I used a Tile tracker to help me with this. But then I think I lost the log in details and my working memory prevented me from reliably connecting it. I forget my wallet so I use my phone, but then forget which card I use for what, which account has money on it and which doesn’t, which account I’ve used to sign up for Trainline or Amazon.

I have support workers who try to help me to remember but then I forget to tell them what to remind me about.

Why forgetting things is not a personal failure

I think this would be stressful for anyone, but for me, forgetting things comes with an extra layer of trauma and self-blame induced by repeated admonitions from teachers and Guide leaders, partners and family members. Where’s your coat? Where’s your gym kit? Where’s your homework? Have you forgotten it’s date night?

Reducing stress is essential to recovery, but it is easier said than done:
Every strategy I adopt to manage my poor memory breaks down.
Service providers refuse to honour their commitment to offer me the reasonable adjustment of writing important things down.
The ADHD diagnostic process doesn’t include the neuropsychological tests that would flag up my problems with working memory.
Time after time, I am informed that I have no issues because I am polite and articulate and have a degree.

Hopelessness compounds stress. Hope is hard to come by when change seems so impossible. Even though many of us are burdened with working memory problems, we’re told we’re “high functioning” – a convenient way to ignore our struggles or deny us the help we need.

That’s why we need to make systemic and political change.
This is how I can help tech companies plug this gap.

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