Many women with ADHD often forget things, like where they left their keys or what they needed to buy at the store. This forgetfulness can make daily life feel frustrating and hard to handle. In this episode, Dr. Monica Johnson explains how ADHD can lead to forgetfulness. Find out how this ADHD symptom affects women in unique ways. And learn helpful strategies to better manage it.
Many women with ADHD often forget things, like where they left their keys or what they needed to buy at the store. This forgetfulness can make daily life feel frustrating and hard to handle.
In this episode, Dr. Monica Johnson explains how ADHD can lead to forgetfulness. Find out how this ADHD symptom affects women in unique ways. And learn helpful strategies to better manage it.
Related resources
Timestamps
(03:08) Why ADHD forgetfulness sparks feelings of shame
(05:19) Effects of forgetfulness
(06:56) Strategies to manage ADHD-related forgetfulness
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Dr. J: Forgetfulness isn't just a quirk. It's one of the most common and most understood symptoms for women with ADHD. This is "ADHD and," where we talk about everyday life and ADHD. I'm your host, Dr. J. I'm a licensed psychologist who works with those with ADHD. Today, we're talking about ADHD and forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness in ADHD isn't just about memory. It's about how the ADHD brain processes, stores, and retrieves information. So you might be wondering, what is working memory? Working memory is your brain's mental scratchpad. It allows you to hold and manipulate information temporarily, like remembering a phone number long enough to write it down or keeping track of what you were doing before getting interrupted.
In people with ADHD, working memory is often underactive or inconsistent.
Let's get into some research findings. One study proposed that ADHD is fundamentally a disorder of executive functioning, including working memory. They argued that impairments in working memory disrupt self-regulation and goal-directive behavior.
Another study conducted a meta-analysis that suggested moderate to large working memory deficits in children with ADHD, particularly in tasks involving the central executive component, which relates to mental manipulation of information rather than just short-term memory.
And finally, one study found that both children and adults with ADHD have impaired verbal and spatial working memory compared to controls, which directly impacts academic performance, task completion, and even conversational ability.
For women, the internal pressure to be on top of everything in all domains makes forgetfulness feel like a failure. However, based on the research, forgetfulness is a natural and unfortunate consequence of having ADHD, which is not a personal failing. It's a circumstance that needs to be managed.
Forgetfulness with ADHD isn't random. It shows up in everyday patterns that are easy to miss or misjudge. Let's talk about what that can look like: double-booking appointments or forgetting them entirely, leaving things behind like your phone, keys, lunch, or for me sometimes, my sanity. Saying, "I'll remember that," and never writing it down. Missing deadlines or responding to messages days later.
Society expects women to be the planners, the rememberers, the emotional managers, which makes ADHD forgetfulness feel even heavier.
Now let's dive into the emotional aftermath: shame and frustration. Shame is an emotion tied to the belief, "There's something wrong with me." Here are some of the reasons why ADHD forgetfulness triggers shame.
The first is repetition of perceived failure. When you forget something important again, despite promising yourself or others that you wouldn't, it makes you feel like you're fundamentally flawed.
The next is negative feedback from others. Teachers, parents, co-workers, or partners might say things to you like, "You're so irresponsible," or, "You never listen," which reinforces internalized feelings of inadequacy.
And lastly, comparison with neurotypicals. Watching others keep up seemingly effortlessly with to-do lists or routines can deepen the sense of feeling less than or broken.
Here are a couple insights from research. One study found that individuals with ADHD, especially girls and women, experience higher levels of internalized shame because their symptoms are often interpreted as laziness or carelessness, especially in environments that expect high organization and emotional control.
Another study noted that repeated failures in meeting expectations leads to an internal narrative of "What's wrong with me?" especially in adults who were undiagnosed in childhood and carried unaddressed struggles for years.
Frustration in ADHD is often the emotional reaction to executive dysfunction clashing with strong intentions. So let's talk about why this happens. You want to follow through, you mean to reply, you planned to be on time, but your brain doesn't cooperate. The disconnect between intention and execution leads to a sense of helplessness, which fuels frustration with yourself and with your environment.
Let's talk about a few common frustration triggers. "Why can't I remember this simple thing? Why does this keep happening? I set a reminder and still forgot. What's wrong with me?" It's not just situational frustration; it becomes existential frustration where the person begins to question their entire self-worth.
Let's talk through the emotional cascade that can occur.
First, you forget something important, get called out, or experience a consequence. Then you feel embarrassed or inadequate and experience internal criticism. And then finally, you spiral into shame and self-blame.
Here are a few real-life examples.
Example one relates to social guilt. You forget your friend's birthday, again. You were reminded, you saw it on Facebook, but life got chaotic. Now you feel ashamed and you distance yourself because you don't want to face the guilt.
Example two, and this relates to work missteps. You miss a deadline even though you stayed up late planning. The project manager is not happy with you at all. You feel like a failure and you think to yourself, "I'm not cut out for this career."
And the final example relates to parental overwhelm. You forget to sign your kid's permission slip for the third time this year. The teacher mentions it, you cry on the way home, overwhelmed with shame and fear and believing that you're not a good parent.
These aren't overreactions. They're deep emotional injuries from living in a world that can be punishing for those living with invisible disabilities.
When forgetfulness is a challenge, relying on your memory is probably not the best solution. You need systems that support your brain, not fight it. Here are a few research-supported strategies that can help ease these emotional blows.
Number one is to name the ADHD, not your character. Instead of saying, "I'm so flaky," try, "This is my ADHD showing up. I need a better system next time." This practice, often used in CBT and self-compassion work, helps to externalize the problem rather than internalizing the blame.
Number two is to use visual reminders and redundancy. Because working memory is unreliable, what you want to do is offload memory tasks to your environment because this will help to reduce repeated failure.
Remember what I always say. In fact, write this down. "If it ain't on paper, you're gonna regret it later." This means that multiple reminders is key. You want to have them in your phone, sticky notes, shared calendars — wherever it makes sense, have a reminder.
The next is having visual cues near exit doors or anywhere that it would make sense that say things like, "Did I remember my wallet?" As Lincoln tells Ilana in the show "Broad City," "Phone, wallet, keys." You always need to check before leaving the house.
But in all seriousness, we all have forgetting habits, which is stuff that we have patterns of forgetting. Know them and work around them. And lastly, tie important actions to existing habits. So for example, taking your meds after you brush your teeth. All of these types of strategies reduce the emotional toll of forgetting.
Number three is to practice self-compassion. Dr. Kristin Neff's work on self-compassion shows that people who respond to failure with kindness instead of criticism are more likely to rebound and try again. Instead of thinking, "I always mess up," try, "This is hard, and I'm trying. It makes sense that I feel overwhelmed."
Number four is to address the emotional regulation side. ADHD coaching, dialectical behavior therapy or DBT, and mindfulness-based approaches can help increase distress tolerance, reduce shame spirals, and build upon emotional resilience. There is both coaching and DBT skills training classes available online. My practice also offers these services as well at kindmindpsych.com.
Number five is to talk back to negative beliefs. Try challenging internalized shame with realistic thinking. So examples of this can be things like saying to yourself, "Forgetting doesn't make me a bad person. My brain works differently. I'm not less worthy because of it." And then finally, "People who care about me will understand if I explain."
The goal here isn't to have a perfect memory. It's finding tools that work with your brain so you can stop beating yourself up and start feeling like you're more in control. I know this is hard, but even if you forget it, I'll remind you that I'm always rooting for you.
If you loved today's session, be sure to check out our episode on ADHD and time perception, where I explain why some women with ADHD have trouble keeping track of time. If you have a topic that would be helpful for me to cover for you, please put it in the comment section. Thank you for joining me on this episode of "ADHD and."
This show is brought to you by Understood.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences, like ADHD and dyslexia. Learn more at Understood.org.
"ADHD and" is produced by Tara Drinks and edited by Alyssa Shea. Our video producer is Calvin Knie. Samiah Adams is our production manager. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Our audio engineer and music composer is Justin D. Wright. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. And I'm your host, Dr. J.