ADHD causes forgetfulness due to impairments in working memory. Holding and processing information is problematic. This leads to difficulties in recalling details and following through on shit you need to do. Losing things is also a core trait of ADHD. Frequently misplacing everyday items due to a moment of distraction is frustratingly common. The stupid shit I’ve done, forgotten to do, and lost over the years!

This does not compute

In my short, ill fated teaching career I was given a laptop to do my planning. It contained the art department’s resources, and sensitive files about the children I was due to teach. I got on a bus that I thought would take me close to home. However, it didn’t stop where I’d been told it would. I got arsey with the driver, and I angrily left the bus, calling him ignorant along the way. I then phoned my wife to see if she could pick me. We agreed on a meeting place. I was halfway there when I realised I’d left the laptop on the bus. I was devastated. I felt so stupid. After a frantic call to the bus company I was told the laptop had been found. However, I’d have to wait a couple of hours before the bus returned to where I had been dropped. The SAME DRIVER. I would have to grovel. But it didn’t matter, I was reunited with the laptop. The relief! All that needless stress could have been prevented by simply looking back.

Patching things up

I was walking my mum’s dog, Patch, when I popped to the local shop. I tied him up outside, and explained, in that way you do with an animal, that I’d be back in a second. While in the shop, I wondered whether my friend John was home. I decided to pay him a visit. I left the shop, walking past Patch, who must have been thinking, ‘Where are you going?’ and strolled up to John’s house a few streets away. Thankfully he wasn’t home because at that point I remembered I’d left Patch at the shop. Panicked, I ran the whole way back. Thank fuck he was still there, and not been dognapped.

Bus-t up

To get to Hucknall to see my friends I got on a bus just outside the village where I lived. I jumped on the first red double decker I saw. As we reached Hucknall I worried it wasn’t going to the right part of the town. I needed to go to the estates, not the marketplace. I couldn’t remember the number, and I didn’t want to bother the driver. As we crawled in the traffic I decided to get off to walk, and find another bus. I reached another bus stop near the cinema, and looked at the timetable to find the bus I needed. It was due, and a minute later I boarded, paid the driver and sat down. Except, it was the same bus I had left minutes earlier. I only knew this when a friend of a friend witnessed what I had done. When I was told I couldn’t quite believe it. How was this possible?

That’s pants

Commuting to work by bicycle presents all sorts of opportunities for forgetting things. You have to take a whole change of clothes for a start. I’d frequently forget my underwear, and spend the day commando. This in turn caused me anxiety. What if for some unfathomable reason my trousers fell down in front of everyone? And I get accused of flashing. I was also haunted by a story I’d been told about my uncle catching his willy in his zip, and my grandma taking the shears to his shorts.

The Wrong Trousers

On another occasion I forgot my trousers, but remembered my pants! I only had my cycling bib shorts to wear at my desk, so I sent an email to the whole office appealing for a spare pair of trousers. Of course it caused a lot of mirth and pisstaking. I get a kick out of amusing people, at the same time I don’t want people to think I’m stupid, a clown. Maybe I should accept I’m a prat, but one who simply can’t help it. The weatherman provided me with a pair of trousers. Black, right waist, wrong length. White socks on show, like a terrible Michael Jackson impersonator.

Captain Underpants

I also left my BBC pass, the key to the building, in my trousers AT WORK. They were hanging in the shower room. I only remembered when I got to work for the early shift. Previous security guards would recognise me and just let me through. But one, who I nicknamed Captain Underpants, as he looked like the Dav Pilkey creation, seemed to have amnesia when it came to faces. He’d make you sign in, and then get a fellow staff member to vouch for you working there. As a repeat offender I’d experienced this before. I didn’t have time for that this particular morning, and so I called a colleague who dropped his pass out of the window for me. After parking my bike, I used the card to open the door. Captain Underpants was waiting on the other side. I explained to him what had happened, and that I would show him MY pass as soon as I got to the shower room. He chased me upstairs, well, he walked slowly, panting like a St Bernard, as I sprinted off. When he finally reached me I presented my pass an inch from his face, and he finally left me alone and fucked off. 

Who’s there?

The BBC landline phones did not display what their number was which was a problem when you needed to give it out for a story. It made it more difficult due to various desk changes, and as you never knew where you were going to be sitting on arrival. One particular time I had a hunch what the landline number was. To check, I dialled it from my smart phone. But annoyingly the phone next to me rang at the same time! I abandoned what I was doing to answer the phone. But there was no-one there. How annoying. I went back to the task and called the number again. Rudely, someone was trying to ring me again, disrupting my task. I hung up my phone and answered the landline. Again, no-one there! Was someone pissing me about? I tried for a final time, and realised the nuisance caller was in-fact me.  

Has anyone seen my Dad?

My most heartbreaking moment of forgetting was when I failed to turn up to meet my youngest son. I was in the flow of making a piece of art. I lost track of time. I snapped out of it when my phone rang. ‘Hello, Mr Heath,’ the voice said. ‘I’ve got Toby here, he said you’re supposed to be picking him up?’ Before she finished I was out the door. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten him. I was so ashamed. He had just turned 11, but it was a long way from home, it was also winter and dark. I got to the school and apologised to the teachers who waited with him, and of course, Toby. Toby is a very forgiving kid, and probably got bored of my apologies. He told me as all the other kids were leaving and being collected, he walked up and down trying to find me. He asked around if anyone had seen me, and one horrible girl told him no-one cared about his dad. I remembered all the times my dad was late picking me up. The stress it caused me, and here I was, doing the same thing. I think I partly assumed my wife was picking him up, but it’s likely I wasn’t paying attention when she explained the plan.

I used all these stories in preparation for ADHD assessment meetings. Case closed.