Visiwell Solutions
OPD Reflections on Adult ADHD – Part 1
Earlier this week in OPD, I encountered a symptom of adult ADHD that is often misunderstood—even by well-meaning people.
A young adult described the following experience.
They are given a simple task. They agree to do it immediately. They actively repeat it to themselves so they don’t forget.
And yet— a minor distraction occurs, and the entire task disappears.
Not delayed. Not postponed. Not avoided.
Just… gone.
If asked a few minutes later what they were supposed to do, they genuinely cannot recall. The memory returns only if someone externally triggers it again.
This is not laziness. This is not lack of motivation. And it is not “normal forgetfulness.”
What this reflects is failure of task persistence—a core executive dysfunction in ADHD, where the brain struggles to hold an intention stable long enough to act on it.
Many adults describe this as their brain dropping the task and walking away.
The hardest part is not the symptom itself. It is explaining it—without sounding like you’re making excuses.
In the next post, I’ll discuss why this experience is often mislabelled as procrastination or poor motivation—and why that framing misses the point entirely.
If this sounds familiar from your clinical work or personal experience, you’re not alone.