My ADHD makes managing money nearly impossible

I had navigated the medical system to make an appointment, filled out pages of forms, answered a nurse’s questions that repeated what had been asked on the form and answered the psychologist’s questions, which repeated the nurses. If you’ve ever heard someone scratch their nails against a chalkboard for an hour straight, you can imagine the feeling in my ADHD body, averse to every single part of this process, yet drawn to the promise: medication. 

It had taken me years to officially get diagnosed after first hints I might have this neurodevelopmental disorder, and years more to land here, at medication. My life without it is a swirl of forces, leading to natural disasters of impulsivity that often lay waste most acutely in my bank account. 

The doctor explained that he was newer, and he wanted to bring in the expert. This “expert” came in to the windowless room, leaned against the wall and said, “I’ve never heard about anyone with ADHD struggling with personal finances. Have you tried seeing a therapist?”

The dam broke. Tears and a raised voice followed. “Yes, I’ve seen a therapist, as I told him, as I told the nurse, as I filled out on the form.” I was a hysterical woman joining the ranks of generations of women who have sat in a male doctor’s office not being believed. I scrabbled to regain ground. “I wrote about this for the New York Times.”

The expert, standing with his arms crossed, looking down at me in the chair, told me I was very emotional. He suggested they increase the dosage of my anxiety medication, and he left. 

“Well then he is, by definition, incompetent,” said an expert I’d interviewed for a previous story, whom I called in desperation. 

He knows what I now know, that the connection between ADHD and financial struggles is well-documented. A study on the finances of people with ADHD begins: “ADHD has a debilitating influence on everyday functioning, including the capability to make financial decisions.” 

Previous studies have found that we have trouble with impulse spending (as I said), maxing out credit cards and saving. 

“Furthermore,” the study continues, “compared to adults without ADHD, adults with ADHD showed difficulties in making decisions referring to the future and reported more often to experience impulse buying and the use of a spontaneous or avoidant decision-making style.”

Not everyone with ADHD is broke. I have friends who are millionaires because of their ADHD. We also have this superpower called hyperfocus, and for some, finances is their hyperfocus. For me, it’s online shopping. When eBay first came out, the dopamine mix of winning and spending led to an only kind of joking roommate intervention. 

Beyond the studies and my own personal history, there’s also the empirical evidence. The discussion board of the Facebook group Neurodivergent Finance/ADHD Finance, with more than 15,000 members, is a wall of desperation. They’re struggling, they’re in debt, they’re broke, they barely made rent, they’ve overspent, they’re asking for help. 

There’s a well-known (at least for us) concept of the ADHD tax: the extra money you end up paying because of the symptoms of ADHD. Time-blindness causes late fees; object impermanence means we lose things and have to replace them.

My struggles with money have been a defining theme of my life. There are realms of adulthood I just can’t get to, because every time I climb a ladder of effort, I fall down a chute of impulsivity. It feels nearly impossible to explain to those without ADHD what’s it’s like to not be able to say what you’ll do in a moment. You promise this time you’ll resist, and then you don’t. Over and over again, for decades. I used to think I was just morally a bad person. Defective. 

That’s why the ADHD community, the boards and the classes and support groups, have been life-changing. They’ve taught me that I don’t have to berate myself, hate myself, call myself names. I’ve learned to advocate for the person inside here, stuck with this ADHD mind for my entire life, through no decision of my own. And it’s not an excuse; it’s an operating system I’m learning to live with and thrive with. 

But for professionals to have no idea — for the people who hold the key for many people to not know that this is the reality we live in — is, I agree, incompetent. 

It’s been nearly a year since that appointment. Even though I continue to struggle, I haven’t yet made my way through the ADHD kryptonite of the medical systems, the forms, to get a second opinion. 

I have no idea how much their ignorance has cost me.