Context: This is a day seen through an AuDHD lens — many processes running in parallel, behaviour strongly guided by context (“anchors”; stimulus control), and switching carrying a real cost.
brain
So. 9 p.m., tea, and the usual daily review?
me
No. First, the two appointments you have remembered for two days that you need to click through and book.
brain
Oh. That.
me
Yes. That.
brain
But Goldiamond is waiting.
me
You find him fascinating, don’t you?
brain
He thinks a bit like me.
me
Daily review first. Maybe something needs to move to tomorrow.
brain
Fine.
me
Start of the day. Or actually, the end of the previous one — we went to sleep at 4 a.m.
brain
The social story had to be finished.
me
The one you had been finishing for two weeks.
brain
But it is finished.
me
True.
me
8:30 wake-up.
Meds.
And what did you do?
brain
Went back to sleep.
me
Yes. You went back to sleep.
me
9:40 we get up. Job interview at the school at 10:30. Good thing we had copied and bound all the documents the day before.
brain
That was an excellent idea.
me
They came in useful.
brain
More useful than our analytical skills.
me
Don’t exaggerate.
brain
A 40-hour difference in paperwork just defeated 16 years of education.
headteacher
You are very versatile.
brain
Elegant wording for: “I have no idea where to place you.”
me
The special education qualification turned out to have 230 hours.
brain
And it should have 270.
me
40 hours.
brain
After psychology, pedagogy, BCBA, postgraduate studies, and years of work.
me
40 hours.
brain
Poland.
me
Then school.
Then home.
Then therapy.
brain
There was supposed to be a bike ride.
me
There was Goldiamond.
therapist
Maybe it would be worth returning to cycling?
brain
But why is the bike losing?
me
Don’t start.
brain
Discovery of the day: ANC headphones increase the probability of cycling.
me
We already knew that.
brain
Today’s refinement: it is not “motivation”, it is a change in the environment (meaning: what controls the behaviour).
me
Then we read Goldiamond.
brain
And discovered that for years we have been doing the constructional approach (building behaviour through the environment, not through “willpower”).
me
Then came an analysis of the family support system.
Monotropism: attention sticks to one track, and the rest loses power.
brain
At the system level: the same type of problem — a bottleneck.
me
...
me
And we were also supposed to make an important phone call.
brain
We were.
me
The plan: take the child to therapy → sit in the clinic → make the call.
brain
A perfect anchor (a task attached to a specific context).
me
The psychologist cancelled the appointment.
brain
The anchor disappeared.
me
And the phone call.
brain
The call was attached to the appointment. No appointment — the call “does not exist”.
me
Theoretically, we could have called later.
brain
Theoretically.
me
And practically?
brain
Cost of switching + no cue + no active representation of the task = no behaviour.
me
List of things we obviously do not count as “real things”:
brain
Naturally.
me
Children’s Day.
brain
Happened.
me
Children?
brain
Present.
me
Food?
brain
Provided.
me
Child’s injection?
brain
Done.
me
Care?
brain
Included in the package.
me
Vinted parcels?
brain
Four.
me
So, to sum up:
Social story.
Job interview.
Documents.
Therapy.
Goldiamond.
Children’s Day.
Children.
Food.
Injection.
Four parcels.
Cleaning.
Vinted.
Systems analysis.
The phone call that “died” together with the appointment.
And two appointments still to click through and book.
brain
Yes.
me
There was no bike ride.
brain
No.
me
So, an average day.
brain
Done: 4 parcels, job interview, injection, Children’s Day, therapy, a chunk of the house, half an essay about a forgotten psychologist.
me
Yes, but there was no bike ride.
brain
So the day-evaluation system works like a PE teacher: everything great, but you forgot your kit.
me
Exactly. A+ for life, F for cycling.
brain
And a note: “bright child, but does not pedal”.
me
We laugh, but this is the moment when a person wants to lie down on the floor and rest from their own control panel.
brain
The control panel also wanted to rest, but it opened 17 tabs about Goldiamond.
The punchline
people
How can you have AuDHD when you seem to manage so much?
brain
Simple.
You do not see the other 247 processes running in the background in parallel.
Or the fact that for half the day I was trying, simultaneously, to read, go cycling, find a job, analyse a system, pack parcels, do an injection, manage Children’s Day, make a phone call, and remember appointments.
And still, more than anything, I wanted to go back to Goldiamond.
PS
me
So, shall we click through and book those two appointments?
brain
What about Goldiamond?
me
No.
brain
One page?
me
No.
brain
Five pages?
me
No.
brain
But he describes exactly how we work...
me
Fine. One page.
This is the kind of day after which a person with ADHD laughs, and a person without ADHD understands for the first time that “I was supposed to call” ≠ “I forgot”.
Sometimes the anchor disappears — and with it, the whole little train of things tied to it by an invisible string.
That is why we need a calendar not for “organisation”. We need it so tasks do not stop existing.
Who is Goldiamond?
Israel Goldiamond was a psychologist and behaviour analyst, associated above all with the constructional approach. In simple terms: instead of focusing only on removing a “problem”, he suggested asking what conditions need to be built so that a more useful alternative behaviour can appear. That is why Goldiamond keeps drawing me back in this text — because he described human action through context, environment, available options, and the function of behaviour, rather than through simple explanations like “you lack motivation” or “you should try harder”.