> This dynamic can be particularly challenging for some patients. “Lack of motivation and lack of follow-through are the most common symptoms of depression on the planet,” Marcucci-Morris said. “We wouldn’t tell a paraplegic, ‘Hey, walk down the hall in order to get your wheelchair.’”

This was something I really struggled with getting an ADHD diagnosis as adult. I needed an incredible amount of executive function (dozens of phone calls, navigating the mire of health insurance to figure out who I was allowed to go to, who would take me, being bounced around) to be allowed medication to treat my executive dysfunction. I recall wondering how someone less functional than I was was ever expected to get help.

Yup. With ADHD you constantly feel behind the 8-ball, forever in a deficit of agency. Worse when it's paired with anxiety so you never feel you are in control or make the right decision. Most of your time is spent worrying about what you didn't do and what you might have missed. Some things have higher priority to worry about so "small" things like calling that ADHD doctor fall by the wayside. Inevitably the chaos catches up where you forget an important event, forget to pay a bill, etc, and you're in panic emergency mode trying to fix it. So of course you forget to call that ADHD specialist. All day every day is like this.