![IMG_8973.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmSaznhAbzyQUwN2Gb1V7zn2V5U42oDn9rLDS3x8NmuUEQ/IMG_8973.jpg)

I broke down crying out of frustration.

I’d spent 35 hours cleaning out my old room at my parent's house-

But it looked exactly the same as when I’d started.

My mom had called and said, “We’re moving.”

"You need to come back home. Get rid of the stuff in your old bedroom.”

So I worked 7 hours each day that week to clear out old junk.

But when I looked around my room-

I felt overwhelmed.

Frustrated.

Like a failure.

I was right where I’d started-

Except I’d lost 35 hours of my life that I could never get back.

Then I saw a book I forgot I had-

Women With ADHD.

“I deserve a break,” I thought.

I sat down on the floor to read it.

What happened next was a gamechanger.

I read something like, “ADHD doesn’t mean you’re lazy.”

“You’re busy. Not productive. So it looks like you weren’t working.”

It hit me like a light bulb.

I thought, “This is right. I’m not lazy. I’ve worked harder than anyone this week.”

“Yet I have nothing to show for it. The problem isn’t my laziness.”

“It’s my inability to logically think through the steps needed to get this job done efficiently."

I knew I needed help from someone who thought differently than me.

Luckily it was Saturday and I knew just the person-

My dad.

I said, “Dad, can you please help me clean my room?”

“You don’t have to lift a finger. Just verbally redirect me when you see me doing something inefficiently.”

So my Dad pulled a chair into the middle of my room.

When he saw something I did, he’d question me.

“How about you finish going through all of your books before picking up that shirt?”

With his help- 

I finished the entire job in 2 hours.  

Since then, I've been lucky to have other "neurotypical" people model more efficient ways of thinking for me.

My roommate told me 25 minutes to unload a dishwasher was way too long-

Then she talked me through how to get it done in 5.

Packing my suitcase was always a 40-hour ordeal-

So I asked my friend who's a professional organizer to help me pack.

She showed me how to make logical decisions and guess what?

We got the job done in an hour.

For an international trip that would last 6 months in different climates.

It's OK to reach out for help sometimes.

The relief I felt after being able to cut down the time it took to do "simple" tasks was beyond words.

Because of those experiences-

I know that people with ADHD can learn to cope better as long as we can find the right people to model patterns of thinking that we've never been exposed to.

We just have to be willing to ask.

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I know steemit probably isn't really the target audience for this, but it's ok. Just practicing writing some more and sharing stories that I wouldn't normally share.