The executive dysfunction symptomatic of ADHD makes even taking care of the most basic needs impossible sometimes. There's a lot that goes into cooking a meal, for example. First, I never know what first step to take, and my brain doesn't want to focus enough to figure it out. Then maybe I do start cooking, but I quickly get distracted and wander off with the water boiling on the stove.  So now it's been an hour and I've burned the water, my roommates have taken over the kitchen, and I'm even more forgetful, confused and difficult to motivate because I haven't eaten.

That's the Catch-22 of ADHD, and of a lot of disorders and chronic illnesses that make fulfilling basic needs harder. Lack of meds, sleep, food, water, exercise, or caffeine (for the caffeine addicts) will cause a level of executive dysfunction in anybody. But people with executive dysfunction are already operating on a lower level. For me, missing sleep, or food, or exercise, etc. can be debilitating, or near it. When I'm at my best, it's because I'm following a set of morning, afternoon and nighttime routines—because habits and ADHD live in different parts of the brain!— that I spent hours researching and consciously outlining. But anything, including an assignment that made me stay up late, or an argument with a friend (or a global pandemic HAH) can topple the system and send me back to the "what's school? who am I??" territory, so I'm always living on the edge.”