Where does accommodation end and luxury begin?

I’ve had this conversation a dozen times. It starts with a nail tech rolling my fingertip — peeling, red, perhaps bleeding even — between hers. She tsks, but with concern. She asks why I’ve done it. 

I bite my nails because I have ADHD, a condition I’d best describe as often not being able to choose what you do or, more in my case, what you don’t do. The only thing that has helped with the nail biting, I’ve found, is getting a gel manicure. They don’t chip as easily as regular nail polish. Each peel or chip gives my mind something to obsess about until, inevitably, I’m gnawing at it, my nail beds aching, cuticles peeling. It's not something I'd consciously choose to do, but ADHD takes over.

Gel helps; under its protection, my nails grow long, even. But gel also cost $100 a month if I get them every two weeks. A fellow writer once looked at them and said, “Oh, with your nails manicured and everything.” What I heard was, “What makes you think you deserve that?”

And it’s fine. Everyone knows I’m a financial chaos monster, in and out of credit card debt. I get it. So sometimes I'll stop, try to go back to regular polish. The cycle starts again, and a few weeks later I'm in the nail tech's chair, trying to find an answer to her tsks.

Like my nails, other things in my life can look fancy, though they're just a shiny coating to the chaos. When people hear I have an assistant, they say, "Ooh look at you." They don’t see it as an accommodation, that I need someone to help me keep it together or my business will fall apart.

I’ve just come to notice in the last few years that the very things that help my ADHD symptoms are the same things that luxury often provides: space, quiet, flexibility. Luxury runs on your time, and that is helpful, when you’re time-blind. But when does that just become an excuse to spend? How do I judge what is accommodation and what's frivolity?

I first had this thought on a vacation. The included cruise tour had us chasing a guide who dragged us around a museum at warp speed, screaming into a distorted microphone, and running off to the next exhibit before the last of the group had even arrived at the current one. It was chaos, and I think we with ADHD have so much chaos going on in our heads at all times — five TVs on blast — that what most people would call annoying we find viscerally intolerable.

For the rest of the trip, we hired local guides in a private car, the guilt of the unplanned expense sinking into my budget and my self-worth. 

Having moved to New York, in addition to everything being more expensive, it’s also been closer in and louder, more crowded. Recently, at a different party in a sports bar, (SCREENS!) the environment was so overwhelming that I had to remind myself I was allowed to go outside if I needed to. And so I stood on the sidewalk alone for 10 minutes, calling attention to the fact that I was a weirdo who couldn’t handle normal human experiences. Just kidding, kind of. 

A local author hosts a recurring party full of great writers I want to talk to, but at the last one I attended I almost had to leave because of the overlapping conversations and the volume, until I discovered the rooftop deck. Once up there in the open freedom, I hung out with just a handful of writers until after midnight, enjoying myself. I was invited to the same spot again, and with the weather turning colder, the rooftop deck will likely be closed. It's the apartment or nothing.

I had heard about these earplugs that supposedly helped, called Loops, and their website is covered in references to ADHD and overstimulation. The price of the ear plugs is about $40. I'm also afraid to lose them (like, for example, my eye mask and the replacement eye mask I bought, just over the last month). Sure, it’s a two-digit purchase, but do I need to spend it?

The major symptom of ADHD is impulsivity, which lays waste to my financial plans in binge/panic/regroup cycles that have crashed like constant waves my entire life. 

Impulsivity runs on excuses. Just one sharp story can sever the present moment from the plan. I am the best writer, when it comes to excuses. How do I hold myself accountable while also making space for the fact that I’m living with a neurodevelopmental disorder?

And so I paused, wondering if I really needed those Loop ear plugs. These earplugs promise to ease the overwhelm people, especially those with ADHD, feel when in a crowded and loud environment. For me, it feels like the room is closing in. Before I was diagnosed, this came with an overwhelming loneliness: I could tell other people were having fun and that I should be having fun too, but I wanted to bolt for the door. 

I can’t function like that, personally or professionally. I got myself the Loops. 

Other coping mechanisms — space, quiet, calming music — can be found mostly in three-money-signs kind of places. Their amenities are literally the list of ADHD coping mechanisms. Throw me in a cheap bar with that German shared-table style seating, and I’ll take one panic attack sandwich, please. 

But when I get that NSF charge, my bank account negative, I look back and think, did you really need that? Or was that just an excuse?

Anyone without an ADHD mind would see it one way, I know. Most people with ADHD would see it another.

Recently, I came to see it all differently. I was heading out of town from a business trip, and instead of public transportation that would have been free, I took an Uber, for $35, to a business brunch I would have been late for if I’d taken the train. I sat there fuming about the ADHD tax, what those of us with ADHD end up paying because of the deficiencies of our minds, the missed deadlines, the more expensive tickets because we procrastinate, the replaced eye masks, etc. One study estimates that ADHD costs the U.S. some $28.8 billion in lost productivity. 

But with each purchase, there's a voice inside that says "but why can’t you just…"

Because it’s a neurodevelopmental disorder. 

Because I’m not neurotypical. 

Because it’s real, even if it’s invisible. 

I decided to flip the script. Instead of hating that ADHD costs me more, that accommodations come from the “nice things,” I decided to be grateful that there were things available to accommodate my mind, even if I had to buy them. Money is an important part of how I take care of myself. So I just need to make more. 

I guess it’s not an excuse if you make it a part of the plan.