Honest ADHD Grocery Store Experience

To convince myself that grocery shopping is necessary, and to then muster up the courage to actually step into one of the most overstimulating environments in the entire county, I’m confident, is a feat for superheroes. Especially during the winter months, when my brain and body are repulsed by the idea of being outdoors for any reason, I have been leaning heavily on grocery delivery and pick up. But every once in a while I want the freedom of picking whichever fresh produce I prefer rather than leaving it up to the typical, poor judgement of my Shipt shopper. Sharon, I wanted 1 bunch of 5 bananas, not one banana. No one orders just ONE BANANA. 

Anyway, once I have convinced myself that grocery shopping must be done, normally on a day I have prescheduled so that I don’t attempt to make plans around it, I drive to the grocery store parking lot right behind my office after work hours. If it’s a really good day, I find a way to leave work early so that I can beat the 5 o’clock rush. People are the worst part of the grocery store. If I’m shopping in the evening, that means I have spent an entire work day, overworking my brain to try and stay task focussed to the point of exhaustion, so we're really only working with what feels like 45% of my brain power at this point. 

When I park my car, if I remember, it needs to be in a spot near the cart coral. Sometimes I forget because I am so focused on getting this normal human task over with as soon as possible. When I do forget to park near the carts, I WILL wander around after my shopping is done, sometimes for longer than I’ll admit, trying to find my car. By the time I get back out to the parking lot, the images of where I parked have been wiped clean, and there is nothing to reference but the mysterious, unrecognizable sea of cars all around me. Wandering around looking for your car, not only makes me feel like a complete idiot loser who can’t keep track of something as big as a freaking car, but it’s also Michigan winter right now, so wandering around lost for prolonged periods of time sucks. 

These are all things that need to be established before I have even walked through the doors. Once I finally make it inside to the warm relief of an industrial space heater projected right at my face, I can tell what kind of trip it’s going to be, based on the crowd. The more people, the more tired I will feel once we have made it through the labyrinth that is the American grocery shopping experience. It’s pretty frequently that I run into someone I know or am related to at the store too. Don’t get me wrong, I love my people, and I love that people I connect with and network with in our community want to approach me. That feels good, but small talk is so hard for my brain and so are transitions. Transitioning from intense focus on the task at hand to then thinking of small talk and perceiving social cues takes a lot more for me than a neurotypical person. So for now, we pray we don’t run into anyone. If you’re reading this and you see me dodge you at the grocery store, I promise it isn’t personal. I just can’t afford the mental space to stray away from what’s required of me right now.

Next, we attempt to find a cart. I prefer the little ones that are double stacked at Meijer. The other ones feel too big and too scary. I am one single person, so pushing a big cart is pointless, and I am constantly worried about being in someone’s way. A little one means I can dip and duck between the couple who is arguing and taking up an entire aisle and any other seemingly dangerous scenario that may arise. We have one mission here and it’s this: Get in. Get what you need to feed yourself this week. Get out as soon as possible. 

Marketing is a decent portion of my job, so I understand why it's done this way, but immediately after wrangling a cart, my eyes are met with thousands of colors, bold fonts, and numbers each screaming for my attention. This is all while my brain is simultaneously cycling through thoughts about my day so far, my fears, things that annoyed me today, something funny my friend said yesterday, and the one tik tok sound that’s been in a constant loop for three days and never really pauses long enough for me to notice. Soon enough I realize whether or not I have prepared a list for this particular trip. If I did, it’s like the past me threw future me a life preserver. If I didn’t, and I probably didn’t, I now have to spend the rest of the expedition cutting through the noise in my head and all around me to not only gather but also decide what I need, both seemingly impossible tasks after I have already worked a full day. 

My friends, we have trudged through the muddiness of several paragraphs of this stuff, and I haven’t even put anything in the cart yet. Is it settling in yet why it’s hard to find the motivation to even get to the doors? Now the shopping actually begins, and decision fatigue becomes more evident than it is any other day of the week. If I want chicken, there are hundreds of options at my finger tips. Breasts, tenders, wings, thighs, raw, frozen, breaded, grilled, nuggets, ground, and so much more. Having a recipe to follow is helpful, but otherwise we are just raw dawging our way through the made up, invisible list in my head. What do I have going on this week? Is there a night that I will actually make time to cook this and pair it with an actual meal? And once I get that chicken home, it better be placed in my refrigerator where I can see it without moving anything. If not, I’ll forget it’s there, and it will go bad before it's ever been cooked. 

My inner dialogue begins to sound like, “If there’s chicken, I’ll probably want rice or potatoes, and I forgot to grab that, so we should circle back. Wait, do I have rice at home? Is it enough for what I want to make? Maybe I don’t need rice. But it sounds good. The Spanish rice at Los Paliminos is SO good! Remember when we went there for lunch? That thing Matt said about the chips was so funny! Mak, you’re supposed to be grocery shopping!” And then my blurry vision comes back into focus, glaring at a foggy freezer door covering 10,000 different chicken options. 

Once I’ve accumulated enough things in my cart to cover a few dinners, packed lunches, and a couple breakfast options, or if I’m just ready to be done, I head to the checkout. Now self check out is deceptive. I get so content walking up and feeling like I get to pack and scan things while I'm alone just the way I like, but 9 times out of 10, I do something that isn’t up to that machine's code of conduct and ethics, and it yells at me. This inevitably prompts a worker to come fix the problem, forcing social interaction and causing me to worry that now the employees must think I’m trying to steal something, when really I just scanned my chop salad twice because I held it for a millisecond too long.

I understand that these are very first world problems. I am very grateful I have a car to even get to the store. I’m grateful for the paycheck that helps me have enough money to buy anything. I’m grateful for a grocery store with so many options for my strict gluten and dairy free diet. I’m truly grateful for all of those things, but it’s also really really hard to do normal adult things when you have a neuro spicy brain. Being single doesn’t help either. There’s literally no one else to help with the things you’re just supposed to have the energy and time for. If I don’t shop, I won’t eat. To me, it sounds so whiney to even think about sharing these thoughts, but I also know that inner monologue can be so mean to me. I’m finding power in just telling it, “You are wired differently, and that’s okay.” 

I don’t write any of this just to complain, but rather in the hopes that it will validate another person’s experience. After not having a panic attack for several years, I had a recent one triggered by a complication with a grocery order. For my entire adult life I have functioned as though adult tasks requiring this much of me is something that everyone deals with. It wasn’t as much of a problem in college because my meals were still prepared in a dining hallI, and my routine was very structured. However, now that I have a big girl job with big girl responsibilities and only me to remind myself to take care of them, simple tasks get really overwhelming. I guess, from what I am discovering, that isn’t everyone’s experience, and I feel very comforted when I find someone else who is wired similarly to me. There’s so much value in feeling seen, and I want you to know that I see you, dear reader. 

If you identify with the things you’ve read here today, and you don’t have any kind of diagnosis, maybe consider looking into it. Having a professional tell me that my suspicions about myself were correct made a big difference to me. If you read this today and you think I sound like a crazy person, you should know I start with a new counselor next week. And even though I know I am not a crazy person, I was created exactly the way I am supposed to be, it’s one thing to say that, and a whole other thing to actually believe it. I’m working on that part. Thank you for reading, and do your best to practice kindness toward yourself today. 

You are truly and deeply loved