ADHD Password Hell

Forgot your username or password? God, do I hate seeing that message when I’m trying to log in to a Website, or one of my various rarely-used email servers.

They should make another button that says ‘Have ADHD?’ Maybe then it could just let me log on, and not email my password to some other random email address that I’ve long since forgotten even existed.

When I’m creating a new account to access a website, I know I should really create another email address so junk mail doesn’t get sent to my real email. So I open a new window, create a free account on Yahoo, or Hotmail, or whatever and use that account to sign up for a username and password for another site.

Except when I attempt to log on a few months later (ok, sometimes it’s only days) later, I can’t remember the username or password. They offer to email it to me, but they don’t have the decency to tell me the account they’re emailing it to. Confused yet? So am I, which is probably why I have so many accounts that I can’t access.

I know I should use the same account name and password for multiple sites, but more usually I receive the message, "that username is already taken" or I think I’ll use a password that’s easy to remember, foolproof, until I go back to remember it, and I’m stumped.

At my part-time mall job we got new cash registers that now require an employee number and password for each transaction. We used to only have to enter one two-digit number to ring someone in; even I could handle that! Now, our employee numbers are six digits long, and our passwords have to be eight characters, including letters and numbers. Even worse, if you mess up and type it in wrong three times in one shift you get locked out of the system for the day, and a manager has to call the corporate office to reset it. We’ve had this new system for a few weeks; I’m still getting locked out almost every day.

Us ADHDers need something more simple than a six digit number and an eight character password. I need a card to swipe to log in to sites (although I might lose the card, or leave it at home). Maybe I need a microchip implanted under my skin, or a barcode tattooed onto my hand. That way, I’d never have to remember all my usernames and passwords again.