Hear the Excuse, Find the Reason: Why Accountability Requires Curiosity

I'm Cinnamon, and this is After the Tones Drop. And welcome back to After the Tones Drop. This is part three of our ADHD in public safety series. And today we're talking about accountability. And we are taking this conversation home. Because the people affected by our behavior include the partner waiting for us, the kid who needs our attention, and the friend whose message we meant to answer. And some of you listening are the person with ADHD. You know you missed something. You also know that I don't care is a terrible explanation for what happened because you do. You're trying to explain how something important still fell through the cracks. I spent a lot of time looking underneath the behavior that has already been labeled disrespectful, defensive, resistant, or just plain difficult. So today I want to talk about this sentence. I don't want to hear your excuses. Some of it say it to ourselves. But what are we actually saying? Your explanation does not erase the impact. Or I don't care why this happened, shut up, accept the consequences, and never do it again. Well, the second message can shut down the very conversation that would help us understand what actually needs to change. Maybe we need to hear the explanation long enough to find the reason inside of it. That applies when we're listening to someone else. It also applies when we're trying to understand ourselves. So what do I mean when I say I don't want to hear your excuses? Let's slow that sentence down. I don't want to hear your excuses. What do we mean when we say that? Sometimes we mean your explanation doesn't erase the impact. That's fair. Sometimes we mean you're blaming everybody but yourself. Also fair. Sometimes we mean we have already discussed this and you are giving me the same explanation without changing anything. Completely fair. But sometimes what we actually mean is I don't care about your logic. I've already decided what kind of person you are. I'm angry and I currently do not have the capacity to be curious. I want understanding. I want obedience, not understanding. I don't want this conversation to become more complicated. I want you to agree with my interpretation so I can feel like this conflict is over. Or simply, I don't care why you did it. I just don't want you to do it again. That approach may stop a behavior in the moment. Fear can do that, power can do that, punishment can do that. A child may stop talking because a parent threatens them. A recruit may stop asking questions because an instructor humiliates them. An employee may say yes, sir, or yes, ma'am, because they understand the chain of command. But silence is not the same as understanding. And compliance is not the same as learning. And obedience is not necessarily the same as respect. You may have ended a conversation without changing the thinking that created the behavior. The behavior may have stopped while the difficulty underneath it remained. I had a woman approach me in a parking lot once after I spoke at a conference. She wanted to tell me her story and maybe alleviate some of the discomfort she felt after my talk. She told me how her mother once slapped her across the face for calling her a bitch. She told me I deserved it, it was effective, and I never said it again. And I asked her, but did you think it? And she said, of course. And my response was that perhaps it wasn't as effective as she or her mother had thought. An excuse and a reason are not the same thing. And this is where we need a working definition. A reason explains why something happened. An excuse attempts to use the explanation to eliminate responsibility. So let me say that again. I know it's tricky. It was tricky to me when I first started working around this. So a reason explains why something happened. An excuse attempts to use that same explanation, but to go one step further by eliminating responsibility. An excuse says this happened because of these circumstances. So I'm not responsible. And a reason says this happened because of these circumstances, and I am still responsible for understanding my part and deciding what I need to do differently. An excuse uses the why to erase responsibility. And a reason uses the why to improve responsibility. An excuse often shifts blame, minimizes the impact, denies choice, or closes the conversation. A reason gives us information. It identifies contributing factors, it helps us understand what happened internally and externally. It reveals where the decision-making process broke down. It shows us where we need training, support, boundaries, communication, resources, or corrective action, if need be. A reason creates a path forward, but an excuse creates a dead end. But here's the complicated part. A lot of explanations do not enter the conversation neatly packaged as such. They can sound like excuses before we understand what the person is trying to say. They come out defensive, they sound messy, they're incomplete, they may be wrapped in fear, anger, embarrassment, shame, or an activated nervous system. That doesn't mean that we have to accept the excuse. It means we may need to stay in the conversation long enough to find out whether there is a reason buried inside of it. So imagine you promise to handle something at home: a permission slip, a bill, booking an appointment, something your partner has already been carrying in their head and needs to stop carrying. You meant to do it, then the day happened. Your attention went somewhere else and it didn't get done. Your partner says, You said you would handle this. And you say, I forgot I have ADHD. Now what? ADHD can involve real difficulties with attention, organization, and remembering daily responsibilities. And those difficulties can affect life at home. But I have ADHD, does not tell us everything about this particular moment. It identifies something worth understanding. If I use that sentence to mean, therefore, you can't be upset with me and this is now your problem, I'm asking that the explanation remove my responsibility. If I say, I forgot and you had to handle something I agreed to do, I understand why you're frustrated. I need a way to track this that doesn't depend on you reminding me. Or as I hear all the time, you keeping the list that I come to and ask what's on it. Maybe I put the task in my calendar while we're talking with a reminder and an actual time carved out to do it. Maybe we discover that we never agreed on a deadline. Maybe I need some help figuring out a system I can realistically use. That doesn't have to be my partner. It can be an occupational therapist. The point is to identify where this broke down. And if you are the partner, you can believe the forgetting was real and still be tired of absorbing the consequences. You might say, I believe you intended to do it. I also need to be able to count on the agreement. What would help you follow through? Understanding should give both people useful information. Now, imagine a first responder comes home after a brutal shift and snaps at their family. I have been awake for 20 hours. We lost a kid today. I cannot handle one more question. There is important information in that explanation. There is also a partner or child who just got hurt. An accountable response may sound like, I came home overwhelmed and I spoke to you harshly. You did not deserve that. I need some time to settle in, and I need to tell you that without making you the target. Then the practical conversation can happen. How much time? How will you reconnect afterward? What does the family need during that transition? The call matters, and so does the person standing in your kitchen waiting for you to come home. We need to understand what influenced the behavior and what the relationship needs now. This connects to something that I've been teaching the last year. It may not be attitude, it may be activation. Sometimes what looks like avoidance is shame. Sometimes a person defending themselves is afraid that admitting one mistake will confirm everything terrible they've already believed about themselves. If you have repeatedly been told you're lazy, careless, or selfish, a conversation about an unfinished task can feel much bigger than that task. Your partner may be saying, the bill didn't get paid, but you may be hearing, you're a failure, and I'm tired of you. That doesn't mean your partner said that. It means we need to notice the difference between the conversation happening now and the story that we're bringing into it. ADHD does not explain every conflict. Trauma, exhaustion, grief, decision fatigue, the relationship itself, all those things matter. But once both people start defending their character, the actual problem can disappear. One person is trying to prove I should be able to rely on you. The other person is trying to prove I am trying harder than you even realize. And both may have something very true to say. Meanwhile, the bill is still unpaid. If you're the listener with ADHD, you can pause and say, I want to explain what happened. I'm getting defensive because I feel ashamed. I understand what you're asking about the task. Can we slow down so I can answer that? And if you're the person affected, I'm talking about this agreement and its impact. I want to understand what happened and I need us to be able to address it. Sometimes you need a break before that conversation is useful. A break works better when it includes a return time. I need 20 minutes. I will come back at seven so we can finish talking about this. You don't have to produce a flawless explanation while you're overwhelmed. You do need to return to the issue. That's the difference between compartmentalization and suppression. Curiosity gives us questions we can use with each other and with ourselves. What happened? Where did this become difficult? What did you understand the agreement to be? What was the impact? What support or change would make a difference? We are gathering information we can actually use. We also need to examine what we think a question means. A child asks, why do I have to do it this way? A partner asks, can you tell me exactly what you need? A person with ADHD asks, when do you need this finished? We may hear resistance when the person is actually trying to understand the task well enough to do it. Asking for a deadline is useful when sometime soon leaves two people expecting very different things. I learned a long time ago to call it a buy-when. By when do you need this done? What is the date that this has to be submitted by? Because that means I can give it to you early, but I absolutely know the last day that I could get it to you. So what's the by-when on this? Asking for instructions in writing may be an attempt to keep track of them. Clarifying whether clean the kitchen includes the floor getting mopped can prevent an argument that neither person needed nor wanted. Of course, questions can be used to delay or wear someone down. We have to look at the conversation rather than treating every why as disrespect. In public safety, there are moments when immediate action matters. If a building is collapsing, move. The explanation can come later. But later still needs to exist in the bigger conversation. And your living room usually does not need to operate like an emergency scene. We cannot bring command voice home and expect it to build closeness. If you're the person asking, help the other person understand the purpose. I'm asking because I want to get this right. I need to know the deadline so I can plan for it. If you're listening, leave the room for the answer to change your first interpretation. Most of us did not first hear, I don't want to hear your excuses from a supervisor or a spouse. We heard it when we were children. Maybe you broke something, maybe you missed curfew, maybe you failed to finish your homework, maybe you hit your sibling, maybe you made a choice that did not make sense to the adult standing in front of you. And when you tried to explain, the conversation ended before it even started. I don't want to hear your excuses. Sometimes our excuses were ridiculous. Many of mine certainly were. Children are not exactly known for presenting concise, evidence-based arguments. I can look back and cringe at some of my arguments for my innocence when I was younger. There are children who can turn a missing homework assignment into a story involving three classmates, a malfunctioning printer, an injured squirrel, and an international conspiracy. Sometimes the adult has already listened to 15 minutes of nonsense and just needs the child to put on their shoes. I get it. But even when a child's explanation is weak, we can teach the difference between explanation and avoidance. We can say, I want to understand why this happened, and you're still responsible for your choice. We can say, that explains what you were feeling. It does not make it okay to hit your brother. We can say, I believe you were overwhelmed. So what can you do differently next time? We can say, you are telling me what everyone else did. Now tell me your part. That is how people learn accountability. They don't learn accountability by being denied the opportunity to even examine their choices. They just learn submission. They learn how to say whatever ends the conversation. They learn how to hide mistakes, and they learn to do what they want when you aren't looking. They learn how to offer the apology authority once while privately maintaining the same reasoning. Hence the lady in the parking lot. And then those children become adults. They bring those same lessons into marriages, parenting, friendship, and work. They become people who either refuse to explain themselves because explanation feels unsafe or pointless, or people who overexplain everything because they're desperate to prove they're not bad. When somebody says, why are you being so defensive? Sometimes that defensiveness has a history. And if you were a child with ADHD, diagnosed or not, think about the difference between refusing to do your homework and struggling to get started to keep track of that assignment and then to actually remember to turn it in. Those can look similar from the outside, but they call for different questions. A parent can say, show me where you got stuck. We still need to address the assignment. And I want to understand what help you need. With a child, accountability has to fit their age and their abilities. Adults are responsible for providing structure and teaching skills rather than expecting a child to invent those supports alone. And sometimes the parent has ADHD too. You're trying to manage your own overwhelm while helping your child manage theirs. You can model ownership. I got frustrated and I yelled, I'm sorry. Let's slow down and figure out how to get this done together. Be the adult that does not remove your part from the conversation. We have also done something really interesting to the word excuse. Sometimes people offer a completely legitimate reason, but we reject it because it interferes with what we want. So imagine inviting someone to a funeral and they say, I can't attend because funerals are emotionally difficult for me right now, and I'm not in a place where I can manage that. Depending on the relationship and the circumstances, you may feel disappointed. You may even feel hurt. But if your response is that's just an excuse, what are you really saying? Are you evaluating whether the explanation preserves responsibility? Or are you saying your reason doesn't produce the outcome I wanted? So I refuse to accept it as valid. Sometimes we call something an excuse because it's an excuse. Sometimes we call it an excuse because we don't like the boundary. Sometimes we call it an excuse because the person's internal experience is inconvenient for us. And sometimes we call it an excuse because anger feels more comfortable or powerful than disappointment. If I dismiss you as lazy, disrespectful, selfish, or difficult, I don't have to consider what your explanation means. I don't have to adjust, I don't have to become curious, I don't have to tolerate complexity. I can stay angry because rage is clean, but curiosity is messy. Rage says, you are the problem. Curiosity asks, what's happening here? Rage gives us certainty. Curiosity may require us to change our minds and sit with our own discomfort of the outcome without the rage. So are we cutting off our noses to spite our face? When we refuse to hear explanations, we may cut off the information we need to change the pattern. So take being late. At work, that might affect the crew. At home, it may leave your partner waiting or mean that your child is the last one to be picked up. That impact deserves attention. But what happened? Did you underestimate how long it would take to get ready? Did you lose track of time while doing something else? Did you forget to include the drive of how long it would take you to get there? Did a real emergency interrupt you? Did you agree to something you already knew you couldn't pull off? Those explanations lead to different next steps. Try harder does not tell you where to intervene. If you keep planning around the arrival time, you might need to work backward and set a reminder for when getting ready has to start. If the agreement was unrealistic, Realistic, you may need to say so before someone is left waiting. If you notice you're running late, communicating that matters. So does having a reliable plan when someone is depending on you. Your diagnosis cannot tell your partner which part of the plan failed. You need to investigate the actual pattern. And if I cared, I would remember. Well, that may feel convincing while telling you very little about what would help. You can care and still need external support for follow-through. The question is, what would make caring more visible in whatever happens next? So here are three questions for both sides of this conversation. If you're explaining your own behavior, ask yourself, what was the impact? What responsibility belongs to me? And what happens next? Start with that actual impact. You had to leave work because I missed pickup. You waited without knowing where I was and it made you scared. I interrupted you and you didn't get to finish. Then locate your part accurately. Taking responsibility does not require claiming that you chose every symptom or could have prevented every difficulty by wanting it badly enough. It does mean looking at the agreement, the support you need, the communication you can improve, and the repair you owe. Then name something concrete. I will try harder is an intention. I will put the pickup in my calendar now and check that the reminder is on. Gives you something to use and evaluate. If you're listening to the explanation, these same questions can guide you. But they're not a courtroom test of whether somebody's ADHD is real. A person can have a legitimate difficulty and still struggle to explain it, still struggle to acknowledge the impact, or find a solution in that moment. That tells us that the conversation needs more work. It does not prove the difficulty was invented. And a polished apology does not by itself demonstrate change. Look at what happens over time. I was overwhelmed can be information. It can also be used to shut down accountability. I was overwhelmed and I need help identifying the point where I lost track. That opens a conversation. So you're not allowed to be upset with me, closes one. ADHD, trauma, grief, exhaustion, it can help explain a pattern. But what we do with that information is really what's important. So what do we do when our first response really does dodge responsibility? Maybe you say, you should have reminded me. Maybe you start listing everything the other person has ever forgotten. Maybe you spend 10 minutes explaining how hard your day was without acknowledging what happened to theirs. You can stop and restart. Let me try that again. I'm explaining what happened, but I have not acknowledged what it did to you. That's a sentence you can use. Then I forgot something I agreed to handle. You had to take it over. I need a better way to track it. Or I interrupted because I was afraid I would lose my thought. I cut you off. Please finish. I can write my thought down while I listen. The reason gives you a place to intervene. If you genuinely do not know what would help yet, then say that. Then follow through on that return. If you're supporting someone else, you can ask. I hear what made this difficult. What part do you think you can address? What would help you keep track of this? What do you understand about how it affected me? Support also needs agreement. Your partner does not automatically become your reminder system. And your child should not have to manage your responsibilities. And helping someone think through a problem is different from accepting responsibility for solving every reoccurrence. Sometimes we defend everything because the alternative feels like admitting we're just a terrible person. We can acknowledge a harmful behavior without turning it into a verdict about our entire worth. I did something that hurt you. I need to address it. That's enough to begin. So what are we trying to change? I tell clients, let's say I tell you that you're right. What does that solve? I also say, I'm not interested in right or wrong. That's above my pay grade. I'm interested in effective. You can win an argument about whether you intended to forget and still leave your partner carrying the household. You can prove that your partner forgot something last week and still have missed the agreement that you made last night. You can convince your child to stop talking without teaching them how to handle what went wrong. So, what outcome are we actually trying to produce? In a family, we need agreements that people can understand, support they can use, and the room to speak honestly about the impact. The person with ADHD needs space to describe a real difficulty. The person affected needs space to say, this is costing me. Neither person's experience has to disappear for the other person's experience to count. Curiosity does not require someone to tolerate endless broken agreements. A partner can say, I believe that this is difficult for you, and I can't keep handling it all. That boundary may mean renegotiating responsibilities or changing what they're willing to rely on. Understanding the reason does not obligate someone to stay available for every consequence. And if you have ADHD, someone else's boundaries don't automatically mean that they have to reject your diagnosis. Sometimes it means that the current arrangement is no longer workable. And that's information that we can work with. We need room for why before the argument and after everyone is settled. Why did the task disappear from view? You heard what I said earlier. If I don't see it, I don't own it. Why did I hear a request as an accusation? And why does this keep landing on the same person? Be specific enough that the answer can change the plan. I have ADHD, may explain part of the picture. I heard the request while I was doing something else. I said yes, and I never recorded it. Identifies a point where I can build a different habit. Oftentimes, mine is if you call my name and then assume I'm listening, but you have not seen my eyeballs, assume it is not registering. You have got to make eye contact with me to know that I am downloading what you're saying. For the person who loves you, I know this is difficult. Can be followed by, what are we going to do about it though? For you, I need support, can be followed by, here's the support I'm asking for. Is that something that you can agree to? We are trying to make the next conversation and the next agreement more useful. So maybe we need better sentences than I don't want to hear your excuses. If you're listening, I want to understand what happened and I need us to address the impact. I believe this was difficult. What would help next time? I can hear your explanation, and I also cannot keep carrying the responsibility for you. And if you are the one explaining, I want you to understand the reason, and I know it doesn't erase what happened. I'm getting defensive. So let me start with how this affected you. I need help with this part. I can take responsibility for that part. And if you're talking to yourself, what made this difficult and what can I do with that information? The last sentence gives you somewhere to go beyond calling yourself lazy or stupid for the thousandth time. So the next time, the next time somebody starts to explain, I'm asking you, please listen long enough to find out what the explanation contains. And if you're the person explaining, give yourself permission to look honestly at the reason without using it to dismiss somebody else's experience. You can say, this is what made it difficult. This is what happened on your end. Here is what I can take responsibility for, and here is where I need support. That conversation belongs in the kitchen, in the car after the argument, and with the child who is struggling to tell you what went wrong. It belongs with the person who can run an emergency scene like a pro, but needs help making an ordinary agreement at home work. And it belongs inside your own head when the only explanation you have allowed yourself is that you are a disappointment. Find the actual difficulty, locate your responsibility within it, make the next step specific enough to actually use. There is another hard question waiting after that. What if you understand the reason, mean the apology, build a plan, and the behavior happens again? We're taking that on in the next episode. I'm sorry, and it might happen again. For today, though, start with one moment you keep arguing about. Where did it break down? What would help? And what part can you own? That's all I have for this week. Take care of yourself and be safe out there. After the tones drop is shared for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes. It does not provide therapy, medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. The views expressed are those of the individual speaking. If you need support, please reach out to a qualified professional or emergency services in a crisis. Our theme music is intentioned by Abby Noise, licensed through upbeat.