I just keep making stupid mistakes. It feels like one step forward, two steps back. Or like, if one part of my life is doing fine, at least one other part of my life is facing a catastrophe.
It's almost like I can only focus on so many responsibilities at once. I don't mean in the moment, like I can't multi-task. I multi-task pretty well actually. It's hard to explain. It's more like I get consumed with a project or a problem, and of course I still manage to go about my daily business, go to work, feed myself, etc., but somehow I'm blinded to thinking about other things that might be important.

I really messed up this time. I accidentally overdrafted my bank account and got $108 in fees. My boyfriend and I had just worked some overtime and thought we could buy a new TV (the one I got when I was 16 just broke) for Christmas. Now that overtime is pretty much gone, and what's left only makes up for a shorter week we had last month.
How did I manage to get that much in fees, you might ask? I forgot that after we paid rent, my bank account only had $30. Maybe I didn't even know how much was in my account. Usually I check how much I have when I deposit cash before writing out the rent check, and from there deduct rent and know how much I have. I don't remember doing that this time. For some reason I assumed I had money in my account. I haven't had this problem in years, I've had a bank account and debit card since I was like 17 and I'm 25! You'd think I'd know how it works by now. But for a year or so I was checking my account at least weekly, since I got an app on my phone that made it easy. But my new Windows phone doesn't have an app for my bank, so I haven't been checking as much. But it's been a long time since I didn't have money left after rent, and had to use only cash.
None of those excuses are really good enough though, for me or my boyfriend. I really don't know how I did this. He says I just need to be more careful, pay more attention. I ask him how I'm supposed to pay more attention to a thought I never had. Not once did I think "hey I should check my bank account", and then just forget to do it. Not once when I was swiping my card did I wonder how much money I had left. It was like I forgot that money doesn't come from nowhere. I don't know how I could have forgotten. I just don't get it. I'm furious with myself, but I've been depressed lately, so any self-anger quickly dissolves into depression.
My boyfriend wasn't that mean about it. I could tell he had to hold back, he must have known how bad I would feel already. When he left the shop to go work at another store he told me to feel better. That's about the best acknowledgement of my pain I can ever hope for from him, it did make me feel better that at least he knows how bad I feel about it.

But I just don't understand why this happens to me. I'll forget about things I should be keeping track of, because I'm worrying about other things. Like this time, I've been focusing on ridding our apartment of cockroaches, and not having a nervous breakdown at work, and deciding which doctor appointments I should try to tackle this month. How come most adults can do all that and not forget anything?
My boyfriend keeps saying it's because I smoke too much pot. But what I keep trying to tell him is that I've always been this way. I'd get in trouble as a kid for not cleaning my room when my parents asked me to, and unlike most kids it usually wasn't because I decided not to do it, or was lazy. I just plain forgot. Which of course my parents didn't believe, and why should they have? Someone asks me to do something, I say "okay", and then sometimes, it just completely falls out of my mind like it never happened, until the moment it's too late. I've always had this kind of problem, and I often get that "am I forgetting something?" feeling. But I can only focus on the immediate. When I'm leaving work for the night and get that feeling, I run down the checklist in my head: did I lock the doors, did I count out the drawer, did I put everything where the night driver can find it, etc. How do I do that with my wider life?
Specifically, how do I remember something I can't remember? This has never made sense to me. Every time I have a problem like this, someone always says, "You just didn't care enough." or "You weren't paying attention." or "You just have to think before you act."
And I think, "Oh, gee, you mean all I had to do was think? I get it now! Next time I forget to think, I'll try to remember to think!"
Am I just being stupid? How does that make sense to anyone??

Another example, from work: I work at a dry cleaners, and if a customer says we've ruined a garment of theirs and wants to be paid, they need to bring the garments back to us. If we do reimburse them, we're basically buying the ruined clothes from them, they don't get to keep them. With my social anxiety, having this conversation with a customer is pretty much the worst thing that happens at my job. I often freeze up, can't remember what I'm supposed to say in this situation, get tangled between trying to be polite and professional, and still do what my boss would want me to. Sometimes my mind just goes completely blank, I stare at my computer screen to stall for time, and then just do whatever I can to get the customer out of the shop as soon as possible. I go on autopilot, fight-or-flight mode. So when a customer came in the other day saying we shrunk her wool pants, I was pretty proud of myself at how I handled it. I remembered to tell her that it was most likely a manufacturer defect, because of course we dry clean anything wool, and in fact only usually launder men's button-down shirts. The system of categorizing dirty clothes into color-coded bags based on their cleaning method or starch level means that there's virtually no chance we accidentally laundered her pants. I explained this politely, sympathized with her predicament of having spent $300 a piece on some nice pants for work, her only nice pants, and now being unable to wear them. I told her I would have to contact the cleaning plant in the morning, since we were already past their hours of operation. I took down all the relevant information I sometimes forget, like brand, price, description, etc. But I forgot to tell her to bring the pants in or we wouldn't be able to do anything. Again, it never entered my mind. I was so focused on navigating this difficult situation, on modulating my tone of voice and facial expressions, to me it feels like walking through a minefield. And again I forgot something crucial.

This kind of thing is why I don't understand when people say I'm smart. I've never met anyone else who has these problems who doesn't have some kind of developmental disability. Except my roommate, who has schizophrenia, so she has an excuse.
When I was a kid, my parents told me I was smart and interesting. I believed them as long as I could. As soon as I hit adolescence though, and started having problems, I completely lost that pride in myself. I'm not sure if it was all at once or over time, I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point when someone told me I was smart, my mind disagreed violently. Every time. I can't hear those words and not think, "Oh if you only knew." I think people assume I'm intelligent because I can write and speak intelligently, and read well. I'm great at critical reading, but somehow, not at using critical thinking on anything other than something written. It's all mimicry, really. I know a lot of words because I read a lot. But I read fiction mostly. Maybe I learn some little philosophical lessons from them, and plenty of words, but they don't teach common sense. As a kid I was good at speaking like an adult because my parents encouraged me to, and because, having been told I was smart and precocious, I wanted people to continue to think that. I never wanted to disappoint an adult, and I've always been hyper-aware of how a person's mannerisms and speech are what people base snap judgments on.
But I don't feel smart anymore. I haven't in years, and when someone says I am I just shake my head, I don't even know what to say anymore. I don't know why I have this problem, and I don't know how I can make thoughts appear in my head without thinking of them in the first place.

I just feel like there must be something really wrong with my brain. And at the same time, I'm honestly afraid that there isn't -- that I really am just a sloppy, careless, ineffective person, with nothing to blame it on.