I Have ADHD, and Two-Factor Authentication Is Ruining My Life

Today is my 37th birthday, and if I could have one gift — no wrapping required — it would be the complete and total abolition of two-factor authentication.

I know. Cybersecurity. Identity theft. I've heard the arguments. I'm not unreasonable. I just also have ADHD, which means the gap between the text with your code has been sent and me actually locating my phone, unlocking it, finding the text, reading the six digits, switching back to the original app, and entering them before they expire is... not always a gap I can close in time. I have requested new codes while the original codes were still technically valid. I have, on at least one occasion, given up entirely and just not paid that bill.

This is not laziness. It's a working memory thing — ADHD brains genuinely struggle to hold information across interruptions, which is, unfortunately, the entire premise of two-factor authentication. You disengage, reorient, hold the number in your head, switch back, and somewhere in that shuffle, the thread is gone. The code has expired. You are back at square one.

There's a specific kind of ADHD tax nobody talks about: not the big stuff, but the thousand tiny friction points that make ordinary life feel like an obstacle course designed by someone who has never lost their train of thought mid-sentence. Two-factor authentication is just the hill I'm choosing today, on my birthday, because I deserve to.

Thirty-seven feels like the age where you're allowed to say that out loud. So: happy birthday to me, please send cake, and for the love of God, just let me log in.