The AI keyboard for ADHD reply paralysis.

ADHD-related reply failure is mostly an executive-function problem: task initiation, working memory, and time blindness. You intend to answer. Starting the reply is expensive. The ten-minute plan becomes two days. Shame raises the initiation cost again. That is not the introvert pattern of over-simulating tone while the battery drains — if that is you, use KOPY for introverts as a related page, not a duplicate. This page is for activation energy and backlog physics.

KOPY's job in this story is a lower-friction start: copy, generate, light edit, send. The keyboard cannot replace medication, therapy, or a diagnosis. It can remove the blank-page initiation spike that turns a two-sentence text into a project.

What CDC and NIMH actually say (no invented percents)

The CDC treats ADHD as a common neurodevelopmental condition in children and publishes diagnosis and treatment surveillance from parent surveys and claims data. In data collected in 2024 from a national parent survey, CDC reports an estimated 7 million (11.7%) U.S. children aged 3–17 years with a current ADHD diagnosis. See CDC, Data and Statistics on ADHD. CDC also notes that estimates vary by dataset and by state, and that many children with ADHD have co-occurring conditions. Those are child-and-adolescent surveillance numbers. They are not a measure of how many adults miss texts.

NIMH describes ADHD as one of the most common childhood disorders that can continue into adulthood, with symptoms that include difficulty staying focused, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity. On adult figures, NIMH's statistics page reports National Comorbidity Survey Replication estimates: 4.4% current ADHD among U.S. adults aged 18–44 (survey 2001–2003) and an estimated 8.1% lifetime prevalence in that adult age range. See NIMH ADHD statistics. Those adult numbers are older diagnostic-interview estimates, not a 2026 census. Quote them as NIMH presents them. Do not upgrade them into a trendy everyone-has-ADHD claim.

We are not clinicians. If you need assessment, that is healthcare, not a keyboard. The product claim is narrower: initiation friction on messages is a documented-feeling bottleneck for people who already know this pattern, and a two-second stub is a small lever.

Task initiation is the expensive step

Writing a reply is a stack: retrieve context, choose tone, predict consequences, motor-plan typing, hit send. ADHD makes the start of that stack spiky. Tools that add steps — open another app, write a prompt, copy back — raise initiation cost. A keyboard that is already in the field lowers it. That is why we accepted Apple's extension constraints instead of shipping a cute inbox app.

Protocol: when you open a thread, copy immediately, generate immediately, edit one fact, send. Do not mark as unread to do later unless later is a named alarm. Later is how time blindness writes the sequel.

1. Open the message you will actually finish in this standing.
2. Copy it before you reread the whole archive.
3. Generate with a boring tone: Neutral or Professional. Novelty hunting is another stall.
4. Fix names, times, and apologies. Do not regenerate for style.
5. Send. Then you may open the next thread. Not before.

Time blindness and the shame tax

A late reply feels like a new genre: you now owe an explanation for the delay plus the original answer. That doubled task is how backlog becomes immovable. Pre-save, in your head, one honest delay clause: sorry this sat, brain-overload week, answering now. Generate the substance, prepend the clause yourself, send. Do not wait for a perfect account of the lost days. Perfection is initiation poison.

Working memory: if you switch apps to check a calendar, you may never return. Generate the reply with a placeholder time, then check the calendar, then edit once. Or put the calendar on split view if you have it. The keyboard will not remember the tab you left.

Clipboard, Full Access, 70MB — designed for a short session

ADHD sessions are bursty. The extension must launch, read pasteboard, call generate, insert, and die without leaking memory. We target that burst. 70MB is the ceiling we design against. A fat in-keyboard history UI would be a crash and a rabbit hole. Rabbit holes are the enemy.

Allow Full Access is still required to read the copied message through UIPasteboard. Apple's custom keyboard documentation and extension guide describe open access, network, and pasteboard. Enable it once. Do not re-decide every time; decision fatigue is an initiation tax.

Do not copy passwords. Do not use generate as a fidget toy for six regenerations. One stub. Send. If you hate it, you already sent a living message, which beats a perfect ghost.

KPI table: activation versus completion

Editorial KPIs for ADHD messaging. Not a clinical scale. Not CDC prevalence.

Stage	What usually breaks	Keyboard lever	Pass condition
Notice	Notification ignored	None — OS settings, not us	You opened one thread
Start	Blank composer	Copy plus generate	Text exists in the field
Style stall	Regenerate loop	Cap at one generate	You edited facts only
Time slip	I'll do it later	Send now or alarm with a time	No naked later
Shame pile	Delay plus original ask	One delay clause plus substance	Both sent in one bubble

Related reading, not duplicate jobs

For tactics ranked by effort, read ADHD and texting reply paralysis. For rumination, loss aversion, and perfectionism loops that are not ADHD-specific, read the psychology of reply anxiety. That anxiety essay is a different mechanism: high-cost threat modeling on a low-stakes send. You can have both. Do not treat them as synonyms.

Introvert battery protection can coexist with ADHD. If you generate a loop-opening question at midnight, you may complete the ADHD job (you sent) and fail the battery job (you hosted a thread). If both pages apply, use ADHD rules to start and introvert rules to choose Continue versus a close.

What we will not claim

We will not say KOPY treats ADHD. We will not invent adult diagnosis rates beyond what NIMH publishes on that statistics page. We will not round CDC's 11.7% into whatever is convenient. We will not post fake user stories. The honest product sentence: a keyboard stub lowers initiation energy for a reply you already meant to send.

Work threads and personal threads both pile. Work plus Professional for the overdue input request. Social plus Agree for the friend who said you disappeared. The mode switch is cheaper than inventing a persona from a blank field. If you cannot choose a mode, pick Neutral and send. Neutral is the ADHD default for a reason: it completes.

Body doubling helps some people start. A keyboard is a weak form of it: there is already text in the field, so the task is no longer create from nothing. It is still a solo tool. If you only reply when a friend is on the call, keep that. Use KOPY inside that window so the window produces sent messages, not six regenerated jokes.

Object permanence for chats is ugly: if it is not on screen, it is gone. Widgets and unread badges help some people; they panic others. KOPY does not manage badges. If you open the keyboard, complete one send. A generate without a send is a fidget that looks like work.

Hyperfocus can invert the problem: you write a three-page voice-note transcript reply at 2am. That is still ADHD, just not initiation. Cap length. Neutral, five lines max for personal, three for work unless they asked for a spec. Completion includes stopping.

Medication timing, sleep, and meals change initiation more than any keyboard. We will not pretend otherwise. Use the stub when the window is open. Do not wait for the ideal neurochemical hour to craft the ideal sentence. The CDC and NIMH pages are about prevalence and care systems, not about your 4pm crash. For care, go to clinicians. For the unread green dot, copy and generate.

If the pile is public posts on X, initiation is still the issue but blast radius is not. Do not speed-send a ratio magnet because you were optimizing for completion. Completion on public networks has a regret tail. Private messengers are the right first arena for this protocol.

Interest-based hyperfocus can make you answer a hobby Discord for an hour while the one text from a partner sits. That is prioritization, another executive function. KOPY will happily generate in the hobby channel. Put the partner thread first in the standing. One send there, then you may raid-reply. The keyboard has no priority queue. You do, if you name it before you globe-switch.

If a generate fails because of network or Full Access, do not open a second AI app to finish. That is a new initiation stack. Type the Neutral sentence you already had in mind, even if it is ugly. Ugly sent beats elegant unsent. Then fix settings later, not in the shame window. Settings are a separate task with its own start cost; do not glue it to the reply.

External accountability can be a timer, not a person. Two minutes on a clock, one copied message, one send. When the timer ends, you are done with that standing even if twelve chats remain. Partial completion is still completion. Clearing the entire badge in one sitting is a fantasy that recreates the pile. Stop at the timer. Start the next standing later with the same protocol, unchanged.