people keep telling me that i should just "do things"
But i don't think people understand how my brain works. "just doing something" is not something that is possible. The line between me doing something, and me consciously doing something, is very very big. To be honest, i don't even know why i do shit sometimes, i just fucking do it.
minimalism is the best thing that happened to me, not only does it make living with adhd way easier, but i also saves money and is better for the environment!
Honestly it's not good to feel so bad about so little. Just move on and do other stuff you can do and don't just sit there feeling bad about not doing the little cleaning stuff. I feel like it's easier to do the little tasks less often once they got a little bit bigger so the reward from the brain is actually worth the effort.
I guess i just mastered the shrug it off and say who cares technique lol yes i have a big pile of clean clothes on the floor. Who cares. I don't have time for that i'm reading an amazing book rn!!
My partner is newly diagnosed at 40 and while on the surface it seems like he’s a just “shrug it off” guy, he’s not able to fully ignore it - there’s so much inner turmoil. He always feels bad for not doing XYZ and he’s never truly able to enjoy doing something else instead. He can be temporarily distracted by an enjoyable/relaxing activity, but he does care. He always cares. And he never feels like he deserves to enjoy anything when there’s so much to do at home/work/his life. It’s unbelievably distressing. ADHD is a spectrum. I’m so glad that you are able to shrug it off and enjoy other things, but that’s not the reality for all ADHD sufferers.
As a counter to the post putting it rudely, I'm going to try to say what's helped me more nicely. Arguably could be summarized similarly.
If you can, get medicated. It's not a fix-all, and it may take time to find the medicine and dosage that works for you, but I have a lot more success in "adulting" when my brain chemistry is functioning closer to "normal".
Beyond that, try to start accepting any headway as headway. If you can, force yourself to do one thing that will take less than five minutes, and do it right now. Even if it's as small as putting one piece of dirty laundry in the dirty clothes hamper, it's something. Do your best to stop the internal negative self talk that it's not enough. If the alternative was you paralyzed doing nothing, then doing even a small thing is a positive step. Whenever you start spiraling about everything in between where you are and where you feel you should be, try to stop yourself and do one thing that you can do in five minutes or less. No one just leaps to the finish line.
Any progress is progress. If you've ever seen Gurren Lagann, to be cheesy, every small turn pulls the drill forward just a little further.
It's not easy, but if you keep trying you will eventually build habits. They will be far harder won, and far easier to lose, but you can. Most importantly, even if you don't, you will still be in a better spot for trying. Any progress is progress.
And if you mess up, you just messed up. It's not some grand failure in a chain of failures that somehow defines you. That's just negative self talk. There's plenty of people out there managing life worse with far less exacerbating circumstances, I guarantee it. Just keep trying.
Again, far far easier said than done. But just start with any small movement forward you can muster. Then do the next tiny movement forward that you can. And the next. When I'm in a bad state I really really try to focus on the smallest things.
I ate within an hour of when I should, even if it was junk food. I put one glass in the dishwasher, so that's one less dirty one lying around. Etc.
Anecdotally, something I've identified in myself and numerous others I've known with ADHD is the terrible trap of comparing yourself to an idealized concept of yourself.
"If I could just get my shit together, I'd be like this. So I need to work to be like this. But I'm not like this because reasons reasons reasons spiral spiral spiral"
"I know, tomorrow I'll start fresh and tackle all of this as the idealized version of myself that doesn't have motivation/focus/executive processing issues"
If you lost an arm, you wouldn't make plans to take care of things tomorrow with both hands. So don't assume you'll be worthless, but also don't assume you'll magically be motivated to do everything all at once tomorrow. I fall into this trap all the fucking time.
Stop. Take a deep breath. You aren't competing against yourself in perfect conditions, with all your shit together. You aren't competing against your peers and the idea of how they work through a filter of your own eyes where you can't possibly know everything about their situation and internal thoughts.
You're competing against yourself as you are right now. As you were five minutes ago. As you were yesterday. Try to take time and figure out how you specifically work. Identify your limitations and struggles, doing your best to self reflect honestly, without the added failings from depression speaking, and without the added ideas of how good you "could" do. You. As you are. Now.
Then try to structure things in ways that work for you. Not the rest of the world, not how your parents thought things should work, for you and the way you operate right now.
Accept your flaws and personal quirks instead of fighting a constant head on push against them. Work with them, around them.
Then eventually you can start working as often as you can (once a week, once a day) to scoot back the edges of those limitations inch by inch. A lot, maybe most, you'll be stuck with and have to find ways to live with and around over time. Some you can overcome.
But the most important thing is to just try to do something small you can do right now, and accept that any progress is progress.
Brilliantly described. Just one more thing : be kind to yourself.
You are always listening to your own negative self talk and, if you find yourself in a big hole it can become overwhelming as you oscillate between absolutely abusing yourself, trying not to think about it, and giving up.
You wouldn't put up with anyone else treating someone you love that way, don't allow yourself to self-harm that way either.
obviously i haven't read more than like 5 sentences of this because what did you expect posting this to an adhd space, but here's my take:
Make things easy for yourself, and do however much you can whenever you can.
I don't load the entire dishwasher at once, i put in 2-5 dishes at a time whenever i'm in the kitchen.
I keep a trashcan next to my computer so i don't leave trash laying around, it's actively easier to toss it in the bin than it is to put it anywhere else.
I wash or put away dishes as i cook, when they're freshly used you can often just rinse them off, and putting it in the washer now means i don't have to think about it later.
It's something i think you have to experiment with yourself to figure out what works, but i think those 3 things should be quite universal and helpful.
It’s also a spectrum as well some people have different types and people with the same type may have it worse. Some people even technically have ADHD, it’s just the symptoms are so mild it doesn’t really impact them or might as well not have it
in my experience it, for the most part, amplifies some things. Sometimes people have some brain fog and can’t focus, sometimes people take time to process what was said, sometimes people can easily get overstimulated.
But my favorite thing to say is yes those are true, everyone also pees, but when you pee 100 times a day you usually go see a doctor
I've never been diagnosed. I'm an adult and I get along fine, so it's not crippling. But I've always struggled with procrastination and it feels like the amount of mental energy I have to expend to get tasks done is higher than most people. And certain tasks I get to much anxiety about and don't even start them, whereas other people just do it.
Heck, you could even just have some level of anxiety. Aggresively calling one specific set of traits “neurotypical” has led to anyone outside of that needing some kind of diagnoses when in reality the state of the world is kinda fucking destructive towards people’s mental states. The people “just doing it” are largely either also expending a tonne of energy and just afraid to say anything, or made up of the sort of people who just pretend that everything is ok despite all the evidence because they can’t face the harshness of what’s happening. It’s not a desireable place to be, in my opinion, to be the kind of person who can get act like the world isn’t fucked enough to grind out their 9-5 for increasingly little pay.
