If you notice it’s dirty, don’t conclude that you have to clean. Instead, because you’re noticing, you should conclude you want it to be clean. That obviously requires you to do some cleaning, but it’s something you want, not something you’re forced to do.
I’ll actually try this right away tomorrow morning when I get to do my work, concluding that I want to get shit done because of my bad-conscience-induced stomach ache.
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!
No worries, friend. That’s why I didn’t just delete and ban you. It’s mostly for people who come in here and think ADHD just completely does not exist and every meme here is just pointless. Those people need to go, obviously.
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.
it’s possible it’s not just ADHD, ADHD existing with something else that can cause you to not care about this kind of thing is definitely a possibility.
Or it could be something else entirely, leading to the inability of caring, which then leads to ADHD symptoms. That’s very possible.
ADHD itself is a spectrum, but ADHD also has increasingly significant comorbidity with autism, and that’s probably not a fluke. The chances that you have one neurodivergent trait alone is low, the likelihood that you have at least a couple diverging traits, which have been basketed together, are much higher.
I’ve seen lots of people with ADHD that get almost violently defensive over how much of a problem their ADHD is, and i get it, not being able to do shit sucks, but i’ve also seen people like me who show ADHD traits, but don’t really give a shit. Because we just lack the capacity to “want” a normal life, that isn’t fraught by ADHD, all we’ve ever lived is ADHD, and if we’re coping find, and it doesn’t bother us, why bother spending more time somewhere that isn’t going to benefit us. That’s different from person to person, and that’s just how it is.
I would like to point out how the original post here expresses “i feel like” which demonstrates that it’s how they feel about it. And i mean to be clear, they aren’t exactly wrong, you shouldn’t be distressing over it. Maybe that means making it a non problem, or maybe it means ignoring it, it’s up to the person.
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.
How’s your appetite. I take 36mg Methylphenidate XL and although I can adult a bit better but man I can’t eat for shit. I’ll be starving but can’t bear chewing.
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.
Thank you very much, y’all! I don’t have ADHD, I “only” suffer from depression… I sometimes have a look in ADHD-posts though, as I read some symptoms can be similar and I actually can see myself in many posts. This is very helpful for me. First, because I can see there are others who understand the struggle but also getting hints how to reframe the situation or how to challenge a certain kind of mindset. The last days were hard for me, couldn’t get anything done and didn’t know why… So, once again, this helps to understand myself and have some self compassion.
Having worked with some impressive leaders, they always make a point of celebrating every step forward. I’ve seen them correct people who say “it wasn’t a big deal, it was this one small thing I did”. No - every step matters, because the full achievement is brought about by all these small steps. This is also part of what drives systems like Kanban - measuring and acknowledging each of the small bites required to eat an elephant.
So it’s not just neuro-atypical ADHD folks who need this, which I think is a great point to make.
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.
That’s an issue for most everyone, and an issue that even adhd people can overcome. Let go of your instant little dopamine drip and pick stuff up for an hour, non-stop.
It’s not about the distraction. I can throw my phone across the room and still not be able to get up. I can remove all distractions, and I will still stare off into space and not get anything done.
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.
While not exactly false, there’s astronomically better ways to put this. Plus the fact that momentum doesn’t always work reliably or consistently for people with ADHD.
You can augment your behavior with compensation strategies and exercise, supporting dopamine production. This meme is more related to crippling anxiety which sometimes presents as a symptom of ADHD,l.
Look, you’re obviously not just some random person who doesn’t understand how this shit works. You aren’t wrong. But you are being a monumental fucking asshole.
Maybe you’re one of the rare few where this sort of hard talk helped you, but for the overwhelming majority of people they aren’t going to get anything helpful to them from the way you’re posting.
If you wanted to gloat about how you’ve managed to get over this shit while bullying people who are still struggling, congrats you did it with aplomb.
If you were hoping to do literally anything else you’ve failed.
All you’re doing is coming in and declaring it a personal problem to suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain. This is the very first comment here that you’ve even touched on coping strategies or anything other than “lol, stop being lazy and just try you sack of shit”.
There absolutely is a lot of learned helplessness in ADHD and other neurodivergent communities online, and an increasing trend of it in online spaces in general. It bothers the hell out of me too.
This is absolutely not the fucking way to respond to it.
I’d posit that a lot of your abuse here is just externalizing your own negative self talk. Be better to others and to yourself, you festering dickhead.
You’re not wrong. That guy was being a dick and he also had some good points. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and more people need to learn that being blunt isn’t the same thing as being incorrect. People shouldn’t be required to predict how you will respond when they’re making a point. Granted, it’s certainly easier to be convincing when you’re not alienating your audience by the way you structure your argument but sometimes, especially on the internet, it’s much easier to jump right to the point than to spend the time listing out all the potential caveats to what you’re saying. It’s just as easy to make an attempt to understand the overall point as it is to choose to get hung up on the way something is worded. People just choose the latter because it makes dismissing the point being made easier.
Honestly though the most interesting thing about this thread is that his comments got removed and all the comments telling him to go fuck himself are still up. That seems like inconsistent moderation to me. Either let people speak their mind or encourage civil discourse evenly.
While I personally do find a level of success starting something - after starting, continuing is much easier - that doesn't mean that the difficulty I have with starting things is laziness.
Oh my god really? Oh thank you so much! I just had to start doing it! Holy shit! Incredible! Astounding! You will surely be rich and famous. Have you heard of Oprah? Talk to her! Maybe she can give you your own show with nonsensical useless opinions that demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge on the subject and a tacit hostility to anything you don’t understand!
Pick a random direction to off and proceed to fuck in that direction, please.
Listen Mr. Big Brain, I have ADHD and I keep a messy home, don’t like it per say. But it’s certainly not a matter of laziness, I’m interested in what I desire the most. I follow that, this has led me to career in the military, through college (thanks hyper focus as a symptom), learning languages, learning to program, embedded IoT design, fitness, and so many other beautiful things.
Yeah, I guess it sucks knowing you can fuck off at will, however I’d rather have my inconsistent adhd with unlimited energy than whatever you have going on that’s led to your shitty behavior.
Sorry my floor is cluttered, it’s quite literally so low on my totem pole that it’s barely a concern, but sure keep deriving your vain superiority from that.
I have clinical depression, so I’m essentially an amalgamation of 1st and 2nd pick. I know, it’s a mess, I’m not okay with it, but when I eventually clean, I still feel like shit because it doesn’t solve my problems. The devious thing is that I’m fully aware beforehand that tidying up and cleaning will not make a difference, but while doing it, I have that naive hope that it will.
The amount of times I’ve heard “just go to therapy” or the even less helpful “just look at the bright side of life” is staggering. People really seem to think I enjoy hating myself and hoping that I don’t wake up tomorrow.
Oh, another fun argument is “look at some horrible shit that happened to someone, you have it way better”. I’m sorry that seeing others’ misery does not make me feel better.
That’s why I like Unfuck your Habitat. There was a blog, a book and an app.
It talks about how cleaning is morally neutral, and doing something is better than doing nothing. I don’t have any affiliation but I find that 20/10s (or even 10/20s where you clean for 10 and break for 20) allow just enough measurable progress for me to feel as though I’ve accomplished something, to put the “you’re useless” thought to bed.
Of course this doesn’t help if you’re not ready for it, but know that you’re not a bad person for having a messy living space. I’m sorry that your disorder makes things hard for you.
for me a pretty big thing that helps is keeping a space that’s easy to keep clean. Segmenting things, and making storage of them super trivial. The less time i have to spend cleaning something up, the less messy it’s going to be in general.
look at some horrible shit that happened to someone, you have it way better
I hate this more than anything… Yes I get that people are literally dying. Now I hate myself on my normal level of hating myself and I hate myself for not being able to be happy when there are people literally dying right now. Thanks.
My cousin was always the “there are children starving in Africa” types. It doesn’t ever help. Just don’t.
As a fellow adhder yer right tho. I’m literally laying in the middle of my filth right now haha but since I’m going for coffee downstairs anyway, I’m going to take down four glasses as well! Because you’re right!
And ignorance is no excuse for being blatantly rude.
Some days it’s this way and a ton of mental work, others can be simple to start, but counting efficiently is near impossible, so at the end you’ve worked on cleaning all day, but it’s still messy.
Just starting somewhere is the correct call (though I’d rephrase it as “Start anywhere”) but I wouldn’t call not doing it laziness
There’s a decision paralysis that’s really hard to overcome on where to start
I know it sounds silly, but it’s really a major hurdle
The more times you make it past the initial hurdle by “starting anywhere” the easier it becomes to get past that initial hurdle
I find breaking things into much smaller tasks helps a lot. I personally make actual physical lists so I can cross things out as I go because it’s more satisfying to cross things off and it’s easier to not get distracted.
For example: Cleaning my room is the major task but it’s too big and full of choices; cleaning 3d prining corner, organize shelf, vacuum, clean my desk, etc. I’m going to grab 1 minor task from it, cleaning my desk.
The minor task of “cleaning my desk” can be broken down further into so many sub-tasks; Put books back on shelf (this can be broken up as well due to how things are sorted and the variety on my desk), put dishes in sink (can lead to other minor tasks), sort mail into 2 piles, throw away junk mail, put important mail into filing cabinet, put tools back in toolbox, wipe down monitors, etc, etc.
Breaking tasks into smaller pieces makes those initial hurdles easier to overcome and also makes “starting anywhere” easier. Not to mention there’s the dopamine spike of completing those little tasks.
Also learning to accept that sometimes the major task you want to accomplish is too large for one day helps.
It’s hard (trust me I know) but it’s worth it in the long run to get practice doing it.
I know man. I’m nearly 40. At 20 I would have never guessed I could be motivated to do things beyond my immediate needs and wants. I honestly thought it was a character flaw that I was stuck with. Not that I’m perfect now, but the progress I’ve made is eeally a testament to how much I’ve grown up.
All through my 20s I thought everyone struggled with motivation like I did but after working on it for awhile and being medicated it’s like going from life at legendary difficulty to hard mode.
It’s so much easier, though I still wouldn’t call it easy.
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