It’s like being stuck behind a glass wall in my own head - watching myself be stuck unable to do what needs to get done
Artist Source: https://schnumn.com/
I’m right now stuck in a fucked up spot with this. There’s a funeral tomorrow that I need to go to, for myself, my friends, the person who has passed and her family. The past three weeks since she passed, from sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP), has been fucking fucked. I’ve only been able to sleep every two nights, just from exhaustion, but I’ve been fully focused on saving any and all possible energy to get to this funeral. I’m in bed and my downstairs neighbour who moved in a couple of weeks ago has people over and they’re all kinds of fucked up, loud talking, shouting, stumbles, going in and out of the apartment etc. I’ve banged on the walls and the floor but they seem way too gone to even hear it. I should call in a disturbance report but I’m so far from being able to do that, it would fuck my whole night as much as it does just letting them be. I’m so stuck that I’m crying on the inside but unable to do so physically and it’s all just hitting me like a rain of cannonballs. There’s one thing I hope can help, music, but my earpods are in the kitchen and even turning in bed feels too much right now. I don’t know how to het out of this, just stuck.
Just wanted to say I read your post and thanks for sharing. I can’t help directly over the Internet, but I hope that writing it down helped you distance yourself a bit from the frustration.
I get past this by accepting that I’m not going to get everything done, picking the highest priority thing (or whatever I want to do the most if they’re the same) and reframing it as “Everything else can wait, I need to get this done today”. It’s not ideal but it does usually work that least get one thing off the list. Sometimes getting the one thing done will even get the juices flowing to start knocking other things off the list too.
Hah. Imagine being able to tell what is the highest priority or what you want.
Throw a dart at the wall then. The point is to filter as much of the noise as you can and get moving.
I’ve been floundering with this project. They’ve given me some deadlines and as usual my panic centers are lighting up and I’m starting to work on it.
I hate this cycle
Yeah I know that feeling, being the most motivated only by severe pressure of the quickly approaching deadline 😅 How I managed through uni with a good grade is beyond me sometimes lol. Meds helped a bit with that for me though
Why am I not doing them right now?
Because I just remembered you can install Seven Kingdoms II for free on Linux
My life.
just another normal day
Yep, some days better or worse than others. I missed my usual dose time for my Elvanse so today is a no-meds day. Maybe a do little and play Stardew day
I was on amphetamines once and it worked so well, but doctors keep putting me on other shit that does nothing despite I always repeating amphetamines worked…
Damn, why? :( Surely it makes sense to just keep you on the thing that’s been found to work the best. I was once on Methylphenidate at the start of my meds titration which was a non-amphetamine that did work but brought along a good few negative side effects due me so it was agreed to try Elvanse.
The highest dose of that has been perfect for me so I’ve been kept on it…
Hope you manage to get back on the right meds for you soon!
Same, adderall works but my heart rate is going up too much and I take it sparingly. Trying to exercise more and quit smoking (I know, awful) but for now I’m just not taking it and doing my best. Which right now consists of working on a bunch of lemmy scripts instead of studying for pre-nursing, although I’d prefer CS but I’m afraid of the industry and I’m old (43). FML
I feel you on this one. I had to stop my amphetamine medication because it was giving my heart an arrhythmia. Nothing works as well, but my heart. I guess I am just going to be a little more dysfunctional.
Adderall not working for me 😭
Well, for me it’s like that everyday right now. I think I’m having a sever depressive phase. This stuff also occurs as a depression symptom. But that also means it’s not always always like that for me.
And 20:30 again. I should really cook something, do workouts and shower before the day is over 😐
Ah yeah I can understand that. Though I’m thankfully not going through it at this moment, I’m well acquainted with those depressive episodes :/ it definitely adds to the issue…
Be easy on yourself though, may the food and shower be pleasant for you ❤️
we should normalize doing nothing at all. the society’s demand for everyone to be productive at all times is a sickness that must be eradicated.
that’s cool but i still need to do the fucking laundry at some point
Let it become an civilization, and be its god.
I completely agree, but I think there is a balance to be struck if you need to be productive to take care of your living area. I love to do nothing and am proud of that, but I also want a clean kitchen and bathroom.
No, I want to do stuff. I don’t want people to tell me it’s ok to just lay and rot. Occasional moments of respite are good, but not this.
We should not. Make use of your time, and try to be productive as much as possible.
As long as we acknowledge that having downtime, and doing activities for yourself and for your mental health is also productive. Even if that occasionally includes having a day where you’re doing very little and resting.
Burnout and such also reduces your efficiency with other tasks anyways (and can damage mental health). It’s why I disagree with the wording of “people are expected to work like machines” because even machines are given downtime for maintenance. Some people seem to expect other people to work without downtime or self-care in the name of productivity and it’s insane
yeah, better have a self care day than a burnt-out year
Yep exactly! I used to feel guilty when I ever had a day where I did nothing other than eat, shower and game. Now, I look forward to it.
We all need our breaks to recover and recharge for the week ahead and society kinda tries to push us to feel bad about that.
Sometimes I’m working on a project or my job… Sometimes I’m working on/for myself. Still work, just the latter is paid in a different way ✨
Make use of your time to bring joy to yourself and others.
“Productive” is a lie.
What I said is:
Don’t bedrot, be efficient and discover the skill that just clicks with you and keep doing it
I think it was just how you worded it originally that got people mistaken on what you meant haha. I at first assumed you meant the “don’t stop working” kind too… Unfortunately some people do have that way of thinking
But yeah skill development can be fun when we find the right ones for us. I’m an artist and do that in my day-to-day but I’ve always dipped into programming on and off through my life… I wanna soon put some proper effort into learning more than just the basics of a language (and without relying on vibe-coding).
It’s nice to have personal goals
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People thinks of themselves as machine following a spreadsheet plan. In reality we desperately NEED of times like these to just stop, and do…
…not.
…a.
…fucking.
…thing.
I call them burn days.
I’ve burned weeks.
the problem here is that it’s been a single continous moment for my entire life, and there are in fact things that i want to do but it just doesn’t happen.
I hope you’re not saying that it’s good to play minecraft until my body starts screaming at me loudly enough that i finally get off my ass and refill my water bottle? because it’s really not good
In one way, I agree, but unfortunately with Executive Dysfunction it can also affect your need to eat or look after yourself, as your brain just fails to assign or prioritise tasks. It gets really bad for me if I am or was recently overstimulated, or if I’m having a depressive episode.
I’ve had days where all I needed to do was have a shower, go to the shop, eat food then go play a game since it was the weekend. But the dysfunction hit so hard I couldn’t do any of it so just sat staring at a wall for an hour and doomscrolling for another few hours. I’d have preferred to have just played the game, but since that was one of my planned tasks, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Took majority of the day before I could break out of it and get to the shop before they closed. Almost sounds odd when explaining it but the brain is an unusual thing sometimes…
But yeah I do agree that sometimes people work themselves too hard and need to find time to stop and give time to themselves
I’d like you to know you’re not alone, though that knowledge doesn’t help. Some people don’t seem to understand that not everyone is like them–and I feel as if I’m verging into commentary on neurotypicals of which I’m entirely ignorant and uncomfortable about.
I’ve seen it as a term written on the internet and I understand it’s a label for the normative response in a given population. The term makes me resoundingly uncomfortable, because there’s an innate belief there: neurotypical can only exist if there’s an antithesis. I don’t think anyone can prove there exists a neurotypical brain.
I’d been severely isolated during critical developmental-years which I believe created a bias towards isolationist behaviour as an adult. People are already incredibly isolated in industrial-societies and I think that’s abnormal and is a cause of ill-health. An abnormal degree of isolation is normalised producing ill health for the whole population and if that’s true how useful a tool is the label “neurotypical”?
I perceive a lot of “neurotypical” behaviour as a result of authoritarian capitalist-societies and its needs. The need to monitor time and create uniformity are artificial needs of industrial-nations, not a natural phenomenon of the human condition. I think it’s wholly abnormal to have children sit at desks quietly and attentive, yet this is framed as “normal” behaviour and demanded of all citizens typically. This is public-education in an industrious society.
People’s inability to conform to those artificial demands creates an entirely artificial distinction: neurotypical and non-neurotypical. Those that can wrangle themselves into a passing conformity and those that resoundingly can not. That’s how I perceive that sort of language and it makes me uncomfortable when writing about myself or what I think ‘normal’ is.
I don’t have a good reference for what ‘normal’ should be as I know my upbringing was exceptionally isolationist and abusive, but what if that is the nominal normal in industrial-societies? I don’t know and it’s something I can’t really know and I’m skeptical of people who claim to know.
I’ve tried to explain what I perceive to be debilitating “executive-dysfunction” to psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses and allied health professionals yet I’m met with blank gazes and asinine remarks. “Well if you really wanted to you would do it.”
I would have been humiliated had I any self-respect left. It was only after a suicide attempt that I could even talk about the severity of my dysfunction with others. I genuinely thought they were learned people who could render assistance. They’re just people. People who lie; people who don’t believe your statements; people who don’t understand; people who will gaslight you; people who are seeing you just because it’s their “job”. Mental-health practitioners are awful. They treat and speak to you as if you were an imbecile, especially if you present autistically.
The same psychiatrist that told me he can’t prescribe stimulants after I requested them is now prescribing me stimulants, only a year after the request and his bald-faced lie (we both knew it was a lie at that time, but I had no option but to acquiesce and pretend that his lie was true). After he’d run out of ideas and imaginary disorders. Every other drug he prescribed either did nothing that I could perceive or only had negative effects. It’s one thing to read about tardive dyskinesia and it’s another to experience it. You created a year of exacerbated misery for me, because you think it’s appropriate to conduct psychiatry from an office where you meet your patient months apart for less than an hour. Fuck you. You’re a disinterested practitioner and the whole industry operates under malpractice. I’m glad general doctors are authorised to prescribe stimulants now.
You are your only advocate unfortunately. People won’t understand the misery, shame and distress that we suffer.
Right. In some situations, that’s probably the right thing. I’m not sure about OP’s situation, but this comic resonates with me for the following scenarios (among many, many others):
- doing my taxes
- applying for jobs
- making a GP appointment for mental health issues, or literally anything else
- planning my wedding
- doing the laundry
- sending a “happy birthday” text to my brother (literally just “Happy birthday!” and a suitable emoji would do)
In all of these cases, I know what to do, and I want to do it, and I’m able to do it. I just don’t. Somehow, I just don’t. I just can’t get myself to do the thing. If that doesn’t resonate with you, or your immediate reaction is “oh, just do the thing!”, then maybe you’re not the target audience of this comic.
It’s been months. Since perimenopause started it’s been almost impossible to break task paralysis. I went and got diagnosed, got medication, noting is helping. Deal with ADHD before you get old, don’t end up like me.
Damn, have you tried other meds other than the Adderall you mentioned in another comment? If not, it could be the wrong meds for you (Though saying that, I have no clue personally on how much perimenopause adds to the issue, so I’m sorry to hear that 💔)
Hope it gets easier for you though!
I’m giving it another month and then I’ll try something else. It’s my last hope :(
Hope it does improve for you! Did you go through titration (trialing meds at a low dose and slowly increased over the weeks while being monitored) for your meds or did your doctor just give you meds and wave you away? I’ve heard of some people having that happen which sucks…
Like, for me I was on methylphenidate (concerta) at the start of titration and had to report back any side effects (and my blood pressure, weight etc) and each week the dose was increased til the positive effects were the strongest with little/no side effects. I’m pretty sure if I had told them the meds weren’t working at all or not helping much, they’d have taken that as a sign to try a different medication… There’s a lot of different types of ADHD meds and they affect us all differently (or with some, not at all or with negative side effects)
I ended up having some negative effects with methylphenidate, and was switched over to Elvanse and it was a night and day difference with no side effects (for my body - I’m not saying Elvanse will be like that for everyone :p).
Hopefully it’s just the wrong med for you and you find the right one eventually! Good luck :)
I tapered up too, I’m hoping that one will work for me too, I’ve heard several people say it worked for them when others didn’t.
Yeah, it all depends on the person :p it’s been great for me though!
Just throwing it out there, but how’s your sleep?
I have adhd and recently discovered I have sleep apnea as well. I was at wits end before I got my cpap. The combination is a wombo combo for executive disfunction.
Like most neurodivergent people, my sleep is shit and thinly held together with medication and weed. Before my mood stabilizer I really struggled, but it helps me sleep now. Still, I have to sleep much longer than most people and I’m still exhausted all day. Hypervilligance takes it out of my brain.
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Not yet, figured I’d try the medication route first since I had a hormone panel done and it was still reasonably ok. I plan to though, if all else fails. I have a long list of endocrine conditions, I wouldn’t be surprised if it helps more than I think it will.
literally me rn
comp sci project due tomorrow and writing assignment due yesterday but not doing anything bc brain is too drained
That’s rough… Good luck though!
Hopefully you’ll have some possible downtime after the assignments? Even just for a few days or so?
The graphical artifacting of mental illness.
Something something, therapist asking if I’ve dealt with getting a new psych for meds yet… ;-;
make it stop make it stop make it stop make it- Dinosaurs bleed purple halogen and their livers taste of yellow crt static
It’s hard to do normal things when “once in a lifetime” things keep happening all around us. I’m just trying to fold laundry and do dishes, meanwhile Pete Hugsucker is deflecting his ineptitude by threatening a live execution for a paraplegic man, the orange dumpster fire is… being the orange dumpster fire.
Life is hard right now and I’m just becoming more and more grateful I survived another day, even if all I did was couch rot.
Yep, the world sucks at the moment… Gotta do what’s best for us in our smaller/local worlds and take each day at a time
Do what’s best for yourself ❤️
That’s the truth! It used to be if I didn’t get enough stuff done during the day (even if it was a productive day) I felt super guilty and mad at myself.
Now I’m stoked if I remember to chang the laundry loads the same day I wash them ha ha ha!
I still haven’t moved my standing fan from my room back into storage. It’s fall. The heater kicked on a few days ago and I still haven’t moved the fan back…
But the fan can help to distribute the heat better.
Ehhh it makes too much noise and can’t be made to run slower and quieter. I’d rather stash it.
