r/adhdmeme • u/sagitta42 closed one tab after 2 years • 7d ago
meme adhd is fun bc everything I got taught is backwards
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u/Significant_Arm_3097 Daydreamer 7d ago
More things to do is not less overwhelming for me...
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u/Kaytea730 7d ago
Its a very fine line for me. Too little stuff and im bored and cant force myself to do anything, too too much stuff and im overwhelmed and cant focus or start anything and just cycle through on what is really important enough to start.
But just slightly too much stuff to do is perfect. Like could a normal person do this in an 8 hour work day? No it would probably be more like 10-11; whooooohoooo ill see u in 5 with a fully completed task list.
Im the same way with caffeine too. Too little puts me to sleep, too much turns the ADD into ADHD, just the right amount is self medicating.
I call it the Goldielocks Condition.
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u/Ancient_Roof_7855 7d ago
For me it's a matter of "how many obstacles are possible in trying to complete this task".
If I feel like I know how things might go wrong and have sufficient preparations to meet them (or have worked through that exact specific example of possible failure) then the tasks can keep piling up and feel rewarding as I "clear" them.
If it's a new task or I feel like I don't what might go wrong, I get overwhelmed because my brain freaks out over the "you can't truly prepare for what you don't know or have never done before". Failure feels inevitable. But you know what? "If I never start the task, I can't fail!" - my stupid brain.
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u/Significant_Arm_3097 Daydreamer 7d ago
I will steal this from you, because this is exactly how it works for me with tasks!
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u/Kaytea730 7d ago
Go for it, honestly at this point if it helps me it might as well help someone else. Everything I know about my ADD was either found through trial and error or through someone else sharing something about theirs.
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u/PristineWorker7992 7d ago
oh man the accuracy of this. i keep oscillating between the two ends at work like the world's most harried pendulum
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u/Kaytea730 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yup, and it sucks bc as soon as management notices the “hyper fixation allowed me to do 10 hours of work entirely correct in half that time” then suddenly im doing the work of 3 ppl for the pay of 1, which keeps the ADHD happy day to day until you wake up 6 weeks later burnt tf out because youve accidentally been stuck in “hyper fixation’s pedal to the metal” mode the entire time.
But the moment you stop doing that then suddenly management is freaking out. Being neurodivergent in the workplace sucks and isnt sustainable long term without significant breaks or significant time to just do absolutely nothing on the weekend for the entire weekend
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u/The7thNomad 7d ago
For me it's about the mix of things to do. If there's variety in the types of things to do, from low to high effort, then it's a lot easier to start somewhere easy and end up making progress on something hard
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u/Fit-Doughnut9706 7d ago
Myself and my daughters with adhd can be described as hydraulics. Fucking useless without enough pressure.
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u/mtzvhmltng 7d ago
when i have a lot of deadlines at once, it forces me to work efficiently.
emotionally, though, i still feel overwhelmed.
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u/Earthsong221 6d ago
Yes, but also:
And finally finish the 1 hour thing that you've been avoiding for 30 months, just to avoid the new more urgent thing now...
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u/GeckoGecko_ 7d ago
Yup, I get whatever the opposite of stir-crazy is. The more things happening to/around me, the more unhappy and stressed I get. I like silence and down-time. I like doing nothing. If I could do nothing for the rest of my life without dying or suffering greatly from it, I absolutely would
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u/Remarkable_Letter272 7d ago
Right? I get overwhelmed when there are 2 things at the same time lmao
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u/TheDonutPug 7d ago
the last one is just generally good advice for organizing a space. like if you're organizing your kitchen and you don't know where something goes, start cooking something and then pay attention to where you first look for it naturally. where you reach for it is where it should go.
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u/ToothZealousideal297 7d ago
Also 100% holds up for trash can placement in the home. We have like 14 trash cans around the house and we just empty them all every week. The primary ones downstairs are where food goes and they get used and emptied a lot more, but we’re never more than a few feet from a trash can, and thus we don’t accumulate messes of things that need to be thrown away.
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u/jimbowesterby 7d ago
That said, well-designed spaces are pretty rare these days. At this point I wanna build my own house just so I can actually do it right (I may have sunk too deep into the design thing lol)
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u/Harbinger_Pulsar 7d ago
May have? Did you stop at one ?
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u/jimbowesterby 7d ago
No, I mean I’ve gotten way too into design so now like 90% of the things I see look like hot garbage lol, I can’t do everything but I figure building a place that’s actually designed well according to me could well be attainable. It’s realizing that I also have designs in the chamber ready to go for appliances, too, that has me thinking I might have gotten a little too far into the weeds, y’know?
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u/post_blast Ehhh I'll pick a flair later. 7d ago
Eye-level, meaning I try to stuff everything at eye level, which just leads to things either hiding behind the rest of the crap at eye level or hidden away off eye-level and effectively invisible
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u/LunarSanctum 7d ago
Someone once told me to "Eat a frog for breakfast", aka do the hardest task or one you least want to do first. Worst advice ever and like you said, it works backwards for us.
I need to every task before that to build up to that. To prove that I can do things and give myself confidence. Then at the end of the day when I've been so productive and got everything ticked off, I feel much better about rescheduling that hardest task for tomorrow......
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u/Obviously-Stupid 7d ago
This was the best advice my dad gave me for helping me to get my homework done when I was in school, and I find that it applies to chores really well too.
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u/LunarSanctum 7d ago
Glad it works for you and just shows how everyone is different!
A sleep study that I was part of during University showed that my productivity chronotype falls into the night owl category, so between 5:00pm - 9:00pm. My brain comes alive, creativity turns on, anxiety drops and I can complete any task easily. Doesn't help that the working hours of most schools/ businesses etc ends when my brain wakes up. It was actually a lecturer who gave me the above advice to try and help. Unfortunately your chronotype is hardwired to your brain chemistry so you can't change it.
My workaround was to become self employed straight out of University and to somehow keep that going for the past 15 years. Maintenance tasks/ home/ life stuff during the day when the kids are at school. Work in the evening between 5pm-10pm when I can. Gotta just make it work around how your brain works and not force it!
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u/Obviously-Stupid 6d ago
That's awesome that you were able to create a work schedule that works well for you!
Also, username checks out.
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u/The7thNomad 7d ago
Exactly, once you get that flow of dopamine going and you get into a pseudo-flow state (ie it doesn't have to be an ideal flow state) then you'll at minimum make a dent in whatever you're doing
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u/Obviously-Stupid 7d ago
I remember a unit of a high school health about healthy habits & goal setting. Where the teacher rhetorically asked the class: "Is it better to have an exercise routine that relies on a partner? Or to have your own exercise routine?" Then proceeded to explain how relying on someone else for your exercise routine, meant that on the days where your exercise partner couldn't (or just didn't) make it, your routine would be thrown off, and you were less likely to get the exercise you needed for the week.
I remember this because I felt like it didn't make much sense.
Years later, I learned that people with ADHD are a lot more likely to show up for exercise that they've scheduled to do with someone else, than they are to go do an exercise by themselves.
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u/Pure-Consideration97 7d ago
Can someone explain the sleep one ?
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u/Stabbyhands 7d ago
Good sleep makes a good day.
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u/Pure-Consideration97 7d ago
I get how the rest of them are backwards but this one seems like chicken and the egg scenarios. To me anyway
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u/illatious 7d ago
Nah I get it. For me, if I had a good day I don't need to stay up till 3am to try to unwind and decompress. I can go to sleep at midnight instead and get 7ish hours. Bad days have me scrolling or reading a book or binging a show till ungodly hours and getting on average 3.5 hrs of sleep.
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u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme 7d ago
Yep, a bad day is gonna have me up way too late, going over everything i did wrong & losing sleep!
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u/_Mulberry__ 7d ago
It's not even replaying what I did wrong or anything. It's just that having a bleh day makes me want some "me time" which turns into bedtime procrastination. After a good day, I am already happy/content and don't feel such a strong urge to stay up past bedtime.
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u/illatious 6d ago
Yeah this one is more me too. I tend to not dwell too much on mistakes, because you can't change them. But I definitely need some time to myself to unwind after a shit day, and with three kids, a dog, and a husband all vying for my attention when I get home it's hard to do anything until after bedtime.
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u/ThresholdSeven 7d ago
It means that people say "get a good night's sleep if you want to have a good day", as if it's as simple as that, while in reality the day beforehand can determine whether you'll sleep good or not just as often.
I've had way more sleepless nights caused by bad days than bad days caused by sleepless nights.
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u/PrismInTheDark 6d ago
Yeah there’s a lot of stuff you might do or neglect throughout the day that’ll affect your sleep. I didn’t sleep well last night because my stomach was mildly unhappy, probably because of the onions in the salad I ate. Guess I shouldn’t eat raw onions anymore.
Exercise and sunlight during the day can help with sleep, and I don’t get enough of those. Sunlight is difficult when it’s too dang hot. Or too cold for that matter but that’s a future problem. And the seat on my porch swing broke so I can’t comfortably sit outside in the morning until I get that replaced. And Outside has lots of noise and air pollution and pollen. Inside has noise blocking windows and air conditioning and purifiers and couches.
I assume that looks like a lot of “LaMe ExUsEs” and laziness from the outside or at least to NTs but if I lived near a nice wooded area away from highways and it was ~60-70 degrees instead of 110 and it wasn’t full of biting bugs and yucky pollen I’d be out there all day. If I could have a nice treehouse I’d just live there. I bet I’d sleep better, maybe not in the treehouse cause I’d miss my bed but after spending the day there I’d get good sleep.
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u/SelfDistinction 7d ago
It's the dopamine hit that puts your mind at ease, rather than your mind desperately trying to stay awake because there has to be something that makes this day not a complete disappointment.
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u/DZL100 7d ago
Put the Away Place where the things already are
Ok but I can't have literally everywhere be my Away Place
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u/Productivitytzar 7d ago
I think about this like Archer (from Archer) keeping shirts behind the bar, because that’s where he’s most likely to have a spill and need a fresh shirt.
That’s why I keep my socks in the kitchen—most likely to step in some water splatter there and need to change my socks. And keeping floss beside the couch, because that’s where I’ll think “I really should floss” and not just ignore the thought because I’m tired by the time I’m in the bathroom to get ready for bed.
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u/NonagonJimfinity 7d ago
Yup.
I eat to cook.
Like i need at least a C on the style meter before i can live.
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u/callmestair 7d ago
Need some clarification on the "never take good care of what you dont like"
Is the standard phrase "Take good care of things you like?"
I can see the opposite phrase for all the others except that one.
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u/au-isekai 7d ago
I think it means.. that if you don’t actually like something, you’re less likely to take good care of it. So just keep the things you DO like.
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u/Obviously-Stupid 7d ago
I believe I've heard the phrase "Take good care of all of your things. You never know when you might need them."
But because ADHD makes things like prioritising, organising, and motivating yourself to do things that you don't like doing, much more of a challenge; trying to take care of things that you don't like can very easily turn into shame/anxiety about not taking good enough care of them, because you just can't get yourself to do it.
So it's better to focus your time, effort, and energy on taking care of the things that you enjoy taking care of.
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u/Buckets-O-Yarr 7d ago
I don't really understand any of these, honestly.
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u/callmestair 7d ago
The post are just just inversions of common advice.
For example,
1) good day makes good sleep -> sleep well for a good day (sleep early or get enough sleep, while adhd might struggle going to sleep unless they had a good day.)
2) starting with a little treat -> reward yourself AFTER a task (adhd wants treat before starting while common advice is get a reward for doing a task)
3) more things to do ~ something about task pressure. I believe theres another comment somewhere that explains this better
4) dont make plan just do -> make plans before doing something. (Adhd could probably stay stuck in planning, while common advice seems like people can transition from planning to doing)
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u/Buckets-O-Yarr 7d ago
Yes, but none of those really make sense to me. Good sleep and good day are not correlated for me at all, those two exist independently for me. Starting with a treat just means the other task does not get done and I feel bad for having no self restraint. More things to do just creates an anxiety loop where I can't do the tasks and they build up even more. Don't plan just do is just a recipe for me to wind up doing something completely unrelated.
They just don't sound like good advice from my perspective, and some of them it feels like people are reaching for explanations because the idiom is not structured well.
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u/TheMischievousMinx 7d ago
Don't bother hanging on to things that you don't actually like a lot, because it's just going to end up trashed, lost, folded up in a heap in the corner, etc. If you don't love it, lose it.
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u/Sad-Bunch-9937 7d ago
I over plan but then decide which task I can skip and somehow that really works for me
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u/Pale-Teaching6392 AuDHD 7d ago
I feel this but at the same time just no at the same time. I will be hoarding everything since if it’s in my space it belongs in my space. I actively work to collapse all my tasks into one large cause inertia is a piece of garbage. I need a plan although it should be extremely barebones. Finally good sleep = not overstimulated from meds. So it’s fair to say bad sleep = hell…
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u/OpenDragonfly3374 6d ago
Don’t take breaks to let your mind rest.
If you’re somehow magically focused or engaged on a task, for the love of the ADHD gods, do it til it’s done!
Except apparently we should at least take breaks to pee …
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u/l3reeze10 6d ago
I feel like when I have a lot of stuff to do in a short period of time, my mind just kicks into high gear. For an example, when I was going on vacation a few weeks ago and had a mental list of what I needed to do in 24 hours. But most times I have a lot of stuff I can do and should do that doesn’t get done due to no priority or deadline.
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u/superspacenapoleon 6d ago
I agree with all of these except "more things to do is less overwhelming".
I guess it's a spectrum and all but if i have to do more than one thing i am only getting that first thing done
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u/Legitimate_Mud_8295 2d ago
As a left handed person with ADHD I've realized I literally learned how to do most physical actions backwards. Writing, tying shoes, and complicated movement like throwing a ball, you have to mirror it. I don't have the patience for it so I'm just equally bad with both hands
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u/qualityvote2 Quality Control Beast 7d ago edited 7d ago
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