The Why of It
I've been thinking a lot about why I write this blog.
The essence of it is this:
When I lived alone and wasn't
diagnosed with ADHD yet, I would have these weekend mornings where I'd
wake up in a flurry of thinking. I was SO in my head that I basically
didn't, well, kinda realize that the world was there, and that I was in
it. When I would notice that I was sitting in bed thinking I'd try to
come up with what to do that day, to get me out of bed, and what would
happen is go through my day, my to do list; I kind of imagine I was
visualizing things the way you're supposed to if you want to reach some
goal, except that this kind of intention or energy wasn't behind it; I
didn't MEAN to visualize going to do some mind-numbing list of errands,
I'd just do it in my head. And on the one hand, once I had done it in
my head, the task became too boring to BE ABLE to actually do. And on
the other hand (or at the same time), while I was doing stuff in my
head, I would forget over and over again that I was still sitting in
bed. This was exhausting.
When people hear "can't get out of bed" they pin it on depression, and
I was in fact diagnosed with depression – but that was without enough
information, i.e., that I actually have ADHD, predominantly inattentive
type. No, what I was having wasn't run of the mill depression and I
think that diagnosis was just confusion- because the only reason I
"couldn't get out of bed" was that I couldn't get out of my head and
into the world. If someone were to call me and ask me to meet them
somewhere I could pop right out and get going.
I think the fact that I didn't know what was going on made it way, way
worse. And very isolating and lonely. And people meant to help (such as therapists) were not so helpful.
It
is this kind of experience that I want to shed light on. It is so
crippling and so huge. And I have an inkling that I'm not the only one.
Jan 14, 2009 @ 12:43:58
Oh, this explains so much! I just lay there like a sack of potatoes. It seems, for me, abstractly deciding to do something then doing it, is hard when I just wake up. In the non-existential sense, there is simply no reason to get out of bed. Sure there are things to do but they all seem equally important, nothing jumps out and says “oh you need to do this.”
Nov 28, 2009 @ 17:27:41
Thank you for writing this post, you are definitely not alone in experiencing this! It is so hard for me to get going in the morning, because, as you stated, I’m just not aware of the rest of the world out there. And something imagined in my head is almost as real to me as if I was actually doing it. Now that I live alone and am self-employed, I have so few anchors to the world outside my head that I don’t get pulled out of my own space very frequently. Which feels both great and terrible at the same time.
Dec 11, 2009 @ 17:06:10
Boy, this really hit home. —-“No, what I was having wasn’t run of the mill depression and I think that diagnosis was just confusion- because the only reason I “couldn’t get out of bed” was that I couldn’t get out of my head and into the world. If someone were to call me and ask me to meet them somewhere I could pop right out and get going.”—- I could never understand why I would be able to get it together to meet people/do things but when alone I couldn’t manage to get out of bed.
I appreciate your posts – thank you.
Jan 27, 2010 @ 04:03:52
I am really happy to have come across your website, and especially this post. I have only recently figured out that I have inattentive adhd, at 29, and reading about other people’s experiences has been shocking (in a good way). I had no idea other people had these exact same issues. You just described a typical morning for me, and my general decision making process! If I don’t have somewhere to be first thing in the morning, I will spend hours thinking things through thoroughly before I can decide what to start with. When making decisions, I cope by relying on default- other people’s decisions or extraneous events, even when it is something simple. I can’t even decide which coffee shop to go to some weekends, and spend hours deciding, when it really doesn’t matter. Thank you for making me feel like less of a crazy person!
Jan 27, 2010 @ 04:06:21
also, just wanted to say that the comments about imagining going through the day’s activities before doing them, and feeling exhausted after, really hits home too!
i have always had this thing where i do that when i wake up, but i generally do it- i imagine doing all of these things- completing tasks- and then i imagine it so thoroughly that, although i know i haven’t completed it, it feels like i have from the labour of thinking it through- and i often forget to actually follow up, because once i’ve thought about it, it feels done.
anyone else experience this?
Jun 07, 2011 @ 09:51:09
@sren: “i often forget to actually follow up, because once i’ve thought about it, it feels done” – I know exactly what you mean!! I do this all the time, it’s almost like I’m unable to distinguish between something I’ve thought about and something I’ve actually done, at least on a less conscious level. Sometimes this gets me into big trouble, as I’ve been known to say “yes” when people ask me if I’ve done something, thinking I have when I actually haven’t (this is more likely to happen if they ask me when I’m not fully paying attention).
Obviously when I really think about it I can generally work out whether I’ve really done the thing or just thought about it, but for the purposes of that vague mental todo list that you have floating around in your head it’s far to easy to just think of the task as having been done. This makes me even less productive than I might otherwise be as clearly it’s a good idea to have thought about things before doing them, yet if I do this it’s like I’ve mentally checked off that item on my task list! Annoying catch-22 situation