Me and ADHD

Pacing myself

So, after thinking my way through how to have fun in the meantime while I’m working on longer projects, I ended up getting way more done yesterday than I would have predicted.

Several of the yard work projects I thought would take a long time actually could be completed fairly quickly even though I was working on them in bits and pieces and taking plenty of breaks.

I did lots of reading and thinking and relaxing yesterday in between short work sessions tidying up the yard and the house and I felt really good about it.

BUT

Once again, I forgot that today comes after yesterday.

After an intense day of doing AllOfTheThings yesterday, I needed to take a closer look at today’s schedule and take things a bit easier.

I didn’t do that.

And despite waking up a bit tired and achy, I really thought I would be able to just dive into my work this morning.

My brain utterly refused to dive in.

So, instead, I have been drinking tea, reading my book, puttering around organizing things, and just generally taking it as easy as I can without giving it too much thought.

And that’s working out just fine. 🙂

I really have to learn to remember that yesterday comes right before today and that today comes right before tomorrow.

That would be very useful to have top-of-mind.

Learning to find more fun in the middle of things

It’s always hard to tell if my approach to things come from ADHD or just my personality.

On the one hand, it doesn’t really matter one way or another, I have to approach things the way I approach them at least until I find a different way that I like better.

But, on the other hand, if my approach frustrates me, it would be useful to know whether it is ADHD or just some habit I picked up along the way or some habit I developed as an adaptation to living with ADHD.

Take for example my approach to getting yard work done today.

I know that my reluctance to get started is due to ADHD so I have developed some workarounds for that – setting clearly defined small tasks that I can quickly check off my list. My brain still resists but I have a fair bit of evidence that this does actually work so most of the time I can coax myself to do the thing.

And I know that my reluctance to stop once I get started is an ADHD thing, a kind of task hyper focus that just wants me to get it the end so I can *really* be done not “just” done for today.

But how about my challenges with ongoing or longer term projects like house or yard maintenance?

Today, for example, I am outside cleaning the yard – raking, getting rid of lawn debris, picking up litter than has blown into my yard.

I can see that my fence and my deck need to be painted and that I should clean up a few things and that the shed needs to be excavated (it’s a way bigger job than just cleaning) and the windows need their trim painted and…you get the idea.

Luckily, my medication lets me know that this isn’t a ‘do a weekend of house repair and you’ll be all set’ kind of thing. (Yes, at one point, my brain would try to convince me of that.)

But I am still left with the feeling that I should try to do all of that stuff as soon as possible and THEN I can relax in the yard.

Simultaneously, I’m also thinking that the weather here is so unpredictable that it would be better to spend the nice days relaxing – that other work will get down when it gets done.

BUT!

I know that unless I make a clear plan about when and how to do something my brain will continuously tell me that it is too much work to get done right now, that I had better leave it until the not now.

So, that can really leave me in a tangle.

It’s hard to get started so I have to make the tasks “worth it” for the energy it takes to get going but I have to plan well enough so I don’t wear myself out trying to do everything at once.

I have to ensure that I don’t leave things too long but I also don’t want to miss out on the best days of summer while I trudge though the house and yard work.

So I am trying to find something in between.

I’m trying to figure out how to plan out my tasks over weekdays and weekends – allowing for weather – while including fun and relaxation in those very same days.

I’m trying NOT to get stuck in ‘Do your work before it slips your mind and have your fun after.’

And I’m trying to avoid ‘You’ll be able to REALLY relax if you get everything done.’

I’m trying to learn how to have more fun in the middle of projects without just ignoring the project altogether.

Let’s see how this goes. 😉

Great in a crisis, defeated by a hassle?

I have always said that it will never be a big thing that defeats me, it will an onslaught on little things.

When a big crisis occurs, my brain automatically puts things in perspective – I can see what’s important and what to brush off, I know how to choose between tasks and ideas, I can prioritize and delegate.

When small hassles occur, especially when they arrive in a group, I get easily overwhelmed and defeated.

This is definitely an ADHD thing but I undoubtedly put my own personal spin on it as well.

One day last week, I was so frazzled by little things that I had to ask my husband to drive me to the drugstore because I wasn’t sure I had the wherewithal to drive. And once I was inside, the collective hassles of the day had my brain so jumbled that I lost track of what I was doing because someone at the other counter had a whiny voice.

Is it ridiculous? Absolutely.

Is it still a problem? Definitely.

You see, knowing that a situation or an issue is affecting me disproportionately does not change my experience, especially in the moment.

I’ve gotten pretty good at saying to friends and family, “I know my stress about this is out of whack but please help me.”

Instead of being hard on myself and instead of getting frustrated by what feels like indifference or sabotage by other people, my ADHD diagnosis has helped me see this as a perception problem and ask for help in a more sensible way.

Some days, though, no amount of help will help.

Yesterday, I just had one tiny thing after another happen to me – to the point that my husband and I were joking that someone had cursed me – and I couldn’t seem to get a grip on things at all.

I’m sure part of the problem was that my back was wonky so I had a low frustration tolerance but mostly it was a string of annoying coincidences.

I gave up on trying to move forward. I took a bath and then lay down to read for a while.

It kind of felt like being defeated by hassles but I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat.

Gotta choose your battles, right?

Last Day Of School

No one in my house is in school so this ‘last day of school’ feeling I have is definitely misplaced but I’ll still roll with it.

Not much is changing between my spring and my summer really but I am definitely changing my perspective on my day to day.

I am insisting on slowing down.

Now I just have the figure out the mechanics of how that can be done.

This is one of the perils of ADHD – What is enough to do? When is a a good time to do it? Where is the line between relaxing and ‘slacking off’ ? Intellectually, I know that slacking off isn’t inherently bad but I also know that there is a point at which I have dialled things back so much that it is hard to start again.

Damned if I know where the line is though.

Foggy Outside & In

Yesterday was the foggiest day I have seen in ages. As I was driving along, the road seemed to be disappearing a little ways in front of me and the buildings at the side of the road would loom out of the fog one at a time.

Today is much clearer outside but I swear all the fog has moved into my head.

I know that I’m still getting over being tired from travel, being tired from my plane arriving at 2:45am, and being tired from…everything, but this is an additional layer of tired fogginess.

I’m just trying to go easy on myself and stick to the necessities.

Making those choices is hard work in itself, actually.