1y ago

If my brain had hands I would accomplish great things

78 comments

That only really happens if there is no immediate threat of doom. If there is, I am the most productive person on the face of the Earth but only due to the sheer terror that results from last second procrastination.
- if you leave ti to the last minute it will only take a minute
  
  It's super time efficient.
- Yeah... homework was done 5 minutes before class starts...
  
  "I can do it on the bus!".
  Reader, he could not...
  
  I wish i were that fast back then 😁

it's called executive dysfunction
- Which should be the name instead of ADHD.
  
  To be blunt, the stigma of typicals around adult ADHD is so severe that for most people I just tell them I have an executive function disorder.
  It usually confuses them into learning what the issue actually is rather than their perception of what ADHD is.
  Look, I'm bad at life because my brain does things wrong, okay?

Then I power through what should have been my whole day of work in 2h30 before going to bed. Then I go try to sleep very late on an adrenaline high, wondering why I tend to burnout, cause I'm so great at this.
Anyway, the medication seemed to have calmed me down a bit on this.
- Oooh. I felt this. My thing is, when facing a deadline or something, procrastinate until I forget about thing, then when I'm reminded the day before, start work at 10pm sharp, stay up until finished, convince myself I'll be fine with only 2 hours of sleep, go to bed, sleep through my alarm, show up several hours late, unbathed and generally in a disorderly state, frantic and panicked.

Hey wait... My brain does have hands!
- they call em fingers but I never see em fing
- Likewise but they always seem to get distracted so easily doing mindane things
  Maybe if my brain has 2 more hands...
  
  I always thought it would be interesting if we had 4 hands instead of just 2... and I always felt like I'm missing a hand or two (I use my mouth and legs a lot to hold on to things, lol 😂).

I did that a lot recently, but the past week I decided that I hated spending all day thinking about the tasks more than doing them.
I’ve been forcing myself to just do it and I’ve been getting through it pretty quickly and not having that task loom over me all day.
- This feels good when I can actually do it. Most of the time it's just suffering though.
- I read somewhere a good starting point is if a task takes less than two minutes, just do it now. You start there and build. Never quite realized that's what I'd started doing on my own, but it has helped, especially after making it a conscious effort.
  Now if someone could tell me how to deal with having a shift at work at the end of the day and the entire day before the shift being wasted because all I can focus on is that I have somewhere to be in 6 hours.
  
  just do it

I used to chroncially be like this, it was awful. Somehow, somewhere, without outside help I flipped, and now Im organized, efficient and proactive. Marking this spot so I can think about it and come back when I think I know what changed.
- You have to tell us, you know that right? I am waiting for this moment for 4 decades.
  
  I'm in more or less the opposite scenario. I used to be able to actually do shit, then something snapped and it's far more difficult for me to do anything efficiently. I think what snapped was effectively my self confidence. After a period of existential crisis, things stopped feeling so important all of a sudden. So the herculean effort that allowed me to complete all my work and keep up on everything stopped being possible, because it briefly became impossible leading me to recognize how unsustainable that was.
  Now I'm in a position where I still try to get what I need to done, but I try not to stress about it so much and I prefer to do what I want. And making myself do what I need to do is partially a matter of medication (Vyvanse) and partially trying to find reasons to enjoy/prefer the tasks that are important for my survival, then capitalizing on that intrigue/excitement.
  Basically, I guess it comes down to choosing to accept whatever our current reality is and trying to work from there. There are reasons that I'm fortunate, just as there are reasons others would probably say I'm falling behind in life. Doesn't really matter in the end. All any of us can do is what we can actually do. If we don't allow that to be enough, we'll drive ourselves insane with the dissonance.
  
  I dont really know. Maybe my post is a good example of it though. I dont know how to complete the task, but I started it anyway. Just did a little bit. Then, having broken the seal, its not seem so hard.
  Thats how i approach stuff i have to do. Put it on the list and start it at the same time, under the self-agreement that ill just do a little bit of it then stop.
  Rather than 'clean whole house' i start with 'just pick up clothes off bedroom floor'
  This removes the mental fear of 'uhhh its going to take forever!'. Once ive done a bit, it becomes clear thar I can just do the whole thing, or at least recognize that its not very hard after all.

[x] I'm in this photo and I don't like it.

I find I can leverage this sometimes.
Years ago in college, I lamented to a classmate of mine that I feel like i was doing so much thinking all weekend but had nothing to show for it. He simply responded "That's called research, and that counts".
Now, although i'm far from efficient, I try to use that rapid thinking time to sort out all the loose strings in my mind, essentially polishing ideas over and over again until my "what-ifs" are paired down and in the last hour of work I can sometimes get myself into a hyperfocus and accomplish what I was thinking about all day.
Totally not a blanket solution but I hope it helps someone reframe their thoughts a bit, maybe help them feel less guilty about holding all this in their head.
Also TAKE NOTES. Obsidian is great, you can link your ideas together, extra pages are free, the canvas tool is great to just tie ideas together.
- Man, I wish my high school teachers would have framed it this way instead of shaming me for procrastination. I'd do a similar thing for my English papers - I'd start thinking about the topic I was gonna write about as soon as it was assigned, mulling things over, getting things mentally organized, but I wouldn't type anything up until the night before it was due. I usually had a pretty good idea of what I was gonna write by that time though, so I could reliably crank out something in a few hours. And I always ended up with good grades on those papers, so I guess it worked for me.
  
  Absolutely the same experience as you. I'd spend weeks (or months, in the case of my final dissertation) mulling things over without being able to write anything, then the night before it'd just click into place and I'd write it all out. I'd end up with good grades as well, but the stress at the time from my frustration at not being able to just "get things done sooner" wasn't fun!

Yes. Meds can help this. Meds can also make the problem worse. As with all drugs, set, setting and dosage,

Literally procrastination.

I tend to get something done every day but my weekends get shot because it takes me so long. Im not diagnosed with adhd or anything else but I feel like my life is just a long string of being behind on getting things done.

I made a meme of this exact phenomenon before my original instance went belly up, can't get it to upload but the text was:
"People say being ADHD doesn't come with superpowers
But can a neurotypical feel the exhaustion of a task without ever getting up to do it?"
- This is me all day every day recently. I'm stuck.

Yep, and to help it somewhat I've been setting alarms. If I can't get started and am stressing to do the thing, I'm presuming I won't and just take time of till the next activity. That way I end up doing nothing, but not burnt out

Hey, I don't remember giving you permission to post my thoughts.

Me.. right now... Oh god someone send help
- If you can find help, let me know, I also need help with this.

But your brain does have hands. They are your hands. Your hands are wired directly to your brain.
And yes, there's five things you would have to or want to do, but do not quite know which to start or how you should exactly to do them and you end up doing anything else you are confident with.

Yes and it's getting worse and worse every year.

if my brain had genitalia

I like the hot stove example, no matter how hard you think about it you will never be able to do it, unless you forget about it for a second. Though, ADHD is not that easy.
- Maybe it’s early in the morning and I am not quite awake, but I have no idea what you are talking about. Nor do I understand how forgetting to do something makes you able to do something, and somehow that relates to a hot stove?
  Can you explain what the “hot stove” example is? Maybe that is what I’m missing.
  
  Well, it was early for me for sure. I heard someone explaining ADHD paralysis like a hot stove you are hovering your hand above, but no matter how hard you try to touch it your brain won't allow you to do it. The brain understands the risk and stops you before you harm yourself.
  This really resonated with me, I often am like "let's do this" but my body won't move. For me at least it's about forgetting, I would be iterating the same thought throughout the day, I just cannot act on it, like being stuck in a loop.
  
  Research shows a strong link between retained primitive reflexes and symptoms of ADHD like fidgeting and an inability to concentrate. Reflexes are unconscious muscle movements that happen in response to certain stimuli. For instance, if you touch a hot stove, your body jerks your hand away automatically.

No one in this community wants to hear it, but it is a symptom of personality, and the only way you fix it is with consistent effort to discipline yourself over a long period of time. Therapy is as effective as drugs. It just takes more effort, and people would rather brand themselves as disabled than take small, consistent steps over a long period of time.
- This isn't reddit.
  
  Old habits. My bad. Corrected. I wish I could burn that word out of my mind
- I'm going to disagree with you as someone with ADHD who is in therapy and does not take meds
  I think it's a very dangerous thing for you to compare meds with therapy because quite honestly therapy takes years for mental unraveling for you to just come to the conclusion that maybe you need to start applying yourself a little better
  ADHD with mental health shortcomings can exacerbate the daily task into it a very arduous process.
  While I understand the point of what you are saying and yes it does require some application in order to get the ball rolling, it's more than just getting up off your ass. It's unraveling the ego , and why you are there in the first place
  
  I dont entirely disagree but unravelling the ego I think is a somewhat meaningless - I think you are referring to the inertia of your current state, which is largely emotional.
  I'm not saying getting up off your ass. I'm saying that relative to each individual there is a first step, that might be "thinking about planning about getting off your ass" and then graduating to "planning to get off your ass" and graduating to "getting off your ass".
  Different people are at different stages, but accepting that ADHD is a disorder of emotional regulation, that can be changed with the correct approach.
- ADHD is a real biological disorder, that is a medical fact. Meds are just another tool to help address the issue. I'm not going to explain or argue about biology.
  Can people's personalities contribute to their problems? Yes absolutely, nobody is arguing that. You're not wrong about the usefulness of therapy , but that's a pretty dismissive and rude way to go about it. Nobody here is saying therapy isn't helpful.
  It seems like you just want to pick an imaginary fight with people who are just looking to find a path to improving themselves.
  
  Its a catch all diagnosis for underdeveloped executive functioning. The biology you are talking about is a description of a neurological state.
  It does not mean it cannot be developed. It is underdeveloped due to prefrontal cortical issues pertaining to early life experiences which shaped the personality. This is absolutely something thay can be changed.
  Https://www.apa.org/monitor/2014/04/adhd#:~:text=In%20addition%2C%20treating%20the%20kid,catchall%20for%20lots%20of%20things.

But that's not caused by ADHD. These days everyone seems to think they have ADHD or some kind of food tolerance. Without knowing what it really means to actually have those.
- That's absolutely a symptom of an executive dysfunction disorder, which ADHD is.
- How is this not an example of executive function deficit and the associated burnout?
- That's a bit reductive. ADHD might explain parts of it, or it might not. The cause here is just assumed.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_dysfunction
  Reading that, it cerianly mentions ADHD a lot. Doesn't mean that's the only explanation.
- Funnily enough, recent studies have shown that probably close to 85% of the population is adhd, it’s just most people have already created the coping mechanisms to destress from it.
  Some people take meds, some people play video games and some people rewatch the office for the 40th time. All different ways to cope with issues.
  
  And some of us take nothing and have fights with their brains each day... to each their own I guess... although some people never understood how to get into the medical support system.
  
  The population of the world or of your country? Pretty hard to perform behavioural statistical research for the entire population..

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