Long before I learned the ADHD terminology of executive distinction, I was doing it on my own. I didn’t know it was a thing. The potential to abuse it now that has a name is possible, but I swear to you, I am deep in it.
I can’t move past this roadblock. It’s not the same as a writer’s block because the tasks that I need to do are clearly laid out. There is no ambiguity about it. I have three customers that I agreed to do work for on their websites and I started on them and got to a certain point and paused for one reason or another and now time has passed so that they begin to call and complain and I just can’t do it. It’s not even really stressful it’s just a brain block.
I sit down in front of the computer each morning with full intent and I stare at the screen. For minutes. Doing nothing. And at some point my mind wanders and I end up doing tasks that are enjoyable but not related to the customer. Then an hour or two later I try again maybe with the same customer or one of the other three that I am letting down.
You may have guessed but this blog is one of the distractions that I have turned to instead of staring blankly yet the customer’s website. This is probably for me, the worst thing about my ADHD. The want to complete something isn’t enough. It is in unexplained phenomenon that I am both surprised and relieved to discover he’s common among my brain type. That doesn’t make it better or easier but it is somewhat comforting to know that it’s not just me saying no when I want to say yes because that doesn’t make any sense.
Naming it as part of a neurological disorder doesn’t make any more sense but it relieves the guilt a little. That’s where it can be used for nefarious reasons if I chose to but generally speaking when this happens I really do want to complete the work. My life will be better if I can finish it and make the customer happy and I am fully aware that all three of the tasks that I have in front of me are probably less than an hour’s worth each. Some of them might be 15 minutes work and yet I can’t even type one keystroke without pausing and turning into a zombie staring at my screen.
It is impossible for someone who has never experienced this to understand what it feels like to not be able to do something and yet have no explanation as to why. There is no force field in front of my computer. I have the competence and knowledge to complete the task and in fact I have completed many identical tasks previously, and move on and complete many after once I can get over this block..
In my mind I don’t remember the specifics but I certainly have vivid memories of this problem happening over and over in my life and I can tell you that it’s confusing today but it was way more confusing before someone put a name to it. You might not be able to imagine what it feels like in this position. The tendency for others is to assume it’s not real. The comments and and suggestions they give are almost painful when you’ve heard them 100 times. Just do it. Why can’t you just do it? What do you mean you can’t do it? Just sit down and do it.
Gee thanks. I never thought of just doing it. Silly me. They’re trying to understand but it actually makes it worse because there’s another condition whereby people with ADHD don’t like to do things once they’ve been told to do them. I never experienced that too strongly because I was either doing it or I wasn’t either way.
So here I am at 1:00 p.m. either the 4th or 5th day of genuinely trying to sit down and complete this. The best answer I have come up with in the past is caused by the way that the ADHD mind sees time and tasks. Well the neurotypical mind sees tasks one after the other and a horizontal timeline. They complete the one in front of them they move on to the next one. Sometimes if they’re organizational people they may pick and choose but they’re still doing it from a horizontal timeline where every task has a start and a finish.
As near as I can tell the ADHD mind tends to see tasks and time vertically which means you look at them in front of you and they are all in a row as one task. Today this is how much you have in front of you and then you panic.
The number of things to do is overwhelming and so you choose not to do any of them but that’s not quite what we’re dealing with here. There are three tasks to do but I still am looking at them one at a time and they’re not overwhelming in nature. The overwhelm is imaginary. I’m already getting in trouble for it so it’s not blocked by that fear. The tasks are well within my realm of expertise so it’s not that fear.
If I examine the tasks very closely sometimes I spot an aspect of it that will cause a pause or something that I think will be extra difficult or maybe impossible without assistance and the fear of that conflict stops me from starting the task in general because my brain thinks why would I bother when I know I can’t get past that anyway. I just thought that up while I was typing so it’s not anything I’ve examined with any great thought but I have experience that in the past. I’m giving a task and I see into the future that it will not be possible to finish in one particular sitting so I don’t start. With my first task today, it needs to get done. There’s no question about it it must be done however having said that I should include that it must have been done on Sunday and today is Thursday.
In almost all the cases where there is a blockage like this one common aspect is that in my head at least, not completing the task on time could result in losing the customer. It’s always that kind of critical need that causes the block. The urgent and vital things that can be done but aren’t being done and if they’re not done I lose a customer and income. Those are the things that I seem to block.
One might say I sabotage. The stress of losing a customer is less than the stress of confronting the customer because I did poorly. I am now remembering all the way back to high school when my panic always compared getting in trouble with abandoning things. This might be a breakthrough right here
In the many many times I would fall behind on projects or friendships or tasks or schoolwork, I would always compare the reaction of getting in trouble versus death or going to jail or just running away. I would always consider that the absolute worst outcome of failing was better than confronting whoever I failed. I’m remembering that emotion strongly now with several examples in my head. I never thought of them until just now but number of times I thought about the quitting consequences versus the failing consequences probably quite high and the whole time it might have been executive dysfunction blocking the success.
My blog has gone on just now and I know that as soon as I finish it means I will have to go back and try again at completing that task When in my head I already know. I shouldn’t already know. I should be able to, just do it as they say. Fuck why is this so hard.
In the future some of these things will be doable by AI at my request but these three are not. There are no humans to help either. There’s also very little financial reward upon completion. There is some money for one of them but that has never been an inspiring factor.
And the worst part is, one of these times I will sit up and do it and complete it and there will be no problems and no explanation. The blockage. Has passed like a traffic jam that had no accident in front. I hate everything about it including the fact that I have no control over it and I thought I should. Learning mental disabilities has a name is not always a net positive.
