What is it and why does the body do it? It seems like the mind is telling the person to do something but one cannot get themselves to actually do it.
In: 521
It’s exactly as you said. The mind is telling the person to do something, but the body won’t do it.
Your subconscious mind sits below your thoughts and is actually very powerful. It does a lot of processing that you don’t know about. One of these things is telling you just how important a task is and — perhaps more importantly — whether the task is doable and how “worth it” the task is, in work vs results ratio.
For people with ADHD, the subconscious has decided that almost no task is worth it. Because you don’t get the right chemical signals upon finishing a task, your body doesn’t get a natural internal reward for doing them. Like it or not, you are an animal, and like any animal, you mostly do things because you are rewarded for them or avoid things because you’re punished for them. If you touch a snake and get bitten, you won’t touch a snake again. If you eat an apple and enjoy the taste, you will eat apples again in the future. If you do your taxes and feel a sense of accomplishment, or even just a bit of “ah, feels good that it’s done,” you will probably do your taxes on time next year.
However, basic tasks like chores and doing taxes do *nothing* for someone with ADHD. The subconscious mind doesn’t get that little squirt of chemistry that says “yes that was a good thing you did.” So next time, when it runs its calculations on the efficiency of the task, it sees the following (simpified):
Work done = a lot
Benefit = nothing
Therefore benefits / work done = 0, which is an atrocious ratio. This is the kind of ratio that neurotypicals get for stuff like “staring at the ceiling” or “walking around the block backwards” or “listening to scammers on the phone.” Stuff you’re just not going to bother with, because nothing will come of it. Therefore…well, of course you don’t do the task. Who would do a task that is all work and no benefit? It’s just so pointless! And if your internal calculator is given the right chemistry and information, you’ll correctly avoid that task.
ADHD people see *most* tasks like that. When your brain can’t give you the reward chemicals, everything looks like a pointless task to your subconscious.
One reason that this might not be found young, is that anxiety and fear are extremely powerful motivators and will overwhelm this nasty cycle. It’s a really taxing, unhealthy way to defeat ADHD, but if you’re terrified of the consequences if you don’t do something, you’re way more likely to do it. Hence why many of us can hold down a job (fear of being fired or homeless) but can’t clean the kitchen (nobody is grading me on my kitchen tidiness).
Latest Answers