eli5 – Can someone explain ADHD? Specifically the procrastination and inability to do “boring” tasks?
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My earliest experience with ADHD was when I was in first or second grade, sitting at the kitchen table with math homework and being unable to do it. Not like, I don’t understand this at all, but more like my brain refused to stick with it.
I sat there and tried and eventually, I felt heat rising from my chest and my brain felt like static until I looked to my right and noticed the stapler could have its magazine popped out and it looked like a robot with fangs. I sat there for a while and just played with the stapler. I’m pretty sure I never finished that homework.
I was smart, I could learn things easily, but if someone in the class didn’t understand and the teacher had to go over things they had just said, I’d zone out and miss when the teacher would resume where we were. Then I’d have to struggle to catch up, depending on the subject, never actually doing so. I could ace tests but never finished projects. I graduated high school with a D average.
When I was young, sometime in the early ’80s, I remember a doctor diagnosing me with ADD, and my mother and I decided to not medicate me because it seemed like they were saying EVERY kid had ADD and we didn’t know what the long-term effects would be.
It wasn’t until my divorce this year did I really sit down and tried to figure myself out. I could never pay attention to things she would say, eventually realizing I had to shut my eyes and completely focus on her words otherwise they were going to float out of my mind. I would constantly ignore my chores, thinking I could do them later and then either completely forget them or just shrug because I could do that tomorrow.
I would get up from watching television shows with her because they were so boring, I had to have something I was more interactive with,
Walking through rooms, ignoring obvious little messes I could easily clean up because my brain simply didn’t register them. Sitting down to do projects she wanted me to do drove me crazy, heck I could barely accomplish the ones that I WANTED to do. As soon as I hit a little hiccup whether, from difficulty or needing a small break, it was game over.
And god love her, she put up with this for 10 years. And she is the complete opposite. She loved plans and schedules, depression like qualities if she didn’t have a goal to strive for.
It wasn’t until I was standing alone in my own apartment and realizing how much of my life had been easy and uncomplicated because she took care of everything that I realized something was really wrong with me and I had to get this under control.
I spoke to my doctor and then a psychiatrist, and now I’m taking medication for it. It helps, but I still have to really focus on making tasks easier and just deal with what’s in front of me and not the bigger picture to avoid getting overwhelmed by whatever task I’m doing.
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