eli5 – Can someone explain ADHD? Specifically the procrastination and inability to do “boring” tasks?
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It’s not just the inability to do “boring” tasks. Executive disfunction happens even for thing I want to do. Things I find incredibly fun. I do homebrewing and I absolutely love it. I’ll have a brew kit or something and I’ll just be sitting there on my day off, ready to start brewing, I literally set the day aside for it and I physically can’t get up to do it. It’s incredibly frustrating to not be able to do something you enjoy and you feel like you’re just pissing the hours away.
I’m no neuroscientist but I remember hearing of a study were they deprived rats of dopamine and they wouldn’t even get up to eat or pull the lever for stimulation (I think it was a drug that provided dopamine iirc) they would just lay there doing absolutely nothing, only eating if they put food directly into their mouth. They couldnt even motivate themselves to do something they know would make them happy and feel better. (Get up and pull the dopamine lever) That’s what it feels like. Just a complete lack of motivation. I want to do this stuff. I enjoy working out, i enjoy cleaning my apartment, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy playing video games. But sometimes I physically can not get up to do any of that. Yes even playing video games becomes a chore.
On the flip side hyperfocus does the same thing but you can only do that one thing. Last night I went down a rabbit hole of trying to make kombucha from scratch and trying to find how the first ever kombucha was made. The most oddly specific information to seek out. Well I researched it for 6 hours until 4 am (I go to sleep at 12 and wake up at 8) I physically couldn’t sleep. I’d set my phone down and just think about the topic for an hour awake. Then to get some sort of relief I’d go back to searching. I eventually got so exhausted I fell asleep with my phone in my hand. Thank God too. I’m on bed rest right now so I absolutely need the sleep.
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