The Executive Dysfunction Cheerleading/Troubleshooting Thread

Finished second paragraph, did opening of third! That makes ~2.8 more body paragraphs plus into and conclusion left @w@;

 

(Collapses face first into a shwarma) it is done

Edit: (muffled by shawarma) thanks for the remindo

 

I need to write 2 500 word articles for gender theory and get a start on at LEAST finding my six working sources for my art history paper. If I have not checked in with progress in 3 hrs can somebody ping me? High fives all around for the schoolwork crowd ur doing so good today!!

 

I can't bear not being clean but the process of showering is daunting.

 

@ChelG hey I gotta shower too, so I can do some stuff--would it help you at all if we made a deal that we will both at least begin the process of showering? like, you don't gotta grab all the stuff and do the shower RIGHT NOW, but maaaaybe just. pick a towel. put towel near shower. or take shampoo, place in bathroom. or pick a shirt out for after the shower. like, just anything.

 

is it easier to split it over multiple trips or are you trying to build up the wherewithall to do it all at once? sometimes I just hop in to wash my hair and then try again tomorrow for shaving/more extensive washing than what my mom/her college roommate called PTA (pits/tits/ass aka the sweaty bits)

 

Already showered, sorry - just ranting about how annoying it was.

 

I have now actually read through the sources my prof provided and have a few leads. Will word dump in the morning for articles, hopefully get those done in one fell swoop including the one due on Thurs.

 

Hey, I have exams in like 2 days, can people just periodically check in with me today and tomorrow to make sure that I'm studying? and also that I am doing basic self-care?

 

How goes and how often do you prefer your periodic check ins? (here is one)

 

It's going well, I'm 2 chapters of the way through the 3 I need for chemistry on Wednesday, and tonight I will be doing math with one of my friends.
I think today I don't need more reminders, though tomorrow I will every 2-ish hours?

 

I need to shower.

I need to do a lot of things, but that is probably where I should start.

Considering I am currently at a point where a mild amount of house cleaning is enough to put me in a dissociative fog for the rest of the day and most of the next one, a shower and maybe some laundry is probably as much as I'll get to.

These were my same goals for yesterday. Ugh. I cleaned the second half of the bathroom two days ago, and made dinner that night. I think my housemate gets resentful. I wouldn't blame him if he was but it's terribly unplesant all the same. (I had wisdom teeth extracted two months ago -- I'm over 30 -- and it is taking me forever to recover, ugh).

But yeah I figure maybe if I post here about it I will be motivated to hold myself accountable. It has been well over a week, I know at least.

 

It's 10PM. 10:30, I mean. Eeeuuuuuggghhh. I'm gonna do this. #.@

Hmm that is a good idea. Hair and face. Because my poor face. No cleaning for this long makes me break out like a teeenager, and then my dermatillomania goes nuts. X.o

Edit: showered. Even did All The Things (for showering). Logically, I infer this means I win. I have to infer logically b/c I don't feel any different.

 

I went grocey shopping today, wih a planned list and everything. The housemate and I both needed to go, so I wasn't alone.

My only other task tonight will be cleaning out some tupperware that had food in the fridge which isn't edible anymore. Not much, I hate wasting food. :( But it really needed doing.

What I could really use is check-ins over the next two weeks, I need to catch up on housecleaning on the main floor as well as keep up with it in a regular way. Before the wisdom teeth stuff I was starting to get into good routines for self care and cleaning, but now it feels like I am starting from the beginning again.

And anyway, the housemate is having people over for a big sale of a lot of his stuff (long story, hoarders are involved) in two weeks and I don't need anyone getting it into their heads that I am a lazy slob taking advantage or anything (legit fear, I was almost evicted a year ago due to pressure from his friends until they saw how terribly destabilising it was for my mental state at the time.)

 

Does anyone have any tips for like... when this task that they continuously have to do is just... every time you think of it you end up doing mindless tasks to avoid doing it instead because it makes you anxious. But you have to keep doing it. (multiple mundane tasks, but in this case math). How do you get to just doing it

 

1) if you have ADHD meds, be sure you're taking them; if it's a stimulant, try to do the thing while the medication is in effect. I am near unable to do any housework if I do not take my meds (and if I do not take in afternoon I lose half a day!)

2) try starting the thing early, before you do other things. maybe schedule a time. "At (time after I get home from school/time after I wake up in the morning) I am going to work on math."

3) Set a goal, but also go easy on yourself. The goal for your first while can totally be "do some math, any math, at all." I know I am piling on the goals too heavily when I am avoiding the thing entirely, because my perfectionism is kicking in and my inability to do All The Things is making me anxious. That is when I remind myself to just go for as long as I can manage, doing as much as I can of The Thing.

4) Take breaks! Set a timer, give yourself ten-minute breaks every twenty minutes (that's a 30min block). Or whatever arrangement makes sense for you. For my breaks in housework I will go sit down and drink water. But for sitting down doing brainwork, I would suggest possibly getting up and moving around instead.

5) Reward yourself for doing math. Right now your focus should be on *doing it at all*, once you have that down a bit more easily then that is a better time to try the "reward for completing specific project/goal" thing. And hey, during this earlier period, rewarding yourself for completing a project or bigger goal is still a wonderful idea! The point, however, is to reward yourself for doing math at all, at least in the early stages (and hey if you need to keep doing so indefinitely, that's fine! Whatever works, and all that.)

I find if I schedule the stuff I want to do the least, if I schedule it first, it is way more likely to get done. If I take breaks, but don't allow myself to do distracting things (phone/Internets, TV, games, art) while on my breaks, it is easier to keep going for longer stretches and leaves me less drained after.

If I set achievable goals ("do any amount of housework, for however long I can manage, regardless of what needs doing and what I managed to do recently"), and then reward myself for working on the issue at all, I can break the cycle of anxiety, shame, and self-defeat-before-I-even-begin.

 

Addendum: make sure you are hydrated and not, like, hungry. That will make focus a lot easier in general. Kinda fits with the "meds" thing. If "hungry" is a hard one to determine for you, try to make sure you've recently had a meal or snack before you do The Thing. Your body (including brain) needs fuel!

 

Keep a calendar or daytimer with you, or do the Habitica app. I'm doing both. Well, trying. (How do I set up a reminder/reward/log keeping system to remind/reward/keep logs of my use of my bulletjournal and Habitica. /halp)

Habitica's a pain to set up but I love it b/c it's a game. And stickers are some weird magic I swear, gold stars are the shit. :P

 

I'm still trying to figure out how to start tasks. This is more about situations where it's so bad I find myself more or less literally unable to move, but just in case it's helpful, here it is.

Sometimes it helps me to think of that line from The Matrix, "Stop trying to hit me and hit me." Because I'm fully, irritatingly aware that actually doing a thing often doesn't take anywhere near the spoons of fighting myself over it. If I can just sorta mentally sidestep that whole thing, that works sometimes. Stop trying to move and just move.

I'll attempt refocus my thoughts on whether I can imagine myself being hypothetically physically capable of doing the task. Am I technically physically capable of getting to the bathroom and showering? Yes? Good.

So like, subsequent motions get easier once I begin to move at all. So the first thing, and I agree with myself that I can stop at any time if I find I need to: am I physically capable of standing? Can I move one leg? Prove it. Good!

Sometimes I visualize the whole fighting-myself thing as an enormous weight that's pressing down on me, so that if I just... scoot over to the side I don't have to try to push against it, I can just slip out the side and leave it there.

Sometimes I can tack more difficult tasks onto silly unrelated little tasks that get me moving. Last night I decided I would throw my phone at my knee for some reason and then go take a shower. (I was lying on my bed so this was extremely unlikely to harm my phone.) The good news: it totally worked, I took a shower. The bad news: I now have a small bruise just above my knee, whoops. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend this method, but I may actually try it again but more carefully.

 

Also: I use music. This may not work for everyone. I play music on my headphones or just on my phone, while I do whatever. It helps me shut out everything and lends me energy.