Moving Through Mud

That heavy feeling when you just can't get yourself started...UGH

Lately, I’ve been struggling with task initiation. Well… actually… who am I kidding, I’ve struggled with it my entire life. That’s the fancy term for staring at something that needs to be done while your brain and body react like you’ve just been asked to drag a huge refrigerator box uphill (with the fridge still in there).

I know what needs doing. That’s not the problem.

The dishes need washing. The email needs answering. The phone call needs making. The form needs filling out. Each thing has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Logically, I understand this.

Unfortunately, my brain has gathered a committee to discuss the matter, and the committee is refusing to approve the motion to proceed. The best way I’ve found to describe it is like moving through mud.

Not ankle-deep mud. Not the kind that’s mildly inconvenient and leaves you with dirty shoes.

I’m talking about the kind of mud that sucks at your legs every time you try to take a step. The kind that turns every movement into work. The kind that makes you question whether the destination is really worth the effort.

That’s what some days feel like. Someone will ask me to do something completely reasonable. My brain immediately responds as though I’ve been asked to stick my hand in the oven without an oven mitt.

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“No!”

“We literally just need to make a phone call...”

“Absolutely not, let’s go learn to knit instead…”

I wish I were exaggerating. The frustrating part is that from the outside, it probably looks like I’m avoiding the task or ‘lazy’. Maybe I’m procrastinating. Maybe I’m distracted. Maybe I just don’t want to do it. The reality is usually closer to sitting there internally screaming, Just do the thing. PLEASE. Just start. One step. One click. One sentence. Just do it!

And somehow that first step feels impossible. I’ve noticed that when this happens, my body gets heavy. Like gravity suddenly got a software update and decided I was the lucky beta tester. Standing up feels harder. Starting feels harder. Thinking feels harder.

Even things I want to do can trigger it. That’s the part that people don’t always understand.

Executive dysfunction doesn’t care whether the task is important. It doesn’t care whether it’s enjoyable. It doesn’t care whether completing it would make your life dramatically easier. I’ve stared at projects I was excited about with the same level of resistance as paperwork.

My brain simply plants itself on the floor and announces that it will not be participating in today’s activities. Living with an ADHD or autistic brain can be strange because sometimes we’re incredibly capable. We can hyperfocus on something for hours, or solve complicated problems. We can learn niche information nobody asked for and become the world’s leading expert on a subject by Tuesday afternoon.

Triva Tuesdays anyone? And then… Wednesday arrives and opening an email feels like an act of heroism. It’s absurd and frustrating. Sometimes it’s funny, at least in hindsight. But most of all, it’s exhausting.

I’ve spent a lot of years being very angry at myself over it. Convinced that if I just tried harder, got more disciplined, found the perfect planner (ugh the planner graveyard…), the perfect system (believe me I’ve tried so many), the perfect routine (routines…. hahahahahaha), I’d finally unlock whatever secret everyone else seemed to have figured out. I’m f’n 47 years old and it feels like I still don’t have my shit together while everyone else carries on around me like there’s nothing wrong… yet I’m standing here stuck in mud with a pile building around me from tasks screaming at me for attention.

These days I’m trying something different. Not giving up or lowering expectations. Just approaching myself with a little more curiosity and a little less hostility. Moving the goal post and not giving up entirely.

My brain is operating on a completely different set of instructions than the ones I was handed growing up, it wasn’t until I was diagnosed late in life that I understood why they were different, and how I was different and not supported when I needed to be.

I remember in middle school I was a rambunctious kid. I sat in class one day and in the middle of a teacher’s speech broke out in song… why? I was bored. I didn’t know how to sit still, my brain was, and still is, everywhere all at once.

Some days are still mud. Some days the task gets done three hours later than I wanted. Some days I negotiate with myself like a negotiator trying to secure the release of a single email.

But, progress is progress. Right?

If you’re reading this while staring at a task that feels impossibly heavy, you’re not the only one. Not by a long shot. Welcome to the beautiful (and sometimes frustrating) thing that is our neurodivergent life.