From my office (the floor)

I do all my best work not sitting up a desk, but sprawled out on my bedroom floor. (Or if I need more plug outlets I’ll spill out onto the landing). Although I’m not too fussy, any floor will do. A grassy park can be rather lovely too this time of year.

As someone with adhd, being productive doesn’t come naturally. What I want to do doesn’t often align with what I’m able to do, this is also true of my chronic fatuige syndrome. So I’m quite used to regularly battling myself in order to get anything done. Before my adhd diagnosis, I just assumed my procrastination issues was related to my fatuige, as they feel very similar - and I’m sure they’re worsened by eachother too. For me, procrastination feels like that feeling you get just before you’re about to cry; a slew of emotions. Often frustration, exhaustion and anxiety. Not being able to just ‘get on with things’ makes me feel really quite inept and incapable as a girl with ambitions and desires to fulfil.

Adhd procrastinating and laziness aren’t the same thing at all, I’d like to stress this. I’m sure they appear similar to anyone on the outside looking in. But I believe laziness to be an active choice, or a lack of consideration / care.

As someone who cares an awful lot about making the most and the best of my life, being thought of as lazy is upsetting as it couldn’t be further from the truth.

I have a real issue with discipline (unless it comes to starving myself lol). Especially the type of discipline where someone is telling me to do something, or giving me deadlines. I can’t exactly explain why, but as soon as someone suggests I do something it instantly makes the task at hand feel repulsive and difficult... Maybe it’s because there is now added pressure or the anxiety of judgement? It’s hard enough getting myself to do things I want to do. Let alone getting myself to do things other people tell me to do, weather I want to do them or not actually becomes irrelevant here. The struggle is of equal measure.

I’m sure to anyone neurotypical, reading this (although let’s be honest, I don’t think neurotypical people read my blog, unless as some sort of case study lol) what I’m describing could certainly sound like childish defiance of authority, which is a fair surface level observation. But it doesn’t consider the emotions that are involved… People who judge others negatively often do so quickly, neglecting to even consider reasons why a person is the way they are. That is lazy ;)

The implication of productivity associated with sitting up a desk to write is already too much pressure for me. The second I sit up a table and open my laptop lid my mind goes blank. I forget basic literacy and what I write comes out stiff. All of a sudden my mind, in hopes to distract itself will think about anything and everything but the task at hand. Grounding my mind back into the present moment takes a lot of momentum and is usually something I can’t muter the strength to do without the secret ingredient… Anxiety.

You see, the only way unmedicated people with adhd can beat their procrastination is through anxiety. When the fear of not doing the task becomes harder to bare than doing the task itself - this usually happens 24 hours before a deadline - only then can a person muster the strength necessary to complete the task.

Anxiety is a toxic motivator for a lot of people. You don’t have to have adhd to be able to relate to what I’m saying. We’ve all pulled an all nighter to get something finished, or left something till the very last moment before doing it. That is a shared experience across humanity I think, haha. The difference between relating to characteristics of adhd and actually having it is in the frequency of the event happening, how much it affects your quality of life, your emotional health, your ability to look after yourself and be an active member of society. Etc….

I’d like to remind people online that just because you can relate to a symptom of a mental illness, that does not mean you are mentally unwell. As much as the destigmatisation of mental health has been beneficial, it has also caused a whole new problem I believe…

The commodification of mental illnesses as an aesthetic or community, not an illness, is an addenda pushed by social media. The amount of mental health specific posts on social media that imply if you relate to this post, you have a mental illness is sickening. Not only is it misinformation, but more dangerously it means people who actually have real, serious mental illness are categorised the same as people who don’t have a mental illness but relate to mental health memes enough that they start to believe they are mentally unwell.

Meaning people who actually need intervention aren’t being seen, as the pool of mentally unwell people has been greatly diluted by people who are not mentally unwell. Making it even harder to offer the right help to the right people.

People who don’t have mental illness, but contribute to mental health culture online are at risk of spreading misinformation to vulnerable people. Negative stereotypes can also mistakenly be affirmed by people who don’t have a true understanding of mental health, sharing memes that may actually offend, again, vulnerable people!

There is a difference between someone with adhd, making a self-deprecating joke about their adhd vs someone who doesn’t have adhd making a negative joke about adhd… I’m sure y’all can understand that.

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Back to my bedroom floor, which yes is where I am crouched, if you must know haha. Maybe it’s just my feed, but adhd does really appear to be in the zeitgeist again now. Diagnosis’s are at an all time high, so no wonder it’s making it’s social media debut too.

As with most things, social media is a double edge sword because as great as it is for normalising things, it also has a tendency of normalising things that are not normal. - Think obscene body goals. Lol.

Not everything has to go through a social-media-amplified process of normalisation just to make it socially acceptable…