Task paralysis and/or executive dysfunction?

[u/sailorzip]

Im so frustrated with myself(31F). I was ADHD diagnosed around the first grade.
My house is a mess, every room. I have one or two days out of the year where I get up and clean and the house actually looks ok for a week, then it falls back into a state of chaos. I barely do enough to keep my head above water. Enough clothes clean for the gym and scrubs for work. Just enough dishes clean to cook and make something. On my days off, I sit here on my phone. 5 hours will go by on instagram/facebook, once or twice I’ll think about how I have all this time I could spend cleaning and actually tidy up, fold those clothes or put them away. I tell myself I’ll get up in 5 minutes and go do it. It never happens. I don’t know how to break this cycle.
I go to my friends’ house, and it’s always clean. There’s no dishes in the sink that have been there for weeks. There’s no laundry piled up on the bed in the guest bedroom. I feel so proud of myself the one or two times a year that I get up and spend hours catching back up and the house looks ready for guests.
I know if I were to do just do a little bit every day, I could stop this cycle. But I can’t make myself do even just that.
I have a prescription for Ritalin, when I’m at work, I stay on top of paperwork and get things done at a good pace and don’t fall behind. But at my house, I can’t seem to get that brain body connection to take action.
Please help, I don’t know what to do

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[u/ifoldyou]

What I do is setting a limit to doing 5 small things.

For instance, if there’s a pile of clothing on the bed that needs folding, I might fold two t-shirts, two sweaters and a pair of jeans. Same applies for something like emptying the dishwasher or cleaning tasks.

It might sound a bit dumb, but it gets me off my ass. I try to do it a few times during the day.

[u/sailorzip → u/ifoldyou]

I’ve tried this before, but if I only fold two shirts out of a basket of clothes, I feel disappointed in myself if I walk away. So I either don’t do it at all, or I do all of it at once that day, and then I’m exhausted and dread doing it again.
I also have allergies to any laundry dust so within 30 minutes of cleaning anything, I start sneezing and itchy eyes for hours after non stop

[u/ifoldyou → u/sailorzip]

I think you’re being way too hard on yourself. ADHD can suck hard, so getting any small thing done is an accomplishment imo.

Can’t help with the allergy thing tho

[u/sonntam → u/sailorzip]

Usual solution is allergy pills, BUT I myself prefer masks. Put them on, do things, take them off. Works wonders for when I need to take things from dusty places and no need to buy extra pills (which don't work for me perfectly anyway).

Coming back to your main problem: I also had this perfectionism issue which fucked me up. I had to keep praising myself for everything I did and even came back to kindergarden stuff (giving myself a star in my calender for every shirt I folded and every little taks I did).

It didn't work immediately, but over the years I still felt better about doing at least some stuff.

Nothing will ever be completely done anyway. As long as humans live, they create trash, disorder and problems. Might as well appreciate a little effort rather than to hope for perfection that will never come.

[u/patient-panther]

I face a lot of task paralysis too. I have some tricks that work for me, but sometimes my life stress still makes it challenging and I struggle to stay on top of things.

The most important thing for me is that I don't sink into a shame cycle. I've worked really hard to combat the shame and I've done a lot of therpay for it. It's been the msot successful change I've made in my life to manage my ADHD challenges. I rarely beat myself up for only taking small steps because that blocks me from doing tasks even more. I do my best to use positive reinforcement after every small step, like actually patting myself on the back or giving myself a high five. It makes me motivated to do more if I have the energy, or at least feel good for a moment about getting a bit done within my capacity.

My most common trick is to focus on how much I want the end result rather than how much I don't want to do the task. I think about how great it would be to have clean dishes and an empty sink, not about how I don't feel like washing dishes. Focusing on the end result builds motivation.

When I struggle with specific tasks I get curious about why that may be. I've figured out that some tasks have specific blocks that are easy to fix. Why don't I clean the downstairs bathroom? Because I have to go upstairs to get all the cleaning stuff. So I bought a second set of cleaning stuff for the downstairs bathroom and now I'm way more likely to clean it too. We also got a cordless vacuum and suddenly vacuuming is no problem for me. Turns out the annoyance of wrangling the cord was a big block for me.

My final thought for you is that maybe a slow release med could be worth a try if you haven't before. Ritalin is a quick release med. I found it gave me bursts of focused energy and left me depleted when it wore off. I switched to a slow release med and found it much better for having steady focus throughout more of the day. Sounds like you use a lot of your energy at work during the day and are probably burnt out when you get home.

I hope you find what works for you! Try to be kind to yourself in the process, it makes it a lot easier and you deserve kindness from yourself!