Hi everyone.
When I try to follow a schedule to eat, clean my room and do my homework, it feels good at the beginning, but as time goes on, it just doesn’t feel good anymore.
I’m not even sure if I even feel trully happy about doing all of my responsibilities.
It doesn’t feel as if a burden has been lifted of my shoulder.
It doesn’t feel as if I were “refreshed” or more energetic after I do all of these.
I started slowly like my therapist recommended: I did a schedule to eat 3 times a day. It started rocky but then I manage to do it… but only for a while. Eating just didn’t feel good either.
Every single time I finally clean my room, I don’t feel any good: it just feels as though I wasted time because I don’t feel any better.
Doing math homework is fun, philosophy to, but I don’t like any of the other subjects I actually need to do homework for.
I know it might seem childish to only do things that feel good but I hate not being able to feel anything at all, especially when I do things that are supposed to help me but don’t make me feel anybetter afterwards.
Has someone here went through anything similar? What do you do then, if so?
Edit: I have read all of your replies so far, but I don’t know how to respond properly to them. All I can think of is to say thank you! I will try to change things (although slowly) today using your tips.
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One of the essential features of ADHD is the rapid attenuation of the reward system, leading to a biological resistance to the “dopamine rush” that neurotypical people feel. (For me, it manifests most clearly in the fact that I have never in my life felt anything like the “runner’s high” after exercise, although every neurotypical person I’ve spoken to says they feel refreshed, rejuvinated and pleasantly tired afterwards.)
This stems from the fact that the built-in reward system (the positive emotional response to performing/completing a task) attenuates very quickly in people with ADHD. By that I mean that while the response happens, it very quickly drops back to zero. Much faster than for people without ADHD.
This, I suspect, is one of the fundamental aspects of ADHD and why it’s characterized by attention deficit and hyperactivity. Hyperactivity happens because in order to maintain the effects of the reward system we have to do and do and go go go over and over and over again. And we have attention deficit because our interest in any given thing drops extremely quickly, since the reward of experiencing it goes away almost immediately.
Everybody is saying how the goal of these things isn’t to make you feel good, but here’s the thing: people keep telling me how “you’ll feel better once you’ve done it” for all kinds of shit as the ultimate reason to “just do it”. And then I (somehow manage to) do it and I don’t. That’s messing with my head and I suspect OP’s as well.
Yeah I don’t understand at all people who make their bed in the morning because it nakes them feel good. Wtf. You just wasted a few minutes you’ll never get back doing something that will just be undone in a few hours.
Like, I feel better with a clean house. I feel better when I’ve got big muscles and a low body fat percentage. But the act of cleaning or working out suuuuuuucks and I hate it. It’s a massive time sink. And I don’t feel accomplished after doing it. I just feel the wasted time that I could have spent doing something enjoyable.
People look at their made bed for the rest of the day and get a little dopamine hit every time.
Doing chores all over the house gives them a flood of dopamine hits whenever they go anywhere because it’s so clean and organised. It’s like leaving drugs all over the house for you to find whenever you do anything.
But if you are so inattentive that you don’t notice the bed is made 10 more times that day there is no reward system.
You don’t do the necessary work because it feels good. You do the necessary work because it will pay you back in the future (you do your laundry today so that you can wear clean clothes tomorrow).
You do the things that feel good as a self-reward after doing the necessary work.
I’m not even sure if I even feel trully happy about doing all of my responsibilities.
It doesn’t feel as if a burden has been lifted of my shoulder.
It doesn’t feel as if I were “refreshed” or more energetic after I do all of these.
I think the expectation that it should feel good immediately is actually hurting you.
That’s great except a lot of people actually do enjoy cleaning and they look down on those of us who don’t.
Here’s the thing, you do these things more for self maintenance rather than for it to feel good. Brush your teeth and floss now so they don’t rot when you’re older. And that comes faster than you think. Like I was eating dinner at my neighbor’s house on his 60th birthday and he was dealing with painful root canals. (But my sister had to deal with those in her teens)
Homework SUCKS, but it teaches you discipline for yourself. Doing parts you don’t quite enjoy just to get the job done. Which is insanely important for every single work ethic you do in your future. I know so many 3d artists who are incredible, but have the attention span worse than rats. So they don’t go anywhere and constantly need to be told to stay focused.
A clean room is a clean mind. Having a messy room to wake up to is fine at first. But it can tend to get worse and spread throughout the rest of the house over time and 1 small task each day turns into a mountainous multi-day cleanup. (My mother is a hoarder of projects and stuff. 2 rooms completely unusable in the house and she leaves her tools all over the place without making a habit of putting stuff back. I never know where anything is)
It’s the same for food. You eat the damn vegetables now to get a palette for them or you will suffer obesity by fast food or whatever. Which leads to lack of energy and always feeling fatigued. (Which I’m currently dealing with and only now just got to liking Broccoli. I’m 29)
As someone who decided to only live for things that I actually care about and even made my own job as a 3d animator, maintenance and discipline show up in places you don’t expect and you’ll be thankful you built it up beforehand. The things that make me feel good are my choices in what I work on, the dream that I strive for, and the fact that I carry a sense of quality and discipline at some points to be able to be more ambitious than others because I will carry out tough tasks rather than avoid them even when they don’t make me feel rewarded.
Lastly let’s talk about the schedule. Super important to even have one despite friends being all, “Let’s go out late at night til 4am”. Let’s see their attention span when they’re older. Well the schedule helps you get food in your body that you might forget to do because you’re so focused, or even overly eat. Sleep is incredibly important, but you know something is wrong when you wake up and already feel tired. You may break the schedule to however you want after school, which is really nice, but if you create your own job in art then you’ll have to apply one to yourself or weeks or months will fly by and you’re stuck on the same project without focus.
Also, take notes YOUR way. Forget standardized notes. Just write down whatever helps you remember things in the way you do. School usually forces tests without notes, but all work and even important conversations outside of school is all about taking notes and rereading them. Learn any way you can to enjoy that part! I have my own Discord server for all kinds of notes I take that get categorized. I also have a fast notes page in my phone’s home screen because my memory is just bad. And that’s OK, because I take great notes!
