Does anyone know why this happens?

Hi Christian, yes it happens to me too 😅 !! But without the paralysis. Instead what happens to me, is that I do what I wanna do before sleep, but then if I do that... i don't sleep until 2:00 after midnight 😱 Nooooooo!!

Hi Christian, I’m not a professional in this field, though I went this and therapies enough to earn a PhD (in MY opinion only!). I called it “feeling overwhelmed”. The answer to the causes is the million dollar question. For me, it’s a lifelong challenge to improve along these lines. However, you don’t have to wait till the end of your life for it to improve some. One trick that Mel Robbins said, to get yourself out of bed to start doing something, is count backwards from 5 to 0. It’s like the countdown before takeoff, in the space program. The idea came to her from watching something like that, or whatever, but she later did some scientific research and she found something to back it up. Regardless! if you countdown from five and jump out of bed at Zero, you’ve broken the immobility’s hold on you—this one time. I wasn’t cured after that, but I could get out of bed when I did that. The other thing you need to do is to have tasks so small, that you can complete them and feel successful. If you don’t know how to break the bigger task into smaller ones, then just set a timer. I’m going to work at this for five minutes. After five minutes you’ve been successful. There’s a book called the power of 10 and it’s just doing that for 10 minutes. Whatever you choose to do if it’s easily attainable, and in the success.

Ooh 💯 percent! And in the moment it’s almost like the consequences don’t matter… ‘oh well I’ll just be late’ 🤷🏻‍♀️ it’s like another world I’m in 😵‍💫 and when I get up to do something I just think ‘what was I doing all that time!?’

Yup. My schedule is hugely my own, so it can be difficult to get started in the morning. I had to get up at 5am to get work done when my twins were born. Now I seem to be rebelling against that notion, even though I could use the early rise.

I'm in bed right now. Making up reasons for myself why it's okay to not have gotten out of bed yet and at the same time beating myself up for being so f*cking lazy and unable to brake the cycle.

Yes, absolutely. 💯 This is when the NUMO approach of “touching the task” doing the smallest possible starting of a selected task might help you get going. Another approach is “start by eating the frog 🐸” which means doing the hardest task you have been putting off first.” For example, the other day I started with my laundry. Also take a look at your needs however. Are you getting enough sleep? Have you been drinking water? Going outside for vitamin D? (Especially if you are in England you might consider asking your GP about supplementing in the winter months. Possibly get some blood tests done.) Are you eating nutritionally dense foods? Are your sensory needs being met? (Earplugs, earphones, sleep mask, decluttered spaces, etc.) Are you over or under stimulated? These self-care steps are scientifically proven to reduce some ADHD symptoms or at least their intensity. Finally, I find music helps with “executive dysfunction” (hard time starting or transitioning tasks sometimes related to difficulties with short term memory) or body doubling videos or apps (ex. dubbii). P.s. “task pairing” (pairing something you find unpleasant with something you find unpleasant) ex. Music and doing dishes. I hope this helps.

I know that feeling - while it could definitely be task avoidance, as suggested, I know that I have a problem with transitions. Going out of one situation and into the next is often hard for me, even when the next situation is something positive. For example it takes a lot of energy to exit the car after coming home from work, even though the outlook to finally being home is positive, it still takes effort to actually make the transition. I don’t have a perfect solution for this yet, but knowing the issue already helps me a lot in overcoming it.

I am more than familiar with this situation. Even take a shower or brushing the teeth seems to „far away“ to accomplish on some days. It is like a wall of nothing that blocks you

Yep happens to me all the time, it’s cause the things you need to do aren’t always fun or enjoyable and you stall doing them or you feel over whelmed so find it hard to move and get motivated. Just try one thing at a time xx

Yep, you are certainly in good company with this situation! Agree with what everyone else said- different ways of sharing about the overwhelm/freeze state that’s super common in adhd

There's another thing related to this, named "demand avoidance", if it's specifically true to you if SOMEONE ELSE or SOCIETY demands you to do "the thing" 🙃😅 Our tricky little brains are really making it a challenge sometimes 😅

The reason you get stuck there is called "task avoidance"... doing the things you need to do seems so impossible and exhausting that your brain/body just shut down and freeze 🥲