Help me to unstick my life!

[ADHDparalysis]

I'm stuck. I have adhd which currently can't be medicated for medical reasons. I'm menopausal. And I think I might be either burnt out or depressed. Or maybe both.

I have always struggled with procrastination and getting stuff done, but I feel like I've gone to another level recently. I just can't be arsed to do stuff in work, at home, for my health etc. Can't initiate tasks easily and can't stick at them. Constantly seeking dopamine hits (total smart phone addiction) and I'm in terrible patterns with sleeping and eating etc. I'm falling behind in work, my house is a tip and I'm not looking after myself properly.

I know that I probably need to talk to a doctor at some point, but I have a lot of inexplicable resistance to that idea right now and I know myself well enough to know that I'm just not ready to do it yet...I think I need to make some changes for myself first before I can get myself to the point of overcoming that hurdle.

I believe that, if I start to eat better and to get into better routines with my sleep, that will almost certainly help.

Does anyone have any suggestions to help with improving my sleep routine? How can I get out of the habit of fighting sleep at all costs? I do have reminders on my phone to go to bed at a sensible time but I usually ignore them because I can't tear myself away from whatever I'm watching on the TV or reading online etc. And even when I've got to bed, it takes me ages to drop off and I find it unbearably boring to have to lie there in a dark room with nothing to do. I have bought myself a phone jail to help with the phone addiction but I just end up listening to crap on the radio instead. Wondering about sleep stories and whether they might be any good?

Re food...I need to eat more healthily but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to cook well now that dd has gone off to uni. DH cooks some meals and they're mostly pretty good but I eat crap for lunch etc. Are there any super easy but healthy veggie (or pescatarian) meals that I could do with minimal effort? Any good cookbooks for people with ADHD - ie healthy but ultra low effort meals?

And does anyone have other ideas to help me reduce the feeling of being so stuck... with sorting out the shit in my house, with work stuff etc? What strategies do other ADHDers use to get stuff done? Timers and pomodoros etc do help, if I'm able to get started, and I also use focusmate for desk based tasks.

Need to get out and exercise more too, but at the moment I don't manage much more than a weekly walk with a friend. Again, so much inexplicable resistance to getting started!

My life is great on paper but I'm really not living it properly at the moment at all, I'm just existing. Masking it wwill enough for others not to notice that much most of the time, but this is not the life that I had imagined. I feel like I'm stuck so deep in this enormous rut that I don't really know how to climb out of, and all of the suggestions that I'm getting from my NT family and friends are just not addressing the issue that I feel paralysed to make the changes that I know I need to make.

Bit of an incoherent ramble, I'm sorry. Please help.

Bit stuck for time at the moment but just wanted to recommend a recipe for lunch which I found when I gave up dairy.

Cook enough pasta for one, I use two big handfuls

Drain.

Add the grated rind and juice of half a lemon.

Add plenty of ground black pepper.

And a small blog of olive oil.

Stir well

Add in smoked salmon, I use Lidl's Strong & Robust and tear it into pieces.

Add plenty of rocket and eat. Literally takes less than 10 minutes and it tastes delicious

Right, I'm back. Are you on HRT? I'm currently being assessed for ADHD and I honestly couldn't have coped without the HRT although I know it's not a cure all

Just wondering how you are @ADHDparalysis?

What an incredibly kind person you are, @PolaroidPrincess to come back and check on me. I'm so sorry I didn't see your earlier responses and thought that the thread had gone unanswered. Thank you for coming back.

I'm still really struggling tbh. Finding it hard to motivate myself to do anything. Think I am depressed so working myself up to try to do something about that.

I am not on HRT and haven't ever really considered it. Can I ask how it has helped you?

The pasta recipe sounds lovely by the way.

The pasta recipe is good, I had it for lunch again today. I'm off work for few days and was really stuck in a loop myself yesterday too. Had a bit of a better day today though.

I found that the Peri and now the Menopause sought of amplified my usual traits making things like executive function almost nonexistent.

The main reason I started to take it though was brain fog. I have a colleague who has a propensity to ask questions loudly in the middle of the office and just gets louder if you can't answer her straightaway about something that might have happened a few days ago.

I was literally as though my mind was filled with of fog and took a few moments to clear.

I think in your case it might be worth trying some different combinations to see if any suit you. I have the Mirena Coil along with Oral Oestrogen as I reacted to the patches.

Thanks, will talk to the doctor about that. Menopause has definitely made my symptoms worse, so worth looking into. Glad that you've managed to find something that helps.

I'm trying to take baby steps. Ate a healthy dinner and went for a walk with DH afterwards. It's weird how the most basic tasks are so difficult.

I couldn’t manage without my hrt. It took a while to get it right, and it’s not a cure all but it helps massively.

I’m not being nosey when I ask about why your adhd cannot be medicated - please don’t feel you need to answer if you don’t want to - but there are many different kinds of medication. Some are not licences for adhd specifically but a psychiatrist can prescribe them based on the research literature.

I haven’t had success with stimulant medications and there are a couple of others that might exacerbate other issues. But we’re still trying.

I just want to add that resistance to seeing a gp often isnt unusual or unreasonable when you have adhd or autism because we often have a history of unsatisfactory gp experiences, or worse.

It might be worth having a think about any difficulties you’ve had and see if you can come up with a strategy - eg writing down what you need to say to avoid misunderstanding; bringing a trusted advocate; etc

I know you posted this a while ago and hopefully you’ll already have been to the gp and got the ball rolling.

See if you can get into some kind of ADHD support group, whether it's an online chat thread or a Discord server or reddit or FB group or (best of all) a RL support group or anyone you know IRL who might have ADHD or similar challenges and set up a recurring meeting with a whatsapp chat in between. It helps so much to have that feedback, understanding and motivation.

I have found for me that it's essential I focus on up to about three things at a time, rather than try to fix everything at once in small increments - it's too much for me to keep track of and I drop all the balls and fall into a hole of despair. And at any time, one or two of the "focus thing" slots will likely be taken up by current life stuff (e.g. we recently moved house, so 2 of mine are taken up by this and I only have one free to choose what I want to focus on.)

I've found that I do best when I create what I think of as "webs" - my thoughts really seem to branch out and link to each other and if I can keep circling a topic or a few related topics, then this spins into a kind of web which holds the thoughts together and helps cement them.

So for example you've mentioned all of these things:

Smartphone use
Medical/doctor appt
Sleep
Eating
Task management
Work
Housekeeping
Self-care
Exercise

You've highlighted sleep, food, and medical as the three top ones to tackle. I agree that these would be helpful, though if there's anything current in your life that you have to devote some focus to then you might need to un-select one of the three in order to put that thing in the top slot.

But then after this you start berating yourself for all the other things you "need" to do - stop this, please! It's not helpful - the guilt is a totally useless, dead weight which makes everything harder. Remind yourself that your three focuses right now are food, sleep, and the medical needs and the others are NOT things that you "need" to do or that you are "failing" - they are simply not the priority to work on at the moment, and that is OK. You can only work on so many things at a time, not everything.

Plus - top tip - when you catch yourself "should just-ing" (ie, you think or say a sentence that starts with "I should just...") that is a sign that there is a barrier. Rather than trying to use guilt, shame or blame to motivate yourself to do the thing (it doesn't work and will make you feel worse) try approaching with curiosity - what's getting in the way? I know this is difficult at first because often you're like "I don't know why I just have this unidentified resistance!!" - but actually, what is often the case is that you know what the resistance is, but you think you "should just" push through it because it's not a "good excuse". What if you take that "excuse" as being a genuine barrier and look at ways around it? (BTW - looking at easy-but-healthy meals is a good idea here!)

Have you been able to make a GP appointment yet? Is there a way to do that online for your surgery? I find that kind of appointment making is so much easier for me somehow. You might want to request a double appointment if you can. I would personally be asking them about the menopause stuff and also whether they can do any blood tests for vitamin deficiencies, thyroid check etc. A sleep study might be useful, too.

This is a good video about ADHD and food.

I use the habit tracker app and I put the habits in time order to keep me on track. I use that for self care (there's a lot of it because I have chronic fatigue) and chores. I manage to mostly keep up with it but that's only because I don't work.

Do you have a Kindle? I'm still pretty useless....as you can see, I am not using my Kindle! But I do find it easier than reading a book because it's still a screen so it still satisfies that urge to reach for a device with a screen but I can't keep clicking on random stuff.

Do you like Thai curry? I find that quite easy. You just fry a bit of paste for a few seconds, throw in a tin of coconut milk, stir and then add some mushrooms/red peppers/courgettes. Simmer for ten minutes or so and then drop in some king prawns and cook them for three minutes. Use microwave rice.

Don't stress about going to the GP immediately. They're always a disappointment.

I just wanted to say, with the exception of the menopause part, I could have written this myself. Complete overwhelm and paralysis at the moment, worse than ever. I'm afraid I don't have advice, as I haven't cracked this myself, but just wanted to say that you're not the only one!