ADHD Paralysis
I was sitting there, playing solitaire. I was telling my body to move, to get up, to finish making the cup of coffee I started to make — and my body wasn’t doing it. Not like resistance, just it wasn’t happening.
I have ADHD. Diagnosed in my forties (I’m fifty right now). For most of my life, I had no idea what it was or why I was the way I was. Nothing seemed to fix it; nothing would make me move in moments like that. I would watch TV, try to read, listen to music maybe, or play games that required no effort or thought. Solitaire seemed to work really well for me for some reason, but I could get stuck in it for a day. Sometimes, I would fall down the YouTube hole and just watch video after video after video.
This would happen no matter what was going on in my life. I might be up against a major deadline, trying to finish a project, trying to get my life on track, trying to do a million other things. No matter, it would be a failure and I would find myself stuck.
There was always advice on how to get out of it. I tried all the advice, but none of it worked. I did think it was depression, but that didn’t fit. For starters, it didn’t necessarily last very long. A day, a few hours, three days — and then I would be out of it, functional. Not manic, so I didn’t think it could be bipolar disorder or manic depression, but suddenly, I would be able to do things.
