u/denver_rose

Ive been increasingly frustrated with advice for depression and executive dysfunction.

Because its like:
Break the task into small parts.
Now you got a million tiny parts.
Bring the laundry down stairs.
Put it in the dryer.
Fold your clean clothes.
Make your bed.
Clean the trash off the floor.
Sweep the floor.

Too many steps.
Oops now you're in a freeze state.

Or they say have a routine.
Which is basically a demand.

What helps me is to stop thinking about the task all together.
I know what steps I need to take to clean my room. Thinking about it puts me in a freeze state.
So therefore I just "clock in." And what I mean by that is that I just set a timer. The time doesnt actually matter but I usually shoot for 45 minutes to an hour and im just gonna "work."

I need to clean. Okay.
No thinking about it.
Just set the timer and go.
Its not a routine, its a choice.
And its not about a specific task completion.
If youre unsatisfied what youve done,
set another timer.
Block out 30 minutes later or tomorrow.

Well.. after 14 years of psychotherapy and losing a friend to death, and losing my other friends after his death.. I found out I had OCD (already on top of autism, adhd, mdd, ptsd). I suffered a lot after his death because his death made me realize I had no concept of peace, I was fighting multiple ocd themes related to him while trying to process the grief, my grief was invalidated by family and my own therapist, and it triggered an extreme survival mode.

My life makes a lot of sense. I realize how much I was controlled by ocd and how it was keeping me in this constant cycle of hypervigilence. The issue though coming down from this and the grief is making me severely depressed. I feel like I should be happy or relieved to find out my uptightness, reassurance seeking, anxiety and avoidance wasnt just my personality like the therapists tried to convince me: it was OCD. I feel like I should feel empowered because I found out what was wrong with me, and it is treatable, but the grief I have over my life is too strong.

And nobody gets it, Im doing ERP.. but for depression, the professionals only gave me antidepressants and CBT behavioral activation. But I feel like Im like going through an entire identity and nervous system reconstruction... I spent my entire life trying to mask and fight my autism, intrusive thoughts, depression, trauma, feelings.. I was outcasted, lost career opportunity, lost friends, invalidated and misunderstood by multiple therapists because of ocd.. Im so exhausted and depleted. All I want is to move on with my life and I dont know how. I feel more lost than I ever been.

Im looking for support, how do you deal with the grief of how much this has impacted your development?

I feel every season/arc is like a different show but obviously the storyline is continuous. The arcs are so different from each other and detailed. I have never really felt like this about any other anime. Every other anime feels like "main characters go on a different mission" and obviously Gon and Killua are technically going on different missions, but each one is unique.

I dont know how to explain this but I feel like my AuDHD doesnt look typical. Like my ADHD friends, they really struggle to focus. In college they'd forget deadlines, wait last minute, just be more forgetful. My friends autism looked like more obvious social differences, eye contact differences, etc.

I just think my AuDHD just looks like chronic depression and anxiety or quirks even.
Flat affect
Social/processing differences that dont come off as autism but more "stubborn"
Can focus very well but I have a hard time starting and sticking to routine
My overstimulation looks like anxiety on the outside
Meltdowns that make other people think im in a panic attack but really im so overstimulated I cant even speak or think straight (which is a concept i feel like not many people understand)
PDA that looks like irritability because I get tired of answering to people
Dyspraxia looking like im just a little clumsy instead of disability

Its kind of weird position to be in, because its like I literally have AuDHD and all it looks like is chronic mental health issues. Not to say that I dont have depression, I do. But its like even when im doing well, I can still look depressed, restless, emotionally dysregulated, or flat. And it just sucks because I feel like I don't really relate to any advice. Like a lot of people who have ADHD take meds, that never helped because focusing is not my issue, my struggle is switching focus. Or like autism advice, its not like I dont know social rules, its just the realization that I screwed up comes later lol and then depression/anxiety advice doesnt work that well for me either. Like therapists that treat depression are just like "have a routine" yeah, if only it was that simple.

I discovered I had OCD in the most brutal way possible.
I was in a DBT program. A person my age validated me deeply. We were both autistic. I dont know how to explain it but he felt so similar to me, like home.
I felt profoundly safe in his presence, and his last words to me was: "never doubt yourself because you're such an incredible person and never forget that."

I really wanted to reach out to him, I thought it about several times, but because I was mentally ill, I believed he'd be better off without me.

7 months after the program,
he died by suicide.
I was a wreck. In shock at my own shock. My nervous system was in total shock for weeks.
The biggest shock of my life.

At age 24, I was left with hard questions:
Why didn't I recognize my own feelings for him?
Why did I tell him (the group) I was lesbian even though obviously thats not true, Ive always been bisexual?
If I knew he was lonely, and he was mentally ill too, why did I believe he'd be better off without me?
Why am I ashamed for being attracted to him / liking him?
Why am I having all these unwanted sexual feelings after his death?
Why have I have been avoiding romance and not accepting my sexuality for 7 years?
Why couldn't I admit my own loneliness and desires to myself?
If my avoidance is from trauma, why hasnt therapy been helping for 13 years?

It was all OCD (extreme sexuality, harm, responsibility ocd that made me suppress/doubt my feelings and avoid things.. for years.. and of course ocd about my own grief, I was afraid I'd turn psychotic, etc)
But nobody knew I had OCD,
and nobody knew how much he meant to me (besides his mom whom I reached out to afterwards)..
5 months after his death,
my therapist labeled my grief "obesssive, insecurely attached, all encompassed, contain it."
My therapist didnt understand what I was even processing because she never recognized my OCD.

I had to process all those questions alone.

I feel like I have to be this perfect established adult in order to pursue romance. I have really bad sexuality and harm ocd, but even beyond intimacy I am terrified.

I plan to start a masters program next year and stay in this state.
What if I date somebody and they find out they have move out of state for school or work?
What if we can't afford to move out so our relationship never progresses?
What if we agree not to have kids and he changes his mind?
What if we are compatible in all ways except one big way we won't find out until years into dating?

(And yes, this falls under OCD because it is crippling. Like I couldn't even imagine things working out for me. Im 25 and never dated or pursued anyone. I am probably wait until im 30 to start dating because again I feel like I have to be more established to improve my chances 💀).

Somehow like 20 mental health professionals missed my OCD (yes, I am officially diagnosed by an OCD specalist). I honestly feel so gaslighted by previous therapists.

For example:
Therapist: "its okay to be confused about your sexuality"
Reality: harm & sexuality OCD and intrusive thoughts were so crippling I didn't know who I was attracted to anymore and gave up on ever finding love.

Therapist: you're anxious and hard on yourself
Reality: OCD is making me feel like any minor mistake will cause me to lose my job and then my life will fall apart

Therapist: you're obsessed (about my friends death)
Reality: i was fighting over my feelings about him because I didn't realize my feelings. I had feelings but couldn't trust or accept them because ocd. Before he died, i thought he'd be better off without me and afterwards I thought accepting my attraction to him would make me inappropriate/bad person.

Therapy: basically made me recite my trauma over and over and it never got anywhere
Reality: it was the intrusive thoughts from the trauma that turned into OCD that was crippling me in certain ways

Therapist: you need to work on your sense of self
Reality: OCD was making me chronically doubt myself and reassurance seek (btw the therapist saying this of course caused me to be an existential spiral and i wrote in my journal that i cant trust how i think, how can i trust anything)

Therapist: you seem uptight, you need breathing exercises
Reality: untreated OCD can cause you be in a chronic state of fight or flight. And you actually have to sit with the anxiety.

Therapist: "imagine all your fears, worries, anxieties in a box and the box gets smaller and smaller.."
Reality: this is basically preforming a compulsion. My thoughts have and are being triggered and im trying to suppress them.

This is how therapy was for 14 years..

This is just my experience.

Honestly I didn't really see the benefit of them until my brother let me burrow his. And OMG this was a game charger for me. Like the slight pain it gives you, that is the type of sensory I need when overstimulated and on a verge of a meltdown (like at the doctors). And like I love the changing colors on the spinning thing, like that is perfect for when Im overstimulated but still need a distraction (like waiting for the doctors lol). Theres also a clicky thing like a pen and I love that just for fun.

A lot of executive dysfunction advice is about opposite action (acting opposite of your emotions), setting and sticking to routines, being consistent, or hacks (like gamifying, making list). This has never personally worked for me. I have pda and get caught up in planning or feel guilty if I don't do the routine.
I feel like everything is just about the task!

What I am trying to do instead is change my relationship to the action. Basically, saying "I want" instead of "I need to" and focusing on the reward and silver living.

For example.

1. The silver lining.
   Instead of being like
   "I have to shower"
   I say to myself: I want to feel less sweaty, smell my favorite body wash, feel my silky hair.

2. Finding a small motivation to initiate the task.
   Instead of saying "I have to do my laundry"
   I say "i want to decrease clutter, let me take this bin down to the wash"
   Or "I want to do some of this paperwork tonight so I feel less stress tomorrow"

3. Doing a higher reward task first.
   I woke up, and there was a lot of dishes in the sink. I really wanted to make french toast for the first time. I made the french toast, and then did the dishes.

4. Doing a task for a reward.
   Instead of saying
   "I have to clear all this clutter on my desk"
   I say "Once i clear my desk, I can play sims on my laptop"

A lot of executive dysfunction is about opposite action (acting opposite of your emotions), setting and sticking to routines, or hacks (like gamifying, making list). This has never personally worked for me. I have pda and get caught up in planning. I feel like everything is just about the task!

What I am trying to do instead is change my relationship to the action. Basically, saying "I want" instead of "I need to" and focusing on the reward and silver living.

For example.

1. The silver lining.
   Instead of being like
   "I have to shower"
   I say to myself: I want to feel less sweaty, smell my favorite body wash, feel my silky hair.

2. Finding a small motivation to initiate the task.
   Instead of saying "I have to do my laundry"
   I say "i want to decrease clutter, let me take this bin down to the wash"
   Or "I want to do some of this paperwork tonight so I feel less stress tomorrow"

3. Doing a higher reward task first.
   I woke up, and there was a lot of dishes in the sink. I really wanted to make french toast for the first time. I made the french toast, and then did the dishes.

4. Doing a task for a reward.
   Instead of saying
   "I have to clear all this clutter on my desk"
   I say "Once i clear my desk, I can play sims on my laptop"

This disorder sucks because its like as someone with AuDHD and PDA, I want high autonomy. And yet, when you tell people (like family) that you struggle with executive dysfunction (and depression), they think supporting you is suggesting you a routine or constantly reminding you of responsibilities or constantly asking you go out with them. Like no! That is actually making me much worse! I wish I could move out, but again its like I am disabled here! I can't even work a full time job! Maybe this is another reason why people with AuDHD have high rates of depression, not just the social isolation, but feeling like you can never escape demands, feeling trapped like no matter how much you do, you're still behind.