it’s very irritating. does anyone else experience this? it’s just looming for a week ahead of time, i’m thinking about it every day, it’s practically a pall upon my shoulders that i’m going fucking apple picking with family tomorrow
sick of it. i assume this is a manifestation of the schedule interruption thing?
This reminds me of something I saw where someone was talking about how their brain goes into “waiting” mode when they know they have some kind of obligation later in the day, and they can’t focus or enjoy themselves even if it is hours away. Both that and this post speak to me a lot.
This except the thing could be days or even weeks away. When I was younger I would simply avoid accepting any such future “obligations”. I always had to be be on the same routine. Actually I still like to be on the same routine, but heavily using my phone’s calendar to schedule things and forget them until they’re close worked wonders. It’s still a struggle sometimes but I’m in my 40 now and functioning.
Wow, yeah… 1-2 hours of free time before a commitment is often utterly wasted. Can’t shift my focus to anything else. I was nervous for hours leading up to a concert I went to recently. I’ve been to the venue so many times, but I was unfamiliar with the headliner and was on edge until I was seated waiting for it to start.
Yup, that sounds like “waiting mode” alright.
I recently learned about Pathological Demand Avoidance - it’s been helpful as a framework for me to understand some of my own frequent experiences in this area. Particularly in the instances when it’s all internal: a goal I’ve set or a promise I’ve made to myself can often become the one thing I will avoid at all costs for no apparent reason. Between PDA and just general executive dysfunction (yayy AuDHD), learning about these things helps me understand why it can be so unbelievably hard for me to get anything done sometimes. Still sucks, but it makes more sense :)
The way I partially solved this for myself is to put all my obligations to other people into a single note on my phone. Then, I just check the note once a day, set phone alarms with titles for any commitments coming up (usually only the next day), and forget about it. If the commitment is particularly complex, I’ll write up a full set of notes before I go to bed (when I’m ruminating about it) and make sure it is the first thing I will see (after the lock screen if you use one) when my alarm wakes me up.
It’s “partially” solved because I still want a ton of notice before I agree to any commitments, which some people are not amenable to. But once I get that notice, I’ll be there whether I want to do or (wildly more likely) not.
