Because it takes slightly less mental energy to sit and stress than to do the thing.

I'm beginning to suspect "superfocus" is just what normal people do when they focus.

Absolutely. People want there to be a fair trade-off, but life just doesn't work that way. I've seen similar romanticization of autism too, especially with the "savants".

Basically. When in reality it's indistinguishable from laziness to the untrained eye.

Depends on the thing.
Super high level, ADHD is an issue with the reward system of the brain failing to deliver reward when it's supposed to. Your brain is supposed to try to find a new task when it's not getting it's reward anymore; it's how that frontal cortex problem solving engine gets driven around by all the parts that handle motivation, wants and desires.
Sometimes no reward is being given, so you keep slipping off to a different task, and sometimes too much reward is being given and so you stay on a task way too long.
And, to be clear: these are not huge rewards we're talking about like a wave of pleasure or noticable feeling, just the baseline steering signals.

Sometimes the task you need to do provides no "normal" reward but neither does what you're doing right now, so your problem solver sees no reason to switch. Sometimes a nudge can help because fulfilling a request or suggestion can come with some reward, or at least you're just swapping out neutral tasks with some minor effort.

Sometimes the task is unpleasant to some minor degree, so not only is the reward not there, it's also a punishment. Or the thing you're currently doing is providing some degree of reward.
In either case, switching means actively going against everything your problem solver uses to decide what to do. Needless to say, that's really hard, and being nudged often feels more like being nagged, or like they're upset with you, because your problem solver (also known as your conscious self) knows this is all going on, but knowing how the engine is working doesn't make it work differently.
So you've been sitting there trying to push a granite block up a hill for an hour, and then someone comes up and starts pushing on your back. They haven't removed the part that made it hard, but they added something uncomfortable to your current situation.

Before I got on medication following my diagnosis, me and my partner handled it by just being really cognizant of what our mental states are, and communicating clearly. "You asked me to remind you", "I need to do it, but I'm stuck", and effectively asking for permission before annoying someone to the point where the current blocker is less desirable than doing the thing. Requires a lot of trust and good communication though.

It's difficult to describe subjective feelings, but what can sometimes look like "sitting on the couch watching short YouTube videos about sheep dogs instead of brushing your teeth and going to bed" is actually: sitting on the couch bored out of your mind and desperately wanting to go to bed, but the sheepdogs are providing short bursts of novelty and cute. Removing your lap blanket provides no joy and makes you cold. Standing up provides no joy and makes you less comfortable. Walking to the bathroom provides no joy and now you're in the dark bathroom. Brushing your teeth provides no joy, tastes bad, and is intensely boring. Walking to the bedroom provides no joy. Getting into bed and snuggling up provides joy.
Summed up: sheep dogs provide continuous minor joy, and only costs the physical misery of staying awake, the confused guilt of paralysis, and the promise of future misery. Going to bed is a promise of some joy, but it comes with a bunch of steps that are at best neutral and often entail anti-joy. It just doesn't add up. Other people get a tiny hit of joy from each substep, which is why they can say "I'm done looking at sheepdogs, I'm going to bed" and then just magically do it.

"Before you go to bed, you need to slowly press your bare foot into this fresh dog poop, toes spread of course" isn't often made better by someone saying "it's not that bad, come on, you can do it, I believe in you, then you can get some rest for once".

For me personally, and a few others I know, it's definitely the latter. However, everyone is different, so it'd be interesting to see other people's replies.

Personally it all comes down to adrenaline. If a task stresses me out enough to hit me with some adrenaline I'll complete it immediately.

If not then I'm either doing nothing while thinking about the task or forgetting the task existed at all.

Kinda depends for me, super situational. The right kind of pressure and yeah I'll do it, something like an imminent non-negotiable deadline works for me. I'm the guy who files my taxes in the last possible week, I'll slam out a report a night or two before it's due.

But someone forcing me to do it? They just get flagged as an asshole who doesn't have any authority here, even if I've asked them to do this, I know they're trying to help, whatever. It's the same situation when I try to set deadlines, or rewards, for myself. I know the guy who made those rules, he's full of shit.

You can try ans give motivation, offer emotional support, sometimes even offer to do the thing together (sometimes just arranging a thing is a good way to not let it slide), but forcing will have the opposite effect and will only add to the internal pressure that is already there (but you won't probably see) and that is not enough. Of course it depends on the person, you can also ask your friend, as long as you accept the answer as a fact with no judgement (it's not easy but probably it will be appreciated)

If it's someone i love and trust then it's an absolute relief when they tell me to do it and walk me through the things. I WILL complain about it but only jokingly

personally, and i'm more on the autism side of the spectrum, i benefit from someone nudging me and ideally helping me do something, but telling me to or forcing me to do it is just abusive.

really though, just ask the person in question what they'd prefer.

@fushuan @The_Picard_Maneuver It's better if you're the one who forces you to do the thing.

The three often go together.

ADHD is just a bunch of symptoms in a trench coat.

Yeah everyone pees, but if you do it 60 times a day, you should probably ask why, no?

ADHD often comes with some degree of low-grade anxiety/depression tbh

I remember talking to my therapist about how I’m not worried about forgetting something, I’m always worried about what I haven’t realized I have forgotten and is already causing a problem. I just live in a constant state of “something is on fire I just haven’t smelled the smoke yet.” it’s not quite PTSD, but it is certainly something analogous and it’s always this low level hum of stress. At least that’s what I took from my conversation with her.

If you make a venn diagram of the symptoms of ADHD, PTSD, burnout, anxiety, bipolar, and autism you get pretty close to a circle

Nothing here is a clinical diagnosis. They are just a lot of the things us with ADHD deal with on a daily basis that effects our lives enough that it severely diminishes our quality of life without physician help. See a doctor if these types of things are effecting your life in any significant way.

Fun fact, a lot of ADHD meds also help with things like depression. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I have to deal with depression at the moment. I am unhappy with some circumstances in my life. Since unemployment could happen soon, it would be beneficial, if I would apply for some jobs. I even asked some friends if they knew about vacancies. But for some reason I just can't do it. It is enormously frustrating. But reading about symptoms here and realising it actually is a symptom helps me with self compassion.

I sometimes can’t order food for my cat online for months and feed him with some local shop one when it runs out at the last minute

Or litter same story.

It would be cheaper, more choice, maybe healthier but I can’t force myself to sit click on site, choose one, find credit card, type it etc.

So I always wait till last drop of cat food runs out and then full of guilt hurry outside to search for open shop. At least there is less choice in local shops.

Choices paralyse me. I will spent hours thinking which one to choose even if it’s completely minor and especially online as IRL I simply can’t stand too long I have to grab something.

Also one shopkeeper I think thought I was into her I think but now after a while she just looks sad and annoyed when I come instead of joyous and kind of eee weird but I have no idea to be honest it all may be just overthinking which is also a problem. I am fucking clueless and I don’t even know if I was/am interested. Probably not right I would know if I was I hope it would be obvious like idk heart pounding or whatever. Right? Right?

ADHD is symptoms a lot of people have, but dialed up to the point that it is disruptive enough to be a disorder.

Trouble falling asleep because your mind is racing a couple times a year, or occasionally misplace something? Probably not. If it happens a few times a week then probably..

I often wonder as well. Then I think: is this not just the human condition. In any case I seem to score pretty high on those online questionnaires.

It can be other things. Some of why I didn't get stuff done when younger was actually a symptom of PTSD from unrelated trauma. Basically my stress response is messed up and so anything I could link to stress or shame can make me avoidant, which snowballs into not doing the thing and more stress.

When I unlinked daily tasks from shame and stress I could suddenly do them, as I actually have ok executive functioning when PTSD isn't messing with me to cause avoidance which as I understand would not really be the case for ADHD. Although PTSD and the like can also pop up in ADHD people who were bullied for their symptoms.

Nothing here is a clinical diagnosis. They are just a lot of the things us with ADHD deal with on a daily basis that effects our lives enough that it severely diminishes our quality of life without physician help. See a doctor if these types of things are effecting your life in any significant way.

This could easily be burn out induced depression.

Yep. This one is task paralysis.

It's very common and really freaking annoying.

Except it's not so much "shiny" that distracts me, as it is literally anything.

There are things that I've intended to do for months. Many times, I've been on my way to do it, only to have some little thing distract me, and then completely forget about what I intended to do. Maybe a child asks me a question. Maybe I stop to take a sip of water. Maybe I just start thinking about something else in that 10 second walk. The significance of the distraction does not matter; the task immediately vacates my mind. I often even remember that I was going to do something, but I cannot remember what.

True, there's a lot of things that dist... Is that a bluejay?