It’s a really bad, unbearably vibratey itchy feeling. A craving for relief that takes too great a mental effort to overcome.
I feel like a better term for this experience is “restless.”
I feel like adhd bored is different than neurotypical bored because like. You don’t understand. I have a billion things I could be doing. I turn on the tv. I stare at the Netflix screen for five minutes. Flip through shows and movies for the next thirty minutes. Nothing looks good. I put in a video game. Play for two minutes. Not feeling it. I load up YouTube. Watch half a video before closing the app. Maybe I’ll read a book? I stare at my giant bookshelf. The thought of starting a new book seems too hard. I lay in bed and play phone games for six hours. Nothing has gotten done. Still bored.
Sometimes nothing sounds good; I have a specific experiential craving or itch that needs to be scratched but I don’t know what it is or how to placate it so I will rapidly cycle through activities in search of something that will provide the level/type of stimulation I crave. Like a tiger pacing in the zoo.
It can be physical too…sometimes if I don’t walk/pace it feels like my bones are squiggly and it’s as unpleasant as it sounds
Restless is a good word for it because you know what it often is with me? I need to move. I’ll spend all day unable to Do and unable to scratch that itch and Nothing Is Good, and I’ll eventually go to the shops for a bottle of juice or something and get back like, oh! I’m fine now. Honestly, stick some headphones in, slap on a mask because we’re sensible, and just fucking walk out the door if that’s an option for you. And I mean do it like that because otherwise you’re going to take 6 hours to get round to it.
I mean I’m no psychiatrist, I’m just a 31 year old disaster with ADHD-PI but yeah I think this one is your body needs physical movement. You feel restless but we’re used to feeling restless over mental stimulation and don’t recognise it properly. Every book and tv show and hobby we have won’t fix it because the specific stimulation you’re lacking that your brain keeps kicking you over isn’t in consuming content/observing, it’s in Move Your Legs You Potato.
Suggestions for when walking isn’t an option:
- Star jumps/jumping jacks for like a minute or two or till you want to stop (n.b. if you have downstairs neighbours and it’s 3am, maybe don’t)
- Maybe press-ups or summat might do it? May not be vigorous or move-y enough also sounds boring and terrible
- Try stretching your crackly joints, try touching your toes or twisting around or whatever you do: engage those stretch receptors to tell your body and brain you did a movement, those are important nerve endings and give you a lot of physical feedback
- Are you reading this in 1995? Cool, get on your home exercise bike
- Can you engage your upper body in a physical thing? What about making some bread? The kneading may fill your physical needs for movement and also you get bread out of it. Plus you’ll actually be able to focus on that podcast now.
- Clean your messy hovel. Literally just start picking up laundry and get that going or put to one side, grab a bag and pick up all the rubbish and wrappers around the place. Tidying involves walking back and forth constantly and using your hands, lifting and carrying. Plus you know you’ve been meaning to for like, 3 weeks now, fuck it harness your restlessness and take your irritation out on the mess, it can’t be less boring and terrible than you already are?
Key trick in all these things for me: don’t think, do. When you recognise this you have about 40 seconds probably to actually just hurl yourself into it without thinking before your brain is going to start interfering. Literally, realise you’re restless? Pick up the nearest dirty plate and start grabbing others to take to the kitchen. Walk out that door, grab the yeast and get it in the warm water now so you have to use it, start doing those star jumps right there and then - do not try all these at the same time.
And this isn’t some “control your ADHD with exercise not nasty pills” BS, Concerta XL saved my fucking life and all the jogging in the world isn’t an adequate substitute for proper medication. However, these things actually can help mitigate symptoms. A walk is particularly good because you also get to see other things (a nice dog, fuckin trees, a new shop, a shop you didn’t realise closed down, crimes, pigeons) and feel different physical sensations (hill, wind, rain, oh fuck I nearly walked in front of that car, stretchy legs, pavement and grass under shoe texture, Outside Smells).
Also, if anyone with mobility issues has input on this I’d like to know because I’d never really considered it but I have no idea what folk can do on that front. I presume most manual wheelchair users can just go out for a walk, it’s just arms not legs doing the moving, but same effect. But I suspect it’s not as straightforward for other kinds of mobility issues.
(via hungryklaxon)
