every day i look at the sink and i’m like seriously? honest to god i have used dishes once again?
this post is not for people frustrated by ppl putting dishes in their communal sink bc “oh i would NEVER leave a dish in the sink.” fuck off you already have your life together you don’t need this post. this is for the slimes and losers whose sinks are filled with the dishes of their own creation. this is for the lazy women, the useless men, the pathetic enbies. get out of here you sparkling clean dished heathens
These other assholes: Oh I hate leaving a mess. Cleaning up actually helps me unwind!
My ADHD executive-dysfunctional fuckin goblin self: I have to perform a TASK? But I just performed a task YESTERDAY!
Some people simply do not understand the profoundly Sisyphean torment that is cleaning things.
Dishes.
Clothes.
House.
Self.
IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW OFTEN YOU DO IT, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN. DOPAMINE PAYOFF IS ZERO, THE TASK IS NEVER COMPLETED AND YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO STOP DOING IT EVER IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE.
TL;DR - If you have a boring task that you want to get dopamine from, smile when you finish it, and tell yourself you did a great job. Overtime, you’ll start to enjoy the task (i.e., get dopamine from it).
The long version:
I have, many times in my life, struggled with the endless, reoccurring tasks in life. Dishes and laundry are two of the worst. Taking a shower is pretty bad, too.
BUT, I disagree with @elidyce. The dopamine payoff isn’t zero. I’m not sure if the psychology of it, but you can train yourself into feeling rewarded for completing little tasks.
You’re probably thinking, no, zumlikeithot, I have ADHD, executive dysfunction, etc., and these tasks are SO BORING!
Trust me, I get it. I have ADHD too, but I went undiagnosed for 37 years, and along the way I figured out some things to help accomplish the shit we have to get done. Which includes dishes and laundry and showering and making food and, and, and.
But, if you want to have a clean kitchen, for example, the trick I have used is:
- Complete the task (or a portion of it), e.g., washing the bowl you just used, instead of putting it in the sink.
- Take a step back (metaphorical or literal)
- Smile in a satisfied way (forced or actual), and say, “I did a great job! Look how nice the kitchen looks now that I have cleaned that bowl! I am so proud of myself!”
- Do not (this is very important), DO NOT look at anything left undone and beat yourself up that it isn’t done.
Congratulations, you have just created a nascent reward cycle in your brain.
The next time you do the task, repeat steps one through four above.
Overtime, you will solidify the reward for doing the task, and you might even *gasp* start to look forward to it.
At that point, you can build on that task, adding additional tasks into the reward loop.
Instead of just washing the bowl you just used, also wash one other item in the sink/kitchen. Work your way up to washing everything that’s in the kitchen, all the while praising yourself for what a fantastic job you’re doing, and how nice everything looks.
It works. Trust me it works. I’ve been doing it for YEARS.
That is wack, but I bet it does work.
#does anyone know the psychology of why this works?
I don’t know the specific details of why this, in particular, works, but I’m sure the general reason is that brains are, frankly, not very bright. You would think that your brain knows, y'know, what the hell it’s doing, or at least why something is happening, but it really doesn’t. It gets chemical signals from your body, and then looks around and makes a guess as to the reason those chemicals are happening. (Summarized from Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness [x])
(This is why the take your date to a horror movie / roller coaster thing works: the brain can’t tell the difference between fear and excitement. So the fear gets you all physiologically aroused, and then you step off the ride feeling, just, exhilarated, and your brain is like “Huh. Why are we feeling that?” but you’re not on a roller coaster any more, but you ARE with someone you agreed to go on a date with, and your brain concludes that this must be sexual arousal, and you must think this person is super hot.)
(This is also why abusers often get angry about contradictory things: their body sent angry chemical signals, their brain looked around for a reason, and they concluded that it must have been that thing the victim did. The fact that it was the thing they asked their victim to do yesterday is not a factor their brain is hard-wired to take into account. If you’ve been in that situation: it was not you. It was never you. It was a stupid brain setup combined with a lack of self-reflection and introspection. You were not, and are not, the problem here.)Anyway, this leads to some pretty dumb shit, and it’s really really worth spending the time and spoons to learn how to doubt the conclusions your brain arrives at about your feelings. But once you know about it, you can use it to increase confidence [x], make yourself more likely to remember good things [x], or (apparently) to force your brain to make dopamine when cleaning the kitchen.
It also means that – as in so many other cases – teachers’ & caregivers’ approach to handling this form of executive dysfunction is exactly wrong in all ways. There’s a very good chance that @zumlikeithot’s step 4 will be difficult (or initially impossible) for some people, because the reinforcement of shame in your childhood was so consistent, and so strong. You may have to spend a year simply practicing step 4, before you can even manage the rest of the process. Whereas if our parents had just praised us for doing our chores, the combination of “humans are wired to release dopamine when someone praises us” + “hyper emotional” would probably have had us keeping everything perfectly in place by the time we came of age.
Since they didn’t, we’ll just have to create that cycle for ourselves. (Suck on that, angry and shaming caregivers! 😤)
TL/DR: I don’t know of any studies that focus on this phenomenon specifically, but it would be predicted by the model that matches other known results, and so is a highly plausible hypothesis well worth testing.
(via tinsnip)
