Remote working during the Pandemic

[cookie_0]

Do you get overstimulated or understimulated when working remotely during the pandemic? and how does it affect your way of working?

[Gettingittogether]

Actually for me working remotely was great for my ADHD. Very simple. No commute. Easier to arrive "on time." I started ordering so many things online. Saved all the time and energy and procrastination and distraction of going out shopping.

That's just me. Working from home simplified things, and I continue to try to keep things simple even as we returned to work in person in the fall. Not being able to go out for dinner with friends--yes, that wore me down over time.

[KC183]

The pandemic is what catapulted my recent diagnosis. Ordinarily my job is fast paced, pressured and interesting, with lots of social contact. Suddenly working from home the work dropped off, no social contact and no buzz from my job. My brain basically went into sleep mode

[asaleh7]

i dont think i am doing well working at home, i am used to being in the office and communicating with people, get out of my head and focus on tasks at hand yanno. Working at home has made me lose all motivation i had , it takes me hours to complete simple tasks and i feel like its only getting worse. i dont know if i am just being lazy and procrastinating or this is an actual ADHD symptom.

[Scarlettbegonia_]

I also don’t do well working from home. Though I am still in training/school, pre-pandemic my days were busy, social, and organized and I could usually get done what I needed to and study in an appropriate manner. Now, however, I’ve reached the point in my career where it’s all just self-directed learning, so outside my variable hospital hours, my days lack that forced organization and sense of urgency that came with having more to do. At home I get so distracted with chores I’ve failed to do, and tv, and worst of all my COUCH (if I touch that thing my day is essentially over). It just paralyses me to be confined and understimulated in my little apartment.

While not a totally adviseable move given the current uptick in covid, I’ve found that doing some work outside of my apartment at a coffee shop really helps. For me, it’s just the right amount of surrounding going’s-on and none of the shame of my dishes and pile of laundry hanging over me 😅

[noescape111]

My adhd has been exacerbted by electronic communications to the point of feeling completely iolated, phobic about writing emails - despite obessive efforts and attempts a box full of unsent drafts and ultimately defaults and feeling misunderstood. I realized during covid how much I depend on two way instant communication, body language, voice tone in interpreting and communicating with people. No one can or does understand even those I know well and tried to explain. They can no more comprehend and think the way I do, then I can the way they do. Thinking differenetly was a disaster in school prediagnosis and meds. Wouldn't have dreamed of college but attended, did very well and managed to get a degree. There were years I forgot I had adhd as thinking differently and working around things became the norm if not an asset in some cases. That is, I can't think in the box to save my life but am great at thinking outside of it and that has been an advantage in many situtions where others seem trapped inside it while I am trapped outside it. My Dad had it but was never diagnosed and was known for finding solutions for seemingly "impossible" problems. Actually became known in town as the "go to person" for solutions. He was brilliant and successful despite adhd and never being diagnosed or knowing but an entrepeneur that accomplished much more in one lifetime then most and was greatly admired for his creative problem solving applied to real life problem and solutions. He knew as did many that he was more able, not disabled. I know that unlike me who was diagnosed and struggle hard, it was his super power. He somehow adapted to and harnassed that ability and neither he or others knew he had it. He lived an exceptional life and was a good and carin human that would and did do many things to help others and make the world a better place for being here. I miss him terribly and wish that I was able to adapt as he did despite being differently abled but anything but "disabled." For me it has been a blessing and a curse and it was covid and electronic communications that require I respond neurotypically that have essentially made me paralyzed and imprisoned me. I can write but have difficulty reponding, as I go off on tangents and write things (as this) that I cannot send, cannot get the clarification I realize that I so much have depended and the abiguity I see where it seems to not exist for others. I also feel a need to explain what know one wants to hear or would understand, or read. As my daughter said, no one will even read it and it is not "normal." That if I cannot respond concisely, people will not only not read it, they will think it and I am odd. That unfortunately is the case because I don't know how to respond without expressing myself in a way that is not typical in writing and I feel like a prisoner trapped in an electronic box of burdens and expectations that try as I have, I fail to be able to respond acceptably as I have struggled and failed to adapt to electronic written communications. I feel embarassed, irreponsible and misunderstood because I simply can't seem to "respond" as is normal. I hold the emails for 24 hour and reread them and can then see but despite more and more attempts, I have a box of unsent email drafts that cumulatively rival the length of "War and Peace" but more appropo "Les Miserables." This response is the usual product that doesn't get sent but am sending in this case because it so aptly demonstrates how I veer off course, ramble endlessly and ultimately do not respond to the question. I feel inextricably trapped and iolated and my own private "hell" which this is an example.

[cookie_0 in reply to noescape111]

I really like how you describe your feelings and emotions, its very poetic and it flows very nicely even though it may seem long but since everything somehow connects very well together I didn't realize that I was already reading the last sentence. The pandemic is difficult for everybody and I can vividly imagine how frustrated and lost you must feel. Any responses is welcomed so thank you for answering it's insightful