Revenge Procrastination

[Sharkweek178]

As I understand it this is common among those of us with ADHD. For people who don't know, it's when you regularly lose sleep staying up late doing things you like. Instead of going to bed, you'll stay up watching tv or something like that.

For example, I usually only get about 6 hours of sleep a night because I stay up late doing something I enjoy. The thing that gets me is that the solution is to give up time doing something to get that sleep. So I would have to give up two hours of something every day just to get adequate sleep. And it's going to have to be the things I actually like doing. It's not like someone is going to cut back on their job. What else is there to cut back on? Exercise? Self Care? Meals? If you have kids, do you spend less time taking care of them?

And on top of that, all of these articles say no screen time an hour before bed. So that's even less time for me to do something enjoyable. They say you should spend that last hour doing things like meditating or writing in a journal. So I get to spend the last hour of my day bored and annoyed.

So if I get done at work at 530, that leaves me about 4 and a half hours until bed. Minus the 1 hour of no screen time before going to sleep. So then there's commuting, spending time with significant other, exercise, household chores, eating dinner, any errands that need run, and who knows what else comes up. What does that leave me, 20 minutes to myself?

How do people do this?

[UhNonImus]

story of my life! not even sure what to say to this, practice some self discipline perhaps? I know, I don’t want to either but it’s a have to for us, also moderation in all things

[UhNonImus]

It’s that lack of dopamine rush, for me if I don’t get enough excitement or mental & physical exercise during the day, I just get in a depressed funk like I wanna freaking do something, anything but boring ass sleep!

However, if I do somehow wear myself out it makes it easier to consider laying down and falling asleep. That’s obviously if I take my Rx. If I don’t, I won’t even get out of bed, I’ll sleep all day & night no problem.

[lovelylavish in reply to UhNonImus]

Hi UhNonImus. I’m curious what your experience is like when you say if you don’t take your Rx, you don’t even get out of bed and can sleep all day and night? The reason I’m curious is I’ve never had a hard time sleeping, in fact I have an over sleeping problem and often don’t even feel rested no matter how much I sleep. Feel like I could sleep days and days sometimes. I’ve always thought I’ve had chronic fatigue. Anyways I’m just curious what you feel like in your body when you don’t take your Rx. I’m working on getting evaluated and am not on any meds except an ssri for depression. Thanks for your time. I’ve found a bit of research about adults getting misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue when they actually had adhd. Interesting stuff 💜

[UhNonImus in reply to lovelylavish]

No motivation no drive to do anything, or get started doing something, no energy just blahhh all day, worst feeling ever

[DanisKeeper]

Stay up until 4 or 5 or 6 am, fight to roll it back to something reasonable like 2 or 3, have success for a few days then rinse and repeat.

[AlphaGeekBoy]

I am similar to DanisKeeper . Although if I stay up until 4 or 5 I end up not sleeping. I’ve done this twice kind of by accident. 2 - 3 is my average and 11:00 is my goal. I end up waking up around 8 or 8:30 and then spending 1 - 2 hours on personal and initial easy work stuff. Then get to the office around 10:30 - 11:00. This results in working and staying late thinking I can get everything done. Then usually crash when I get home and get wound up again around 9:00 pm.

I agree exercise helps. I’m trying to figure out how to reset because I know sleep 300% improves my executive function but it’s a viscous cycle. I am not so good on the self-discipline.

Each day is a new day to strive to be better and I continue to work on it.

[Sharkweek178]

I mean, I get in theory that people need an adequate amount of sleep. And that not sleeping 8 hours every night probably makes my ADHD worse. I'm having trouble with the idea of having to give up part of my day to accomplish that. And that it will probably be the parts of the day that I actually enjoy.

[Hominid711]

Some people just have these patterns. Probably genetic. Matter of choice what you let take precedence. I have tried and failed to overcome what doesn't want to be overcome.To me it's sleep. I don't function without my 7, better 8-9h per 24h and I have polyphasic sleep. Ok mostly biphasic but still tricky to fit everything in I'd like to.

I love walking and the occasional hike so I do an extended walk every few days when work is not too heavy and when I feel rested enough and walk home from work, rather energetically still on the last few milligrams of Vyvanse, to get my exercise, might meet friends for coffee, museum etc and read or watch as much TV as I like and when I like which can be any time. I also work nights which suits my diurnal rhythm.

[Hidden]

Your title to your post, Revenge Procrastination made me laugh. I understand where you’re coming from.

For me, getting into a regular routine has helped the most. I get up at 5:30 am for work, even though I don’t have to be there until 8:30. That’s because I need time to wake up and get motivated. On Adderall, it starts working in about 30 minutes. Instead of drinking 3 cups of coffee I now only have 1. I’m also on a combination of long acting and instant release Adderall and it’s perfect. I don’t crash in the afternoon so I get things done at home after work. I try and go to bed by 10 and will read on my phone. Mine is set to remove blue light from 10 pm to 7 am. Works for me and I get my sleep.

[Curly_Adelaide]

Regarding sleep and procrastination - I can manage it. Not always, but in a lot of cases. I have a smart plug which disables my computer monitor. Also my husband helps a lot when he goes to sleep.

But regarding procrastination during working time... Nothing works for me. Procrastination is a disaster, which ruins my life. Well, I have some tips, to pretend that I'm a normal person, not a disabled, like split tasks to small, or cause hyperfocus, or panic (tell myself I could be fired soon...) but... I don't have a solution. I'm broken and crying because of it.