@apparentlyrolly @ADHDAlly @theotherbrook @terri @Mustbetuesday

First of all, thank you for responding and for sharing your experiences. Even if I know a particular advice doesn't work for me, it's still been good to be reminded of the underlying principles behind it - sometimes adaptions might work instead. It's also just been good for me to work through this in writing, and it seems like it's much more effective in conversation than when just writing on my own. All of this have led to a lot of thinking, but the good kind.

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Notes to self (trying to organise my thoughts - input is welcome):

I know what's most important: it's not a question of what to do, at least not to-do-list-wise. And I can technically break said task into bite-sized pieces, but I struggle with separating the "just start small" kind of bite from the everpresent looming dread that's attached to the entire project.

Sometimes I've managed to discard those attatchments by focussing only on the actionable task at hand, but that works best with physical kind of labour (dishes, laundry, taking a walk). It's not always easy, but I can do it. With mental work there is no thing to focus on, nothing I can touch, stare at, conceptualise into a neat object. It's... a blob of unknown, so it adopts its colour and weight from the larger project (so even the smallest task feels looming).

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Telling myself to "just work for five minutes" or "just open the document" doesn't work to circumvent the dread. It's still attached. I've tried writing the simple task down on paper (as part of a list, on a post-it note, on drawing paper so that I could brainstorm and sketch out my feelings to help deal with the dread... nothing seems to work).

Checking things off of a list doesn't bring me joy (I envy the people for whom this triggers satisfaction).

I don't really have a support network, no one I can lean on or realistically ask for help or be accountable to. The one person I know in real life who "get's it", and that I feel close to, is not someone who's able to chat every day (or week or month for that matter). My nearest family would look at asking for this kind of help as a failure - I'm supposed to just pull myself together after all. They really really do not understand, to the point where they can't even recognise what I'm talking about (they try, don't get me wrong, they try, but those conversations always ends up with me feeling even more lonely).