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Anyone else feel too guilty to open messages/emails after you've put them off for too long? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/adhd@lemmy.world
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Opening them feels daunting the minute they come, and the longer I put them off due to that, the more guilt gets added to the mix too, so they just go unadressed.

Has anyone found a strategy that works for this?

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[–] 5 points 1 day ago* (4 children)

Yes. What works for me is to differentiate between reading a message and replying to it. I made myself a rule "fuck it, now im gonna just read the message and only then i decide whether i want to respond or not". Usually when I open the message I get motivation to respond it. If I don't want to respond still after reading then I tell the person that I will respond later and then think why I didn't want to respond. Is it boring? Is it my low energy? Is it that the person I'm speaking to is not comfy? If its because of them, I try to talk about it like look im sorry i know that youd like to speak about X but im not really enjoying these things so lets do something about it. Or just cut the communication if Im not interested in this person anymore

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    Ah I see. For me once I've read a message I feel obliged to start writing a response there and then because 1. I need to capture my authentic reaction otherwise I might forget later on what I actually wanted to reply, and 2. If I don't reply now then I'll forget later, or keep putting off the chore

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    You can try to start to ignore your friends on purpose (if you have enough confidence). You can even talk to them about it like look i have a problem with reading messages and responding to them so I want to try to separate these two phases so please dont be angry with me if i won't respond you in the same very instant. If they are true friends they will understand.

    Also usually when I choose to ignore someone it's not really that important and it means that it's okay to forget about it - at the end of the day what stimulates us is urgency and if it's urgent there is no way we will ignore it. So if I,can afford to ignore it its highly likely that you can give a fuck about it for some time.

    Also, you will be notified by the chat visually some time after when you open the app, or the person will write you again themselves, or you will want to write something to this person yourself, or you can even set the message to "unread" as a reminder to yourself, so be chill

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    It seems to be the writing part that's the hirdle for me because you have to do so much empathising, remembering, imagining, phrasing things acceptably, deciding what you actually want and working out how you actually feel (this can be a hard one), etc etc.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago*

    Yeah it sucks i dont like this masking part neither. Usually if i overthink about these things, it means that these people are not comfy for me and I just let them go. You absolutely dont have to meet all their emotional needs if you don't have energy or interest for this. I cleared a lot of people from my cirle recently and Im sooo relieved now because I can ignore them freely for days and then respond just with random shitpost meme and its so liberaring because noone gets upset (and they do the same bc they have adhd too lol)

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