Why Is It So Hard to Do Something That Should Be Easy? (Wall of Awful pt. 1)

OHHHH so that’s why I explode every time my mom tells me to do something that I was mentally preparing myself to do

"You ARE doing work, even though it looks like you're not. - It's just emotional work. You're climbing the wall!" Thank you.

Whoa, I've been interrupting my kids while they're climbing their walls. Thank you for helping me be a better parent.

Great examples for me are phone calls. Returning things to stores. Checking emails. Deleting photos off of my phone (I have 40,000 now!). Scheduling appointments. Making any large purchase. Dealing with any government things. Fixing broken phone screens. Reorganizing anything (without add meds). Making any huge life changes that would be beneficial to me. Even breaking up with someone.

I’ve said for a long time “I’m really not procrastinating, I’m just waiting until I’m good and ready to do that thing” and I didn’t know exactly why, nobody understood what I was talking about, I didn’t really know how to put it into words, and this video finally explains it so perfectly.

Confession: I revisit this video whenever I'm really struggling with a wall of awful in order to remind myself that there is a healthy way to climb the wall that doesn't involve blaming myself for the wall's existence or blaming the wordly around me for not working the way I need it to.

I’m not diagnosed but have had a longstanding suspicion that I have ADHD. The best way I’ve found to describe the “thing” that keeps me from just doing something I know I should is by telling people it feels like a physical force stopping me from doing it. Like my body may not feel much but in my brain there is a physical sensation of being physically stopped from moving forward toward whatever task I need to do, I’ve often said, like a brick wall in front of me. All of a sudden I feel a lot less crazy for saying that and having people look at me like I’ve just come up with another excuse to be unproductive and lazy. Thank you

I have been on a binge of ADHD content after being diagnosed and honestly I am crying so much at the amount of time lost,the failed relationships and how there are so many people that can relate to what I feel

When I had to write essays in high school I would often stare at the blank document for over an hour or two before getting out a paragraph at least. It was very de-motivating and felt like a huge waste of time. I did usually eventually get it done. Often late. But having had to give up so much time for it, only made me hate it more.

I call it being “frozen” ... even though I know what I need to do, I’ve done it before, I know it’s gonna be ok, but I am literally frozen in place.

Wow...this is life changing. I've never been diagnosed with ADHD but I do have a wall of awful. When I was struggling really badly with it last year I tried explaining how I felt to my loved ones and they were confused. I said "Do ever have a task you need to do but every fiber of your being just wont let you do it? Like starting it is impossible." And they were like "No? We just do stuff???" It was super frustrating to deal with it alone. I kept telling them I'm struggling with procrastination and the answer was always "Why? Just do it." This makes complete sense. I'm actually staring at my wall of awful right now. Time to climb!

I feel like the climbing process, when “rushed” by someone, also represents itself with the internal panic inside that we’re not ready. The binder example, if the kid doesn’t snap, the internal panic takes place and then it becomes an inescapable tunnel of a struggle against gravity kind of thing to start doing it now.

" I know, cause i made this up" crackin up lmao

"Why can't I go around the wall?" "Because it's a metaphor, and it's infinitely wide. I know, because I made it up." Lol, shout out to this guy.

I believe that a major problem with parents interrupting their children climb the wall is that the opposite side is scary and as a child being interrupted it feels like you're trying to be brave and then somebody throws you in a dark pit and says "Here. No fist fight the monster" - "Yeah ok, but I was about to build a torch, you know?" Being interrupted in this process is a really unpleasant thing and it does not help with future walls :(

"you ARE doing work, it's just emotional work ". So soothing to hear

that wall of awful thing totally makes sense. I've always tried to explain to people that I'm not just working on a paper, I'm working with my massive self hate that turns up whenever I try to write. What helps sometimes is actually TALKIN OUT LOUD with myself like a crazy person! I'm guiding myself through the process or, and this one's fun, singing about how much I hate what I'm doing and how silly I feel edit: wouldn't recommend doing this in the library though

I’ve had to explain to my wife that I sometimes feel a small spike of anger when it turns out she’s done a chore I was going to do. I know that it’s good that it got done and I appreciate her help, but she didn’t know that I had scaled the wall only to find nothing left on the other side and that takes an emotional toll.

i am actually crying because someone explained my life in 5 minutes. no one could ever understand me, and i always felt like i must be crazy or broken or stupid for always having to take ages to get myself ready to do even the most basic stuff. thank you for this channel, you might have literally saved my life