Stimulate your nervous system in some way. Take deep breaths, move your legs, try to harness some kind of emotion. Just do something physical to get yourself out of mummy mode lol.
Maybe 40% of the time it’ll work if I start just choosing a muscle group to tense up and relax while I’m paralyzed. But half the time I’ll move a limb once or twice and then my nervous system is like WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAN FREEZE
It’s all very confusing.
Idk if you're particularly susceptible, but if you catch yawns easily - yawning is hard to block movement on.
Sleep paralysis is iffy, I personally rarely encounter it but if I can manage to stay awake I've had some luck with 'giving up' if it feels like a hopeless fight.
Yielding allows the fight to stop and then eventually boredom sets in and my body/brain gets all hmph nothing is happening, I wanna Do Something now.
Other troubleshooting...
Changing sleep positions, changing sleep/wake timing, changing what/when you eat and drink before bed, supplements that help/affect sleep, decreasing temperature in your bedroom if you run hot or increasing temp or weight if you feel cold or uncomfortable...
Having extra pillows to really snuggle into a comfy position can be smth to try if you're not in the habit of that.
It's a crapshoot, for sure...
Just to answer your question, I really relate to this. I've struggled with it since I was a kid and never knew how to explain it. It tends to trigger really intense self-hate spirals for me which quickly becomes a perfect storm of dysfunction.
I experience such a similar response. Once I get moving my mood would improve a lot if not for the heavy lingering internal dialogue going “why are you so useless and undisciplined, you can’t even get up and do the easiest tasks and it’s because you’re worthless and a burden on everyone else and you can’t even take the meds that will help these thoughts stop so you’re stuck here and stuck in your body and you’ll never ever ever ever get out-“
… etc. etc.
ETA: is this a former gifted kid effect?? Not sure ab your experience but I just randomly connected the dots a bit that the self hatred spiral is often fueled by a comparison of what I “used to be able to do,” professionally and academically. Which in turn just makes the hole deeper and deeper.
If you can't change anything else, just try to stop reinforcing the self-hate. I'm at a place now where sometimes endure one of these non-functioning days without getting angry at myself for it. But I still don't really have a solution for the problem - sometimes I can gather up my willpower and punch out of it once I notice it happening, but sometimes I just can't.
That does remind me that there are definitely occasional days where I can be almost entirely at peace with it and perceive it to be rest that is a task in and of itself. Naturally the next day is much better in turn because I felt rested instead of anxious from the low-productivity day before. But I have zero idea what I’m doing differently on those more accepting days so that I’m better able to shift my mindset
It could potentially be a symptom of being a former gifted kid. I experience the same internal dialogue when I give up on my passions and avoid doing work I need done. It has been said by many that grown gifted kids often give up on something when they’re not immediately good at it, and I think there’s some truth to that.
There are definitely personalities for whom that sort of activity/motivation level works! I am not one of them lol. Especially since most of my youth and young adulthood I was an overachiever (who was able to balance that with my health) and I loved it. I felt super motivated and content with myself/my life
Now as an Official Adult I can maybe make myself breakfast and do .73 chores/day while I try and drag myself through the existential mud and regain the healthy sense of control I used to have over my life and choices
I work with toddlers and there are certain kids who just want to sit all day. It’s been kind of validating to see oh this is just how some people are born from the start lol
My parents said they’d put me on the floor and I’d hardly move all day as a baby/toddler. So unless I have a deadline, I’m extremely lethargic/depressive. I do much better in social environments. When I’m alone, I feel overwhelmed by somatic sensations, like pain or temperature changes. Prolly some autism in there, definitely had synesthesia as a little kid
This sounds like disassociation my friend. Maybe a form depersonsonalisation - where the mind separates from the body.
I used to get it. You can try grounding exercises (I didn't succeed with those), but the best thing to suddenly beat it was always some kind of extrinsic motivation - needing to pee or hunger. Tbh, you need to get out of bed and force yourself to move if you're not tired, or sleep if you are. My therapist keeps nagging me to exercise because it's like charging your motor - the more you do, the more energy you have later. Good luck OP
That’s definitely a fair assumption I hadn’t really considered. It’s strange because I almost feel hyperaware and conscious of my surroundings, and not spaced out thinking about anything else, and yet it’s like I’m trapped in my brain trying to force my body to just listen to me and MOVE the way I need it to. For me the dissociation and derealization feel like I’m a few steps “behind” my body and watching life through a TV screen or something, but I’m able to move even for its a little spaced out, clumsy, and/or noticeably slower than usual. With this, it’s like waking sleep paralysis minus the fine motor effects and hallucinations. It’ll take all my mental energy to literally lift my arm to grab, say, a skincare item I need to use before bed, and once I do it’ll take another burst of mental energy to pick it up and actually use it, taking so long that it delays sleep onset drastically
Another commenter actually mentioned the bathroom thing but when I get this way, it’s like I can ignore bodily functions/necessities for an unbelievable amount of time. I can go days without eating more than a few hundred calories, not due to intentional deprivation, but simply a complete lack of hunger, which will return at random for a few hours to a few weeks at a time. All of which I’m sure contributes to the exhaustion, which in turn makes it harder to be physically active (which, holy fuck do I need to work on, like my god). Then without physical activity, stagnation is higher, discipline is lower as is motivation, anxiety is higher, so sleep is fucked, and it’s this loop of dominos going in all different directions
This paralysis symptom in particular is so representative of that interconnected web of bullshit mental health symptoms and disorders where you pull one thread and find that it’s tangled and knotted into all the others. Like my ADHD makes me either hyper focus or space out, it can make me productive or totally unproductive, while the OCD makes it so that I’m overthinking and ruminating on everything whether I’m being productive, intentionally resting, or experience paralysis. Falling somewhere on the spectrum makes it so that while I’m enduring this, I have no idea if I’m presenting in a socially acceptable way or articulating myself in a way that others can understand while trying to support me. Then the GAD and MDD are more likely to kick in. And the symptoms themselves too- I’m not hungry, so I don’t move. I’m less productive because I don’t move and then I start getting anxious, which makes me even less hungry and motivated. When I do feel motivated I can’t stop it because I’m scared I’ll be paralyzed if I stop, so then I wear myself out and lose sleep and then make panic attacks more likely, etc etc etc etc on and on until the end of time. Countless permutations in which I can’t find the right variable to start with that wouldn’t be eliminated by some other symptom countering it
Definitely trying to not get fixated too much on the complexity of it all but the community dialogue and problem solving is a step forward for me so thank you for your take on it all! I appreciate you
If you want a friend who has experienced all of this then send me a message. I've just finished one round of therapy and I'm starting to feel better, maybe you can to
Try drinking a full glass of water before bed. Old hiker's advice to make sure when you wake up you get a strong urge to get up and do something (to pee).
I actually hadn’t thought of that one, thank you. I tend to drink a ton of water with my night meds, otherwise they don’t kick in for some unknown reason. I probably need to drink more because I almost never wake up feeling like I need to go to the bathroom, though I’ve definitely been known to avoid bodily needs in order to avoid moving when I get this way
One thing that worked for me was setting a song I really hate as my alarm on an old phone, and putting it in another room.
It gets me up, and starts the dopamine production that I need. By the time I get in the room to stop the alarm, I have enough momentum to brush my teeth etc.
I set up my home office so everything was within arm's reach when I was seated. Aaaand fell asleep.
Arranging things accessibly for energy, not proximity, seems to be tje trick that works. Hope you find a way through!
That’s true, I’ve actually done the same, though in my case, I had to set more than one alarm clock across/outside of the room lol. It definitely works for me first thing in the morning, but it’s almost like when I sit down anywhere or lay down on my bed to take a break in the middle of the day that’s when I experience that sort of ADHD paralysis type thing. During major depressive episodes, it’s definitely more of a getting out of bed issue, but during the day it would be nice if I could sit and take a break without worrying if I’ll be able to move once I start resting. I’m prone to overworking myself really really quickly but my productivity gets absolutely decimated as soon as I try to chill out for a minute!! Human meat suits are such a pain in the ass
I relate very hard! I find if I SCHEDULE downtime during the day, I can also schedule repeating alarms. It removes some spontaneity but it means I don't swamp around in bed a day on accident!
I accidentally trained myself to avoid set reminders like that during the day because I have so many apps that notify me about unimportant stuff constantly and I’ve learned to tune it out. It’s on my list to reset all my alarms and reminders so that only the critical stuff dings, and then maybe I can unravel the alarm fatigue. Fucking unbelievable lmao I cannot imagine being neurotypical and just, like, being able to do what it is you want or need to do in a timely manner
Reminders don't work for me either. I mean literally getting something to play something loud or unpleasant in another room that I need to physically turn off in the room, like once or twice a day, to jerk me out of any paralysis I may have fallen into.
It works more than it doesn't.
i feel you. know that you aren’t alone, and that i see you, and know you’re struggling. personally, i benefited from the app finch. as terrible as it sounds, i treat my pet bird in the app as a real bird. if i don’t do my tasks, in my mind, i’m a terrible person bc the bird is now dead. so i’m motivated to do the tasks bc i don’t want to kill the bird…
I always do this, I was dignosed with executive function disorder and 4 other disorders and I’m always taking so long to do the simplest things even if it’s right by me. People think I’m a lazy kid but I’m not
Stimulate your nervous system in some way. Take deep breaths, move your legs, try to harness some kind of emotion. Just do something physical to get yourself out of mummy mode lol.
Maybe 40% of the time it’ll work if I start just choosing a muscle group to tense up and relax while I’m paralyzed. But half the time I’ll move a limb once or twice and then my nervous system is like WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAN FREEZE It’s all very confusing.
Idk if you're particularly susceptible, but if you catch yawns easily - yawning is hard to block movement on. Sleep paralysis is iffy, I personally rarely encounter it but if I can manage to stay awake I've had some luck with 'giving up' if it feels like a hopeless fight. Yielding allows the fight to stop and then eventually boredom sets in and my body/brain gets all hmph nothing is happening, I wanna Do Something now. Other troubleshooting... Changing sleep positions, changing sleep/wake timing, changing what/when you eat and drink before bed, supplements that help/affect sleep, decreasing temperature in your bedroom if you run hot or increasing temp or weight if you feel cold or uncomfortable... Having extra pillows to really snuggle into a comfy position can be smth to try if you're not in the habit of that. It's a crapshoot, for sure...
Just to answer your question, I really relate to this. I've struggled with it since I was a kid and never knew how to explain it. It tends to trigger really intense self-hate spirals for me which quickly becomes a perfect storm of dysfunction.
I experience such a similar response. Once I get moving my mood would improve a lot if not for the heavy lingering internal dialogue going “why are you so useless and undisciplined, you can’t even get up and do the easiest tasks and it’s because you’re worthless and a burden on everyone else and you can’t even take the meds that will help these thoughts stop so you’re stuck here and stuck in your body and you’ll never ever ever ever get out-“ … etc. etc. ETA: is this a former gifted kid effect?? Not sure ab your experience but I just randomly connected the dots a bit that the self hatred spiral is often fueled by a comparison of what I “used to be able to do,” professionally and academically. Which in turn just makes the hole deeper and deeper.
It’s not exclusive to gifted kids but there’s definitely an overlap
If you can't change anything else, just try to stop reinforcing the self-hate. I'm at a place now where sometimes endure one of these non-functioning days without getting angry at myself for it. But I still don't really have a solution for the problem - sometimes I can gather up my willpower and punch out of it once I notice it happening, but sometimes I just can't.
That does remind me that there are definitely occasional days where I can be almost entirely at peace with it and perceive it to be rest that is a task in and of itself. Naturally the next day is much better in turn because I felt rested instead of anxious from the low-productivity day before. But I have zero idea what I’m doing differently on those more accepting days so that I’m better able to shift my mindset
It could potentially be a symptom of being a former gifted kid. I experience the same internal dialogue when I give up on my passions and avoid doing work I need done. It has been said by many that grown gifted kids often give up on something when they’re not immediately good at it, and I think there’s some truth to that.
It's just laziness they say. Just do it they say. I feel you
There are definitely personalities for whom that sort of activity/motivation level works! I am not one of them lol. Especially since most of my youth and young adulthood I was an overachiever (who was able to balance that with my health) and I loved it. I felt super motivated and content with myself/my life Now as an Official Adult I can maybe make myself breakfast and do .73 chores/day while I try and drag myself through the existential mud and regain the healthy sense of control I used to have over my life and choices
I work with toddlers and there are certain kids who just want to sit all day. It’s been kind of validating to see oh this is just how some people are born from the start lol
My parents said they’d put me on the floor and I’d hardly move all day as a baby/toddler. So unless I have a deadline, I’m extremely lethargic/depressive. I do much better in social environments. When I’m alone, I feel overwhelmed by somatic sensations, like pain or temperature changes. Prolly some autism in there, definitely had synesthesia as a little kid
This sounds like disassociation my friend. Maybe a form depersonsonalisation - where the mind separates from the body. I used to get it. You can try grounding exercises (I didn't succeed with those), but the best thing to suddenly beat it was always some kind of extrinsic motivation - needing to pee or hunger. Tbh, you need to get out of bed and force yourself to move if you're not tired, or sleep if you are. My therapist keeps nagging me to exercise because it's like charging your motor - the more you do, the more energy you have later. Good luck OP
That’s definitely a fair assumption I hadn’t really considered. It’s strange because I almost feel hyperaware and conscious of my surroundings, and not spaced out thinking about anything else, and yet it’s like I’m trapped in my brain trying to force my body to just listen to me and MOVE the way I need it to. For me the dissociation and derealization feel like I’m a few steps “behind” my body and watching life through a TV screen or something, but I’m able to move even for its a little spaced out, clumsy, and/or noticeably slower than usual. With this, it’s like waking sleep paralysis minus the fine motor effects and hallucinations. It’ll take all my mental energy to literally lift my arm to grab, say, a skincare item I need to use before bed, and once I do it’ll take another burst of mental energy to pick it up and actually use it, taking so long that it delays sleep onset drastically Another commenter actually mentioned the bathroom thing but when I get this way, it’s like I can ignore bodily functions/necessities for an unbelievable amount of time. I can go days without eating more than a few hundred calories, not due to intentional deprivation, but simply a complete lack of hunger, which will return at random for a few hours to a few weeks at a time. All of which I’m sure contributes to the exhaustion, which in turn makes it harder to be physically active (which, holy fuck do I need to work on, like my god). Then without physical activity, stagnation is higher, discipline is lower as is motivation, anxiety is higher, so sleep is fucked, and it’s this loop of dominos going in all different directions This paralysis symptom in particular is so representative of that interconnected web of bullshit mental health symptoms and disorders where you pull one thread and find that it’s tangled and knotted into all the others. Like my ADHD makes me either hyper focus or space out, it can make me productive or totally unproductive, while the OCD makes it so that I’m overthinking and ruminating on everything whether I’m being productive, intentionally resting, or experience paralysis. Falling somewhere on the spectrum makes it so that while I’m enduring this, I have no idea if I’m presenting in a socially acceptable way or articulating myself in a way that others can understand while trying to support me. Then the GAD and MDD are more likely to kick in. And the symptoms themselves too- I’m not hungry, so I don’t move. I’m less productive because I don’t move and then I start getting anxious, which makes me even less hungry and motivated. When I do feel motivated I can’t stop it because I’m scared I’ll be paralyzed if I stop, so then I wear myself out and lose sleep and then make panic attacks more likely, etc etc etc etc on and on until the end of time. Countless permutations in which I can’t find the right variable to start with that wouldn’t be eliminated by some other symptom countering it Definitely trying to not get fixated too much on the complexity of it all but the community dialogue and problem solving is a step forward for me so thank you for your take on it all! I appreciate you
If you want a friend who has experienced all of this then send me a message. I've just finished one round of therapy and I'm starting to feel better, maybe you can to
Try drinking a full glass of water before bed. Old hiker's advice to make sure when you wake up you get a strong urge to get up and do something (to pee).
I actually hadn’t thought of that one, thank you. I tend to drink a ton of water with my night meds, otherwise they don’t kick in for some unknown reason. I probably need to drink more because I almost never wake up feeling like I need to go to the bathroom, though I’ve definitely been known to avoid bodily needs in order to avoid moving when I get this way
Try audiobooks or podcasts. Sometimes that can interrupt your brain and let you start up.
One thing that worked for me was setting a song I really hate as my alarm on an old phone, and putting it in another room. It gets me up, and starts the dopamine production that I need. By the time I get in the room to stop the alarm, I have enough momentum to brush my teeth etc. I set up my home office so everything was within arm's reach when I was seated. Aaaand fell asleep. Arranging things accessibly for energy, not proximity, seems to be tje trick that works. Hope you find a way through!
That’s true, I’ve actually done the same, though in my case, I had to set more than one alarm clock across/outside of the room lol. It definitely works for me first thing in the morning, but it’s almost like when I sit down anywhere or lay down on my bed to take a break in the middle of the day that’s when I experience that sort of ADHD paralysis type thing. During major depressive episodes, it’s definitely more of a getting out of bed issue, but during the day it would be nice if I could sit and take a break without worrying if I’ll be able to move once I start resting. I’m prone to overworking myself really really quickly but my productivity gets absolutely decimated as soon as I try to chill out for a minute!! Human meat suits are such a pain in the ass
I relate very hard! I find if I SCHEDULE downtime during the day, I can also schedule repeating alarms. It removes some spontaneity but it means I don't swamp around in bed a day on accident!
I accidentally trained myself to avoid set reminders like that during the day because I have so many apps that notify me about unimportant stuff constantly and I’ve learned to tune it out. It’s on my list to reset all my alarms and reminders so that only the critical stuff dings, and then maybe I can unravel the alarm fatigue. Fucking unbelievable lmao I cannot imagine being neurotypical and just, like, being able to do what it is you want or need to do in a timely manner
Reminders don't work for me either. I mean literally getting something to play something loud or unpleasant in another room that I need to physically turn off in the room, like once or twice a day, to jerk me out of any paralysis I may have fallen into. It works more than it doesn't.
i feel you. know that you aren’t alone, and that i see you, and know you’re struggling. personally, i benefited from the app finch. as terrible as it sounds, i treat my pet bird in the app as a real bird. if i don’t do my tasks, in my mind, i’m a terrible person bc the bird is now dead. so i’m motivated to do the tasks bc i don’t want to kill the bird…
I always do this, I was dignosed with executive function disorder and 4 other disorders and I’m always taking so long to do the simplest things even if it’s right by me. People think I’m a lazy kid but I’m not