I've been chewing on the chains of my ADHD without medication for 25 years.

Stimulant meds work for me for about 5 days. After which, the effect on my ability to manage my procrastination disappears. It's as if I've taken a placebo. Effortless focus and task switching is disabled, and all I'm left in the usual scenario:

I'm sitting at my desk, trying to start the task. I want to start the task. I NEED to start the task. But the frustration of, "why won't you just do it?" begins. Like I'm trapped in a car with a gear shift that I can't manually control, in neutral.

EVENTUALLY, I will do the task. I may sit at my desk at 11am... start the task at 3pm that day, leaving at 6pm after rushing to do a 7 hour task in 3. Some days I log in at 6am and go til 8pm. Sometimes I never get anything done that day at all, but I also can't relax and enjoy it. I'll make up for it the next day while hung over from the misery of the last day.

I've developed habits, rituals, coping mechanisms. They work 65% of the time. More than 0 without them, but not ideal. That remaining percent is just the ADHD Tax.

It is unwise... but it is involuntary.

I know, because when I try meds, which I reserve for rare occasions, the task engagement, switching priorities, and recovery from distraction... it's effortless. "Normal," some would say. (But I disagree with that assessment, because I've seen what people say passes for 'normal' and it's dysfunctional as hell in other less obvious ways.)

But sometimes... I'm in a prison of involuntary procrastination and can't for the life of me break out of it.

...I think about the number of hours wasted across my life, with the gear shift of my attention out of my control, and lament the hours wasted.

And I mean, wasted. Not enjoyed. Not productive. Just lost to that sensation of being stuck in neutral, unable to shift into drive. It makes me mad, but sometimes it's a relief to know I'm not alone.