I feel like adhd bored is different than neurotypical bored because like. You don’t understand. I have a billion things I could be doing. I turn on the tv. I stare at the Netflix screen for five minutes. Flip through shows and movies for the next thirty minutes. Nothing looks good. I put in a video game. Play for two minutes. Not feeling it. I load up YouTube. Watch half a video before closing the app. Maybe I’ll read a book? I stare at my giant bookshelf. The thought of starting a new book seems too hard. I lay in bed and play phone games for six hours. Nothing has gotten done. Still bored.
I feel like a better term for this experience is “restless.”
Sometimes nothing sounds good; I have a specific experiential craving or itch that needs to be scratched but I don’t know what it is or how to placate it so I will rapidly cycle through activities in search of something that will provide the level/type of stimulation I crave. Like a tiger pacing in the zoo.
It’s a really bad, unbearably vibratey itchy feeling. A craving for relief that takes too great a mental effort to overcome.
It can be physical too…sometimes if I don’t walk/pace it feels like my bones are squiggly and it’s as unpleasant as it sounds
My bones are squiggly and it literally physically hurts sometimes and a lot of times I will get abruptly and inexplicably exhausted bc my brain has had enough of this “bored” shit and would rather just shut down for the day than endure it any longer.
Understimulation is incredibly mentally draining because when nothing motivates you and feels good, every little thing you do needs an absurd amount of spoons for you to actually do it. You may not notice it, because the understimulation is so intense that it overpowers fatigue, but it’s something that constantly drains you in ways that are almost impossible to explain to people who don’t experience similar issues.
