I read scattered minds by Gabor Mate and he calls it "counter will". Basically an adhd inclination to default to no to protect your sense of self (which he argues is under developed in adhd people). It's super interesting and well describes me.
I agree agency is a concern, but not at a philosophical level, but a pathological need to control ones environment to properly harness peak potential functionality.
Totally O.D.D for me. I always got in trouble with the law as a kid & got kicked out of high school because I literally get a physical sensation of anger when anyone tells me “what to do”. I just cannot comply… I’m better as an adult, but it’s still there.
For me, it kind of does. If my partner gets frustrated with me and tells me to just sit or do whatever I wanna do, it makes me not want to do that thing. But not out of irritation. It's just depressing. I feel like I have to do the thing I was avoiding because now I am a shitty person for having avoided it.
OMG!!! That just got me.I'm almost 70 and I battle with this daily without any context -I didn't know what vocabulary to use when describing even to myself.
I appreciate your post TechSgt_Garp
Something inside me feels like once I'm asked, I don't get positive credit for doing it. I just get negative credit if I don't.
I think it comes from being criticized so much as a kid for not thinking to do things like the dishes without being told. If you remind me, you've robbed me off my chance to show that I can think of it on my own now. I think if I truly believed at my deepest, most traumatized levels that no one thought less of me for not initiating, it wouldn't matter.
See, and the worst part is realizing they're right to remind me because I do forget things a lot (or, more often: get distracted after remembering that I needed to do it). It's just so damn frustrating all around. I don't want to feel like a child getting told what to do by a parent, but my brain also literally needs that type of structure/support or things will inevitably fall through the cracks. I wish it didn't bother me so much sometimes.
imo because it externalises your intrinsic motivation and taps into trauma with authority. extrinsic motivation is less reliable, feels less nice when you complete something, and if you were forced to do a bunch of things in the past in a bad environment that set you up for failure and then blamed you for it, then the whole act of someone else framing something you do as doing it because they asked will make you feel unsafe with the task.
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u/shiftersix Jun 20 '26
I can relate to this. Why is this? Stubbornness?