The Saturnian Freeze: Why Your "Laziness" Is Actually Unprocessed Grief
I once sat across from a client who apologized for being lazy. She had not left her bed in four days. But when I read her body like an ancient text — not the DSM, the soma — I saw no lethargy. I saw a funeral in progress.
We call it executive dysfunction. The alchemists called it nigredo: the blackening that precedes all transformation. Your "laziness" is not a character flaw. It is Saturn's freeze, the cosmic insistence that you stop producing so your grief can finally speak. In somatic terms, the body has entered a sacred stillness; the nervous system is not shut down, it is processing what the mind refused to bury properly.
Capitalism taught you that stillness is sin. But the old texts knew better: the witch who cannot rise from her bed is not cursed. She is uninitiated in her own mourning. The freeze is a psychic opening, not a closing. The energy you think you have lost is not gone — it is underground, feeding roots you cannot yet see.
I mapped this exact pattern — the freeze, the grief beneath the guilt, and the ritual to thaw it — in Garden of the Mind. Forty pages of citations, somatic protocols, and the clearing ritual your spirit is waiting for. Link in bio.
https://shortlink.uk/1v84p
Micro-ritual: For three days, do not fight the stillness. Instead, witness it. Each morning, ask: What is my body burying while I am unable to move? Write one sentence. That is not laziness. That is soul alchemy in its slowest, most honest form.
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Dreaming up a universe is easy. Ridiculously easy. I can spin entire civilizations while standing in line at Target. I’ve built magic systems in the shower. I’ve cried over fictional deaths that haven’t even been drafted yet.
But finishing the book is... complicated. đź‘€
I sit there with this galaxy-sized idea in my head and somehow—somehow—I can’t get past chapter TWO. Or I can, but then I forget what I set up in chapter one. Or I write one scene obsessively for three days straight and ignore the rest of the manuscript like it's the Moon from Majora's Mask.
It’s not laziness. It’s not lack of passion. If anything, it’s too much passion with nowhere to land.
ADHD, for those of us living in it 24/7, isn’t just “ooh squirrel.” (Although it is... sometimes). For the most part, for most of us, it’s largely an executive function issue, which is a fancy way of saying the brain’s project manager keeps calling in sick. Planning, sequencing, time management, holding multiple moving parts in working memory at once—in neurotypical brains? 👍 That's all good.
For ADHD brains? There is a real, painful struggle.
I'm juggling plots, character arcs, emotions, metaphors, logistics, pacing, realism, and the small detail of—oh right—actually writing sentences. All in my head. At once. No wonder it feels like trying to carry groceries without bags. Things are going to spill.
What happens when we push? We start everything, we finish nothing. We hyperfocus on one delicious scene and ignore everything else. We forget a character's eye color midway through drafting. We avoid outlining because it feels like taking a sledgehammer to our confidence.
Our brain chases novelty. It does not chase committment.
And that's okay. Brains can be different. Not all of us have to be the same. But what's not okay is beating youself up for it.
Instead of brute-forcing strategies that are physically incompatible with your brain, try strategies that work with your brain.
After doing some research on ADHD, some things keep showing up. External structure helps. A lot.
👉 Accountability buddies (highly recommended)
👉 A planner
👉 A schedule
👉 Timers
👉 Deadlines (whether real or imposed)
When the brain struggles to generate organization internally, you borrow it from the outside world. You don’t have to “try harder.” You need to scaffolding.
Instead of “write chapter three,” you shrink it. Outline three bullet points. Draft the opening scene. Write a killer first sentence hook Write 250 messy words and call it a day (and by messy, I mean MESSY). Small targets are less threatening; they don’t trigger that frozen, deer-in-headlights feeling.
Instead of storing your entire plot in your skull, you put it somewhere visible. Paper. Planner. Wall calendar. Sticky notes that multiply like rabbits. Out of your head and into the physical world. Give your working memory a rest. It can't do it all.
Visual tracking is amazing—crossing off a box, updating a word-count tracker. Give your brain a breadcrumb trail of little dopamine hits. ADHD brains thrive on tangible proof that something is happening. Otherwise it feels like you’re sprinting on a treadmill.
Using a planner, I could flesh out characters properly before drafting. Map chapters one by one. Track word counts without guessing. Dump half-formed ideas into a designated space instead of letting them ping around my brain at 2AM when I'll inevitably forget them.
If there is one first step you should take -> Use a planner.
There are great ones for free on the internet. I also have a detailed 60-page novel writing planner made for ADHD brains.
Six pages, printable, broken into seven sections—everything you will ever need to write that first book. It’s thorough because ADHD doesn’t do well with vague. It’s structured because structure can actually free up creativity (contrary to what some gurus say).
And I built it myself, from one ADHD squirrel to another. :P
[X]
In conclusion, you are not a broken being. You will write that book someday. But you need to take it one step at a time.
This post was proudly written without AI.
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If you’d like to help fund my first novel, donations go directly toward buying me more writing time.
Friday, July 30, 2021
It's a common misconception that ADHD simply means being hyper and/or being unable to focus, when a more accurate way to describe it would be not as an attention deficit, but as an executive function deficit. That's why so many parents of children with ADHD are skeptical of the diagnosis--they see that little Timmy has trouble sitting still and paying attention to homework and chores, yet he can sit down in front of a video game for hours at a time! See, he must be slacking off, he doesn't really have trouble focusing!
A true ELI5 on how this actually affects people is 'ICNU': Interest, Challenge, Novelty, and Urgency. If something doesn't meet one of those four categories, someone with ADHD just isn't going to be able to do it. Let's use doing the dishes as an example--is it interesting? Not even slightly. Challenging? Not really. Novel? Nah. Urgent? Not yet--but once that person with ADHD actually needs clean dishes, then it gets done, because it now meets one of those four criteria. In that sense, putting things off until the very last second is essentially a coping mechanism for ADHD, rather than a symptom of it itself.
And on a related note, That's also why video games in particular are like the stereotypical ADHD hobby/addiction--most video games check all four of those ICNU boxes at once. They were practically made for us.
- 4102reddit
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Hoping this will help with my executive dysfunction! I still need a purple bin and a bigger bin for them all but it is functional now! Probably be starting on Monday :) #executivedysfunction #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthtips #gettingstuffdone #youvegotthis #colorcoded #organization #cute #lists #beatingdepression #beatinganxiety #becomingmeagain #notoverdoingit #cleaninghacks #cleaning https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ5grGrOVY9/?utm_medium=tumblr
#WritingABook w/ #ExecutiveDysfunction frm 2 neurodivergencies (#ADHD, #NVLD) including one that interferes w/my ability to grasp the big picture is a TRIP, y’all! There’s a joke in the NVLD (Nonverbal Learning Disability) community: NVLDers take the expression “can’t see the forest for the trees” to the extreme. That we can’t see the forest OR the trees cuz we’re too busy spending weeks examining the tiny veins in one leaf! My #bookwriting process is: 1. Having a ½ assed outline knowing I forgot entire sections. When I suddenly remember them, I’ll write all night abt them on the most inconvenient day. Why? Because once it pops into my brain & I can’t stop 2. Writing the book completely out of order because each day I focus on what gives me the biggest dopamine rush. I know the book will take longer to write out of order (+ mess w/the flow & I’ll have to edit a lot to correct it) but it’s the only way I can motivate myself. So being motivated to write the longer/harder way still nets me more progress in the long run than never being motivated to write the “right” way 3. Getting lost in examining the veins in the leaves of k!nk, hyperfixating on 1 tiny obscure aspect, spending the entire day (or 3) researching unplanned info--just to suddenly have a meltdown cuz I have no clue how it’ll fit into the big picture. Cue analysis paralysis. Dun dun dun.  4. Hijacked by my obsession w/what fonts, design elements & colors the book will have cuz even tho that’s NOT a priority RN, I can’t stop thinking about it (it also tricks my brain into sorta “feeling” the big picture/final product) So, uhhh, it’s going...well? HAHA!  But I know my patterns. I’ll spend the first ½ of the project completely miserable & confused, unable to organize, distracted, not able to imagine what the final outcome might “feel” like, indecisive AF, drowning in imposter system, would rather have my toenails pulled out, etc. And then one day when I least expect it (about the ½ way point) everything will CLICK for no rhyme or reason. Then the project will become the most enjoyable thing ever & I’ll feel like a bad-ass. That CLICK point is still a ways off-- but it WILL come at some point! https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ38aDgj1Fu/?utm_medium=tumblr
me at 1:30 am after executively dysfunctioning for 2 hours: WELP im giving up and going to bed. if i need to pee then that will be a problem for 3 am me
