When you're working with objects in space, you have two kinds of energies; inertial energy ("an object in motion will keep being in motion"), and (what imma call) "Delta-v" (the energy that you can use to change course)

Inertial energy is dependent on where you've pointed it previously; what delta-V you've used.

So,

Would it be fair to say that sometimes you'd get into a mode where you have a ton of inertial energy for Something, but you can't change (low delta-v) that energy to something else?

You're constantly thinking of doing A Thing but you don't want to do that thing because you Need to do Something Else, but you're low-key "exhausted" and so you can't really force yourself to Change your brain to go do the other thing

This seemingly paradoxal state of "low energy but high energy", where you have energy for things you're thinking about, but you don't have energy to change that to what you want.

The inertial energy and the delta-v

@ShadowJonathan Totally. For me, the mental picture is more like gravity. But in principle, it's the same thing.

@ShadowJonathan omg interesting. I don’t have ADHD (afaik) and for me I think it works differently. I think of it as executive function and energy

if my executive function is bad (from lack of sleep or mental health things) then I’ll get “stuck” to stuff that interests me. but if those things are high-effort/high-energy then I can’t really do them properly either and I’m left feeling confused and unsatisfied until I recognize what’s going on and pivot to something low-energy instead (which I’ll get “stuck” to instead)

but things that don’t interest me are slippery instead of sticky, so I slide off of them and stick to something that interests me instead

and the better my executive function is, the less easily I stick to stuff (or, the more easily I can unstick myself). slippery things are still just as slippery in that case - but I can spend energy to force myself to stay on them. until I run out of energy, anyway

@ShadowJonathan
I am going to show this to my therapist

@ShadowJonathan yeah i experience this

i believe it (or similar) is also known as autistic inertia