The Gentle AHA
Why “simple things” aren’t simple for us
There are things the world insists are easy.
Take a shower. Go for a run. Get some fresh air. Move your body. Do the thing.
And for years, I believed the world.
I believed that if something was “simple,” then struggling with it meant something was wrong with me. My friends, Neurotypicals rule the world, and we just reside in it.
It’s not the task that’s hard.
It’s everything that comes with it.
For those of us with anxiety, depression, trauma, or neurodivergent wiring, a “simple” thing is never just one thing.
A shower is a hundred micro‑steps. A run is a confrontation with silence.A walk is an invitation for the thoughts to ambush you. Movement is vulnerability. Stillness is loud. With so much noise and chaos constantly in our brains, silence and stillness is the enemy.
But Gloria, you are telling me to MOVE. Yes dear, for the alternative brain, taking away the multiple streams of input, means stillness, even in motion. Even if music is blasting, even if a podcast is playing. Even though bodies are screaming obscenities at us for attempted murder.
It’s not that we hate exercise. It’s not that we’re avoiding the fresh air. It’s not that we don’t want to feel better. It’s that we don’t have the spoons to do the thing and survive the mental ambush that comes with it.
Because when the world goes quiet, the mind gets loud.
And when you’re already stretched thin, you don’t have the capacity to push, sweat, breathe, hurt, try. And also face the shadow‑monster that wakes up in the silence.
Once I understood that, everything made sense.
Of course it’s hard. Of course I freeze. Of course I avoid. Of course I feel overwhelmed before I even begin.
It’s not laziness. It’s not a weakness. It’s not a character flaw.
It’s conflict avoidance - the most human kind.
Avoiding the silence. Avoiding the ambush.Avoiding the thoughts that wait for you in the quiet.
The part that matters most: Knowledge is power.
Not the kind that demands action - the kind that gives you compassion.
The kind that hands you a shield.
The kind that lets you stop blaming yourself for struggling with things the world calls “simple.”
If this understanding helps you; if it softens something, if it lifts the shame, if it gives you language for the invisible weight you’ve been carrying. Please, pick it up.