Indecision - the struggle or inability to decide something.

I think many might experience indecision every now and then. After all, deciding something can be hard. However, I feel I personally struggle immensely with decisions which I am sure friends and family can attest for.

To me, making a decision isn’t simple. It genuinely causes me stress, anxiety and overwhelm to decide something, whether that is what colour I want something or what thing to buy etc. For me it is the permanency of that decision I fear. What if I don’t like the result? What if I end up feeling a lot of regret or guilt over the wrong choice? What if there’s no going back? What if my decision hurts or upsets someone else?

My indecisiveness can be quite debilitating. The Autistic planning in me wants to deep dive into research to make the best decision whilst the ADHD impulsivity wants to do the thing or buy the thing ASAP. This ultimately leads me to either doing or buying the thing and then regretting it which lurks in my mind for a super long time OR I put off making a choice and continue to internally battle over the decision which only causes me more distress. (Or in a very unlikely event I will force a decision and potentially have a positive outcome but this is rare).

I also believe this is a result of past experiences in which bad decisions I’ve made and the bad outcomes as a result have impacted my ability to make such decisions. This also affects my social life in which I will find it hard to decide whether to go out or not. Ultimately I end up making the ‘safe’ choice out of fear of the unknown which leads to loneliness and me not getting the thing I really want or need. It is chaos in my head at times, like my thoughts are being pulled in several directions, where seemingly simple decisions can actually make me feel stuck, out of control and like shit. I hope one day my mind can find calm in these instances.

Thank you for listening to me think out loud.