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If you’re one of those people who thinks executive dysfunction only happens for things we don’t like (school, cleaning,) then please consider the fact that I’ve been meaning to plug my phone in for 20 minutes and I’m now at 2% and still putting it off to write this post ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My anime/video game list consists of over 100 titles, easily, and yet I almost never get around to watching/playing any of them.
Executive dysfunction is not just for boring or unenjoyable things. It’s for everything. Even eating.
What is executive dysfunction? O.o
Put simply, it’s difficulty/inability with initiating tasks. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive functions, like decision-making and impulse control. People with ADHD and other neurological disorders that affect the prefrontal cortex often experience difficulty making decisions and performing tasks, as well as exercising self restraint. Part of why people with ADHD tend to procrastinate so badly is out of genuine inability to begin tasks, even if they’re very important.
It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.
It feels, for me at least, like I’m constantly waiting for something and I can’t start X task because I’m waiting. I never know what exactly I’m waiting for, but that doesn’t stop me from wasting hours and days not doing the things I need to do, even if I have a desire to do them.
Oh thank god, someone put it into words.
For me it’s also waiting for the “right” time to come to complete the task because for some reason my brain thinks doing the task at any other time is horribly, horribly wrong, weird, and out of order. The “right” time might come eventually, might not. It’s a lottery.
For me, the second I begin to think about doing a task, my brain says, “but first you have to do this other task, oh but wait before you do that task you should do this third task first, hang on it would really be better if you did this fourth task first, but haven’t you been meaning to do this fifth task for days? You need to do that one first.” Continue the chain indefinitely, until I get overwhelmed and decide the path of least resistance is to keep surfing on my phone.
(There is a pile of laundry to be folded in front of me. It has been there for the last half hour. I have not folded it. I am typing this post instead.)
Sometimes I sit down at my computer, wanting to write, and wind up reading whatever tab is foremost in my browser, for hours. I’ll occasionally think, “I wanted to write,” or, “I had an idea I wanted to work on,” and sometimes, “I’ve been waiting all day to work on this,” and I’ll sometimes just keep going in the tab I’m in– Tumblr, Pinterest, whatever– and sometimes I’ll manage to click to the tab with the thing I was writing, or the program I was going to write in (if the document is in a program that’s not open, I may try several times, get as far as opening the program even, but still get distracted before I find the relevant document), and sometimes I’ll get pulled away from the computer and literally never get around to it.
If it’s something that requires a sequence of tasks– if I can clearly and coherently plan them all out and get a running start at it, then yes, it’ll happen. But if I get interrupted or can’t get the materials for one of the early tasks lined up, then none of it will ever happen. That’s just how it is.
Also: I’ve spent literally my entire life waiting for some kind of external permission to do basically anything I’ve ever wanted to do. Funny, nobody shows up to give you permission? But I still keep waiting. I don’t know how not to do that; I’m going to die of old age waiting to be given permission to do something when I grow up.
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