- Set goal: vacuum the living room.
- Vacuum. Did I say that already? Have you done it? I didn’t think so.
- Wait—don’t get ahead of yourself! Plug in vacuum cleaner and leave it in center of living room. As a reminder.
- Check email. Sorry, check inbox—don’t open any emails.
- Decide which email to open. (You may need to turn on stereo for this.)
- Turn on stereo and insert CD.
- Play old recording of The Shadow.
- Imitate Lamont Cranston’s Shadow laugh.
- Grow confident enough to open emails.
- Pick one that doesn’t look scary.
- They all look scary. Go vacuum.
- Vacuum one quarter of area rug, then stop to
- Admire the strength of your vacuum’s “brushroll” feature and how nice the rug looks, like the one from your childhood bedroom. Become nostalgic and
- Change CD. Listen to an old Broadway show. Pretend your area rug is a stage and dance about.
- Have you showered yet? What is it going to take?
- Take nightgown off. Run shower.
- Turn on radio. Damn, it’s “Car Talk.”
- Turn shower off.
- Put nightgown back on.
- Hate self.
- Decide to sit down, that you may hate self in comfort. As long as you are sitting down,
- Check email. Find something that looks good. Open.
- Stare at email from a friend telling you she’s landed a Broadway show.
- Vacuum toddler’s area rug.
- Plot vanishing into thin air.
- Make first attempt, by sitting very still.
- Fail. Continue to exist in desk chair.
- Notice song bird on branch of tree outside window and hum “Green Finch and Linnet Bird.”
- Check shelf to see if you still have original cast recording of Sweeney Todd.
- You do, but decide not to go there today.
- Go to kitchen sink to wash dishes.
- Spot coffee maker and realize that’s the problem, you need more caffeine.
- Remember ulcer. Hunt for Tagamet.
- Wash Tagamet down with coffee.
- Scribble note to call stomach doctor.
- Scribble note to find business card of stomach doctor.
- Find business card of stomach doctor in china bowl on credenza reserved for most precious things.
- Wonder how card got there.
- Put card in center of desk. As a reminder.
- Remember dinner. It is 11:45 already and you’ve purchased no lentils.
- Write grocery list.
- Break down items into several lists, because you can’t find all the items at one shop. Each list should represent a different shop on Broadway. Not the “Broadway” on which your friend is about to be starring. The one uptown, with all the grocery stores.
- When phone rings, turn list over so you may use it to take message.
- Let machine take message.
- Forget about dinner. Decide to feed soul, so
- Visit newspaper basket.
- Become disgusted by pile of unread dead trees.
- Vow to stop print subscription to The New York Times.
- Break vow because scent of dead tree newspapers—so cozy!
- Remember recycling reduces carbon footprint.
- Sort newspapers. Refuse to throw out any section that piques interest. Yes you will have time to read after putting toddler to bed. Yes you WILL!
- Remember that you didn’t DVR Stephen Colbert.
- Remember that you don’t know how to use DVR.
- Text husband and remind him to DVR Stephen Colbert when he returns.
- Receive reply text from husband telling you to leave note on his desk.
- Discover favorite pen on husband’s desk and hide it in your top drawer, where you find
- A store credit from Bloomingdales that has been there so long it’s depreciated from 150 dollars to 37 cents.
- Scribble note to self to go to Bloomingdales tomorrow. Which reminds you of perfume.
- Apply perfume. Suffer asthma attack.
- Search house for inhaler.
- Hopped up on Albuterol and anxiety about others passing you by in life, try to leave house to pick up child from school.
- Hunt for Metrocard.
- Panic.
- At last find Metrocard in vacuum cleaner.
- Remember that no good deed, not even vacuuming, goes unpunished.
- Vow never to vacuum again.
- By same logic, vow never to do anything again.
- Conquer executive function disorder!
At last find Metrocard in vacuum cleaner.
And here I thought I was the only one. (Also, library card in the freezer.)
For me it’s like
1) reach into purse, fail to find keys.
2) check pockets, countertops, purse again, nightstand, coffee table.
3) start looking under furniture, in the freezer, etc.
4) enlist help of others, who will sigh and roll their eyes because you’re always doing this shit
5) give up, flop onto bed thinking about how terrible everything is
6) phone rings, reach into purse to answer it
7) find keys in purse
In my house, the new second half of step 4 is that the other person says, “where did you look first?” and then goes and looks there but better. The success rate is astounding.
I persistently pick up keys (etc), realize I forgot to pack other essential object, put keys down six inches away, cannot find them despite staring at the entire area in despair.
Except I only have the cats for the eye-rolling portion.
How I knew I was An Old: searched for glasses for 5 minutes today while wearing glasses.
I crack up people in my office because I’ve finally got to the point where I carefully and delicately touch my face to check for glasses.
And also because I smack myself on the back of the head when looking for a pen, despite not having had hair longer than an inch there in, like, three years.
too real
yeah this post made me deeply anxious D:
Wait… did we stop listening to Car Talk? I love Car Talk!
I still do! But especially as they re-run older bits, I sometimes don’t want to hear their “Men Are from Mars, Women Are Harridans Who Must Be Placated at All Costs” shtick, you know?
I still listen to Car Talk!
I just have to be in the right mood.
And I would rather be slightly annoyed by Jonathon Schwartz’s voice and pretension in the hopes of catching some fine Ella recordings and an amusing historical anecdote if I have the choice between the two. One must set one’s shower to the right mixture of stimulation and relaxation. Not an easy feat!
Ah, ain’t no anxiety attack like an Albuterol-fueled anxiety attack!!
Okay, so I didn’t make it all of the way through this list, but what I did read is exactly how I think.
Yup. I am that person. This piece is what goes on inside of my brain.
Have y’all been checked for ADHD
I have never even heard of this thing before, but yes, this is also much of what happens inside my head.
This is way too real. Mmm, chaos with a healthy side helping of self loathing!
Ahhhh no, how did you get in my brain.
This is way more complicated than my usual modus operandi:
1. Think of all the jobs that need to be done
2. Lie down on the sofa.
Mine usually goes:
1) Think of jobs that need to be done
2) Go downstairs, sit at computer
3) 2 hours later, remember list of jobs
What is the tipping point between having a bad cold + being extremely lazy versus maybe possibly slipping into depression? Do ten days in a row of barely leaving the house, even to attend to matters that related to getting one’s dream job (which you HAVE, you just need to get your damn drug test done and you don’t even do drugs there is no reason to be scared of it) tip the scale one way or another? Asking for a friend of course…
My question would be whether things are improving as the cold lifts or getting worse? If the latter, maybe consult someone. Particularly if this sort of thing is out of character for what your “friend” knows of herself when she normally has colds. Or if she has had depression and knows this sort of thing to be in character for that, regardless of the cold.
good advice, and also remember it takes about three weeks to clear a bad cold.
Do it. You can, I believe in you. Your dream job is worth whatever indignities you face (lists, alarms, having someone hover over you and nag, whatever) to get this done. I regret the things my executive function fucked up.
As someone who recently had to stay home for ages because of a virus and consequently noticed that it set off a mild depression spike: one can lead to the other if, like some of us, inactivity sends you downhill. If that’s the case, I find it good to try and take stock of the way my thoughts tend when I get ill and keep vigilant (but not over-anxious!) when illness strikes, and keep track over time so it’s easier to identify what’s going on in my brain.
I don’t know when I’ve last related to something quite this hard.
I got all the way through to the part about the lentils. Oh the truth, it burns.
It would be funny if it weren’t true. Or maybe it is funny? I’ll have to get to work on that.
Hi Everyone!
Seemed like a good enough place to remind y’all that if you are a beloved Toastie with this sort of trouble, you may be interested in our Toast ADD Slack (which is getting pretty big, to be honest!).
Email [email protected] for an invite! (I am not the beloved organizer, just a beloved word-spreader).
*opens email to do this*
*sees facebook notification*
*checks facebook notification, clicks on likely-looking article*
*winds up playing flash games somehow*
what exactly does this entail? I think I could benefit from it, but I also can’t end up with just another fun internet social thing that distracts me from getting more than 30 minutes of work done each day. I’m starting to get very worried about my ability to keep at this PhD…
It is mostly a group in which we talk about strategies, books, ideas, medications, etc that have been helpful, and get support from other people who understand that it’s not always easy to make an appointment, that there’s a difficult dance in getting medication without looking like your seeking medication when you’re not even certain you really WANT medication but you probably need it, at least some of the time, and it’s what you’d tell someone else to look into without shame, but you yourself haven’t quite gotten over judging yourself after a lifetime of people telling you to just try harder…..
uh.
yeah.
It can ABSOLUTELY become a procrastinating time sink, but it is pretty centered on ADD/ADHD, and the constellation of things that make living with it/treating it more complicated (ie- depression, high blood pressure, bad health insurance). You know you– it can be a thing that helps you get your self-care plan together better so you can get more done, but it can also be a thing you use to avoid doing stuff. Honestly, for most people, I think it’s been a bit of column a AND a bit of column b!
Ouch!
I’m roughly two-and-a-half hours out from dipping my toe back into the creative field I left ten years ago (I’m volunteering to costume a very low-budget community theater production), and am freaking the heck out by how little I’ve gotten done today as the meeting time looms closer and closer. I’m even putting off the second dose of my ADD meds to make sure I’m completely covered for the duration. I haven’t taken measurements in forever. It isn’t complicated. This is a stupid thing to be freaking out about!
I DID manage to eat and run the dishwasher, so it could be worse, I guess. Oh, man.
For a second there I thought you’d managed to eat the dishwasher. I was concerned but also impressed…
Damn, it’s “Car Talk.”
HONK HONK chuckle chuckle HONK
how did you know about the newspapers? *shifty eyes, closes curtains*
Oh, God, this has been me all year.
At first I saw this list and closed the window in a primal knee-jerk reaction to Too Real. Then I took and deep breath, reopened it and started reading it and it reminded me of something really important I had to do. And I did it! Thanks Conquering Executive Functioning Disorder post!
This comment is inspiring!
This is so my every single day. It’s refreshing to hear other people deal with it, frustrating to read it and recognize it.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some chores to write down so I can lose the paper and binge watch half of every tv show.
Toasties, I was diagnosed with this when I was a kid and I honestly thought it was a made-up diagnosis to explain “you are a terrible, anxious little person.” (DID I GET ANY HELP FOR THIS? NO. I was told to “apply myself.” Fuck you, middle school memories.)
COMMUNITY. I LOVE YOU GUYS. YOU ARE MY PEOPLE.
(How do you guys manage to get shit done? Coping skills? Tips? Tricks? How the fuck did I manage to pass the bar exam on the first time but I always lose my socks?!?!?!)
habitica dot com ! There’s a toast group. Toastrons, I believe. Socks, I haven’t really found a solution. Or hair ties. Or any of the other tiny daily things of my life.
But it does help me organize to-do lists and get some small positive reinforcement for the chores I find most insufferable.
I use my father’s approach to scissors to solve the hair tie issue- buy a sufficient quantity such that you reach a saturation level so that there is one no matter where you look. Which means I find clusters random places, but there are always hair ties.
When all I needed was cheater reading glasses, this was my strategy.
Glasses on the mantle, on the dresser, on the kitchen window ledge, in my purse, in the car, in my office
So simple! Hair ties can always be found floating in the cat’s water bowl. I’m fortunate that our feline overlady supervises that vexing detail.
Socks are a tad more complicated. Place matching dirty socks into garment bag (spouse does this), text laundry guy for pickup (spouse does this). Spouse arranges laundry guy’s return and payment. Laundry guy returns with clean socks, folded Marie Kondo-style, but still inside the garment bags! Then I smoosh those beautifully folded socks any which way they’ll fit into my drawer.
I can speak only for myself, but I don’t consider it a problem. I think different brains respond to our modern environment in different ways, and I don’t think it is inherently pathological to be distracted in a world we did not evolve to live and thrive in.
I am not diminishing the very real pain that many suffer with some types of related diagnoses; I do however wonder if people who are, you know, kinda normal and achieve plenty but have some trouble focusing, are, at times, excessively assigned a pathology.
As my mother used to say: Ask me to dance on Broadway or rehearse a play, I’m the most focused person there is. Ask me to make a salad, and I am lost.
Or to quote A Chorus Line, “Give me a job and you instantly get me involved. Just give me a job and the rest of the crap’ll get solved.”
“I am not diminishing the very real pain that many suffer with some types of related diagnoses; I do however wonder if people who are, you know, kinda normal and achieve plenty but have some trouble focusing, are, at times, excessively assigned a pathology.”
I appreciate that you acknowledge the pain, but I still disagree with your take on this. Consider dyslexia – in most societies in history, dyslexia wasn’t a problem, because almost nobody needed to read. In today’s world, you absolutely cannot get away with even minor dyslexia. So today we need to diagnose it. Nearsightedness is the same! We read tiny print all the time, so if somebody has bad eyesight, they NEED to get it treated. But if you work in the field and never use anything smaller than a spoon, you wouldn’t have a problem. If today’s world demand a lot from your executive functions, everyone with executive troubles becomes disabled. And people have a right to not be disabled, because everyone should get to fully participate in the world.
But. Executive functioning is different from dyslexia and eyesight and many other disabilites, in that those only impact how you interact with your physical environment. The really terrible part about executive dysfunction is that it impacts how you interact with other people and with yourself. Think about it – how many times a day do you evaluate what you need to do, plan it out and execute it? How many times a day do you need to do a certain thing at a certain time? What would happen if all those times started to fail?
If you can’t remember what you were thinking or what you were going to do, if you can’t stop yourself from doing stupid shit that you don’t WANT to do, if you can’t tear yourself away from completely pointless activities that you don’t want to be doing, if you can’t get yourself to start doing the stuff you decided that you needed to do, if you can’t make yourself KEEP doing the stuff you decided to do – you can’t be yourself. If you can’t pay attention, that means you can’t listen to other people, you can’t tune in to your loved ones. Executive disabilities disable your ability to do, to live your life. It loses jobs and homes and relationships, breaks promises, ruins opportunities and first impressions.
It’s a devastating condition which doesn’t look devastating. But think of it like this: what if you didn’t have a body, and instead you had to get a child to do everything for you and stay on task? Imagine living an adult life with child-sized mental tools, but a fully developed adult intellect. You understand exactly how badly everything’s going, but you can’t fix it.
The only way to lessen the impact is to have a stable structure around you and a safety net – but not everybody has that.
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say. I envy those who can focus far more of the time than I, and who are not distracted to the point of chaos or breakdown. But I want to stress that I believe EDF can also be a sign of a brain that operates differently, not inherently poorly. This sort of brain fails to create a hierarchy of tasks because all incoming data is assigned an equal and high value. I see that not as pathological, but different from other brains. Which is not to say that difference cannot indeed be crippling in a world that demands the use of executive function. I wrote the piece, believe me, I know and deeply sympathize. I just think it is important not to stigmatize the disorder, if that is what society has labeled it for the purposes of helping those in need of help, by ignoring that it may be the result of some very wonderful and powerfully sensitive brain properties. I am an actor: the data my brain processes is all very useful to me when I go to work as an actor. So for me, it isn’t all bad news. Much like my painfully dysplasic hip has allowed me to dance quite freely for many years, some things are double-edged swords. (I now need surgery, hooray!) I just mean to say: don’t dislike yourself if you recognize this pattern I have written about. I mean to say: I recognize that my inner workings can be scattered, and even if that handicaps me in our world, I maintain it is important to like myself and not create a hierarchy of success based on how our brains operate. Two people may arrive at the same goal. One person takes much longer to get there. This may be a handicap, especially depending on your line of work and needs, but the person who takes longer to get to the same goal may also take in more scenery. I hope that makes some sense; this piece was written with great love for all who can relate to it.
Oh, I didn’t notice that you were the author! That explains that, then 🙂
The thing is, I don’t think that people’s equal value has to rest on having equally good functioning. Neither do you, of course! But what I mean is that many people today can behave as if all disabilites come with an equal extra ability, and when I question that, they often say something like “well it’s important to not devalue people with disabilities, disability is not bad just different”. It’s as if they still truly believe that people only have value if they’re fully able-bodied, so when someone has a disability and these people want to see them as equals, they assume there’s a silver lining to the disability. With executive dysfunction, lots of people assume that the person is messy because they’re amazingly creative, or that they MUST be creative because they’re so messy.
That’s harsh, because NOTHING has ruined my (and others’!) creativity as much as having episodes of really bad executive functioning. I don’t even know if creativity is actually related to executive functioning (and if it is, would they even be opposites?), but lots of people just assume that there’s a relationship. And when I read what successful artists say is the key to creative success – writers, musicians, painters, comic artists, dancers – hell, mathemathicians – they ALL mention having the discipline to practice. That’s executive functioning.
There’s already a huge risk that people underestimate the power of the executive functions. They’re usually mistaken for “character”, “will”, “being a normal grownup”. I think it’s so, so important to find another way to talk about these things. We have to both acknowledge the destructive power of disability AND the humanity of people with disabilities. There isn’t always a compensation for being disabled. Sometimes things just suck! (For the record, I’m a disabled neuropsychology student with a creative side, so this is pretty close to my heart. And brain.)
Footnote: You know how schizophrenia is said to be genetically related to creativity? That’s true – because the patients’ RELATIVES are more creative. The actual sick person doesn’t usually have a very high creative output, because they’re sick. And it’s not because of the hallucinations and delusions. The worst symptoms of schizofrenia, the ones that are most related to failures and bad life outcomes, are the so-called “negative” symptoms – the loss of drive, planning and execution skills. Most people assume the psychosis is the most destructive part of the illness, but it’s not. It’s the executive dysfunction.
I agree that not all disability comes with an upside; it would be delusional to think so. I think as a creative person myself (or at least as someone who fancies herself creative) I sense a connection between my tangential thinking and my creative produce. My husband is equally creative (he’s a screenwriter) and has the opposite personality. His executive function is pristine, a veritable machine, a piece of software lacking a single bug. He compartmentalizes, meanwhile, all the highways of my brain are lit up at once. He also writes and thinks creatively, but he looks at me after lo these many years of marriage as though I were an alien–multiple heads, quite literally. He tells me to begin conversations at the start of them, not in the middle. So creativity is frequently on a spectrum with disordered or even pathological thinking (schizophrenia is partly making associations between two unrelated things; creativity is seeing associations others might miss, if I may crudely sum up in admittedly lay terms) but to assert that any struggle in life is not a struggle because it might–might have some benefit depending on your other gifts and deficits- that indeed would be folly! And again, I mean no disrespect. I offer up my foibles with love. I come in peace, armed only with a vacuum cleaner and the original cast recording of Sweeney Todd.
“Distraction” and “pathologically incapable of managing even basic tasks on a bad day, including things that are necessary for basic functioning, even when you want to do them and find them enjoyable” are very different things. I have executive dysfunction as a result of OCD, and I experience both, and those two things are so wildly different I can’t imagine comparing the two.
I am easily distracted by nature. I have executive dysfunction. These two things are totally unrelated in my mind. One is a personality flaw and a normal part of being human, the other is something I take pills for because sometimes I find myself with plenty of energy, with nothing in my way, nothing preventing me from starting whatever thing needs doing, and yet I fail to tend to basic hygeine and food needs because there is a block in my thought processes that stops me starting any new task. I have been known to put off the thing I decided to do for fun while putting off brushing my teeth while putting off doing work, which is the equivalent of ten record scratches screeching at once tbh.
On the outside, my behaviour looks a lot like this list. On the inside, there is a real issue going on, and yes, that issue is medical in that it impairs quality of life- but it’s very easy to look at the outside behaviour and worry about over-pathologizing normal behaviour, because nobody feels the processes going on but me.
I don’t disagree with you. I replied in some length above to clarify!
I take ADHD meds.
A while ago I signed up to a mailing list and started getting far more emails than normal, which caused me to become overwhelmed and open almost none of them. The state of my inbox is alarming right now.
(I also haven’t been on my LinkedIn in nearly a year. I was applying for jobs and I didn’t want to add the recruiter who had requested to connect with me until I had updated my profile, and that was a horrifying thought, and now it is months later and I have loads of pending requests and unread notifications because I cannot bring myself to log in.)
Are we the same person?
I am facing the exact situation with LinkedIn.
That makes four of us, all together 🙁
omg yes exactly this, being a functioning human is for plebes (and me on like .5 days of the week)
also my personal favorite is when I open like ten tabs and then I have to read all of them but then I forget why I’m reading them halfway through but I know I’m supposed to finish them? and wasn’t I supposed to be doing something whoops it’s 5
It me
Ooof, it me. I couldn’t even bear to finish the list, that’s how hard this is hitting me.
Huh, I think possibly I have this. I mean. I have an anxiety disorder and I’m depressed and I’m also a very disorganised person but I alternate between loving to-do lists and loathing them so sometimes I write them and sometimes the thought of writing them makes me panic. No one has ever said to me that ‘executive function disorder’ is a thing or that I might have it. Is it a thing that happens on its own, or does it sneak in on the back of other things (depression, ADD, anxiety, etc)?
I have enough disorders rolling around in my head that I don’t even know how to distinguish them, but to my understanding, executive dysfunction is a symptom that comes along with a lot of other issues (depression, ADHD, autism, I believe chronic illnesses such as fibro, there are many more. i know that mine is related to multiple – adhd meds help, but when my anxiety is high it’s muuuuuch worse). I genuinely don’t know whether it’s something that can exist *independently* of other conditions, but if it’s not being addressed in the treatment for your anxiety and depression then it’s absolutely worth asking about/looking into. The article here reads as classically ad(h)d to me, but I don’t actually have experience *not* having adhd, so it’s definitely possible it could manifest similarly for people with other disorders too.
Both anxiety and depression do take a toll on your executive functioning. Illnesses eat a lot of resources, and executive functions need resources to work properly.
Essentially, executive functions are the most difficult things the brain does. They’re the latest to develop fully when we grow up, and they’re the first to go when we age. They’re so hard to get right that almost anything can disrupt them a bit – stress, tiredness, most (if not all?) mental illnesses. Not to mention concussions and minor brain damage!
If you grew up with ADD, your attention and activity disorder (that’s what ADD is, after all) will make it tougher to use your executive functions too. Sometimes people with ADD, autism and other brain troubles have objectively bad executive functions, other times their executive functions are just unreliable – I haven’t been able to truly understand it, the scientists don’t agree about what’s going on.
So, having bad executive functioning doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a free-standing executive functioning disorder, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have ADD. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a problem! Allow yourself to take it seriously and be kind to your brain, even if the executive weirdness turns out to be a consequence/symptom of your anxiety and depression instead of being its own disorder 🙂
So I’ve been staying up too late because I’m looking for the point when I’m too tired to do anything but work? Also too tired to feel guilty for not doing it perfectly? Help?
Okay but seriously peeps if this is you every.single.day do yourself a favor and get checked for adult ADHD. It’s hardly the only thing that causes executive dysfunction (Autism spectrum can do it too, so can depression, so can some other things) but ADHD is underdiagnosed in adult women. Don’t suffer more than you have to.
My appointment with my doctor to discuss this isn’t for three weeks, and it’s terrible.
My sympathies. Best of luck at your appointment though!
Sent from my iPhone
I’m making lists of examples of ways in which my inability to concentrate has interfered with my life. I hope I get a diagnosis which will help me.
This is me so much. I’m already taking adderall for excessive sleepiness, so is there any other treatment that I can access by getting officially diagnosed? Or is there no point?
Different medications, maybe; there are a tiny handful of non-stimulant meds like Strattera. But it sounds like your executive dysfunction is caused by the sleepiness?
I have excessive sleepiness and adhd! I take concerta for the sleep problems which doubles as an ADD med and that helps some, but you can definitely talk to a psychiatrist about more optimal doses or alternate/additional meds to help you out. For me personally, concerta helps me focus a lot better than adderall did, and which are more effective varies from person to person. If seeing a psych would be doable/affordable, it definitely could do a lot of good. 🙂
Either way, good luck!! Realizing “wow, this isn’t something everyone experiences?” and it can be treated made a massive difference in my life.
Is it possible that I just diagnosed myself with a disorder based on a joke article?
When did my internet browser turn into a mirror?
Also, I just remembered need to do laundry because I ran out of clean clothes. Even the summer items.
THIS IS TOO REAL FOR ME.
Ah yes, executive dysfunction, the glory and joy.
“Oh, everyone’s like that! Why, just the other day I forgot to reply to an email! I was late for an appointment once! Can you believe it? I was really messy when I was younger, lol, but then I grew up.”
It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a job.
TRUTH.
Yes, this is basically my life. It’s somewhat better now that I am on medication for ADHD but I do badly with unstructured time.