Dealing with
executive dysfunction and ADHD becomes so much easier when you stop trying to
do things the way you feel like you should
be able to do them (like everyone else) and start finding ways that
actually work for you, no matter how “silly” or “unnecessary”
they seem.
For
years my floor was constantly covered in laundry. Clean laundry got
mixed in with dirty and I had to wash things twice, just making more
work for myself. Now I just have 3 laundry bins: dirty (wash it
later), clean (put it away later), and mystery (figure it out later).
Sure, theoretically I could sort my clothes into dirty or clean as
soon as I take them off and put them away straight
out of the dryer, but
realistically that’s never going to be a sustainable strategy for me.
How
many garbage bins do you need in a bedroom? One? WRONG! The correct
answer is one within arms reach at all times. Which for me is three.
Because am I really going to
get up to blow my nose when I’m hyperfocusing? NO. In
allergy season I even have
an empty kleenex box for “used
tissues I can use again.”
Kinda gross? Yeah. But less gross than a
snowy winter landscape of dusty germs on my
desk.
I
used to be late all the time
because I couldn’t find my house key. But it costs $2.50 and 3
minutes to copy a key, so now there’s one in my backpack, my purse,
my gym bag, my wallet, my desk, and hanging on my door. Problem
solved.
I’m
like a ninja for getting pout the door past reminder notes without noticing. If I really don’t want to forget something, I make a
physical barrier in front of my door. A
sticky note is a lot easier to walk past than a two foot high
cardboard box with my wallet on top of it.
Executive dysfunction is always going to cause challenges, but often half the struggle is trying to cope by pretending not to have executive dysfunction, instead of finding actual solutions.
you can never please everybody. when you stand up for yourself, there will be people who think you’re overreacting or being a jerk. when you try your best to be kind to everyone you meet, there will be people who think you’re being fake or that you desperately want to be liked. you won’t ever be able to be the best version of yourself if you live for other people, because that ‘best version’ is entirely subjective and therefore impossible to embody. be your personal best, your personal favorite, and you’ll attract people who will see you that way as well.
I most often see executive dysfunction talked about in terms of not being able to make yourself do things. And that’s one of its manifestations, yes, but it’s not the only one. Another really big one that I see is something called DecisionFatigue. Making choices is an executive function, but each one that you make costs you something. The more complex they are, the more it costs– and if you’re already low on mental resources, even small choices can be completely overwhelming.
The example used most often is that of a courtroom judge, whose ability to fairly evaluate the cases they’re presiding over deteriorates during the day. Elsewhere I’ve seen the example of grocery shopping– when you’ve got a tight budget, every single item you look at requires complex cost-benefit analysis, to the point that you’re mentally exhausted and not making good choices about anything by the time you get to the register (where, conveniently, you’ll find candy, cigarettes, and scratch-off tickets waiting for you).
But even smaller things than that count.
I’ve watched my partner spiral into a panic attack when I asked him what he wants for dinner.
I’ve broken down sobbing over someone asking me I want to do on my birthday, and I’ve shut down altogether over something as innocuous as what color I want my bed to be in minecraft.
Even the tiny, mundane, innocent choices just feel like they’re too big, too much, too overwhelming.
Like with a whole lot of mental health things, it’s incredibly difficult to do anything about this kind of thing if you don’t have the words for it or the means to explain it– and damn close to impossible to explain any of it when you’re in the thick of a bad episode. But once you have that language and understanding in place, things do get easier.
Because then you can get to the point where “I don’t know” and “I can’t make a decision right now” are perfectly acceptable answers that don’t require any further explanation.
And trust me, that takes a load off your shoulders.
You’re sitting on the couch thinking about a task you need to perform, but your brain just won’t let you do it.
Me: “I need a shower.”
Brain: “No, that sounds entirely uninteresting. Let’s just keep sitting here instead.”
If you keep thinking about the task you need to do, but your brain won’t let you get on with it, the best thing to do is redirect. Pick a different task, an easier task, a more interesting task.
Me: “Ok, no shower. Let’s drink some water/brush our teeth/wash the dishes/start some laundry instead.”
Brain: “That does sound better than getting in the shower. Okay, let’s do it.”
Once you have some momentum going, it’s much easier to keep going. When you hit a stopping point in your chosen task, reevaluate the original thing you were stuck on.
Me: “Dishes are done. While we’re up and moving, let’s get a quick shower!”
Brain: “Uuugh, fine, I guess.”
Another option is to break down the task into smaller bits.
Brain: “No shower.”
Me: “Okay, let’s just go get undressed.”
Brain: “We can do that.”
Me: “Now let’s turn on the shower.”
Brain: “That’s fine.”
Me: “Now let’s get in the shower.”
Brain: “We are already undressed and the shower’s running. We might as well.”
These have been really helpful coping techniques for me. I hope someone else can use them too.
The most valuable thing I learned doing a Masters degree with depression, anxiety and ADHD was to change my “things I’m bad at” list to “things I can’t do on my own.” Stop thinking of them as things I could do if I tried hard enough, and accept that I can’t accomplish them by effort and willpower alone; they’re genuine neurocognitive deficits, and if I need to do the thing, then just like a blind person reading or a mobility impaired person going up a storey in a building, I need to find a different method.
I’m “bad at” working on long-term projects without an imminent deadline or someone breathing down my neck? Okay, let’s change that: I can’t work on long-term projects without an imminent deadline and someone breathing down my neck. So let’s create an imminent deadline and recruit neck-breathers. Find a sympathetic prof who will agree that 3 weeks before the due date they expect me to show them my preliminary notes and bibliography. Get a friend I trust to block off an hour to sit with me and keep asking, “Are you working on your project?” Write a blog post about my progress. Arrange to trade papers and proofread them with another student.
Accept your limitations and learn to leverage them, instead of buying the neurotypical fairytale that they’ll go away if you just try hard enough.
cleaning with ADHD is a nightmare. it’s an endless cycle of finding a half-finished chore and stopping the one you were already working on, then remembering that something else needs to be done and getting started on that, then finding half-finished chore and
i have the solution! i call it ‘junebugging’.
have you ever seen a junebug get to grips with a window screen? it’s remarkably persistent, but not very focused. all that matters is location.
how to junebug: choose the location you feel you can probably get some shit done on today. be specific. not ‘the bathroom’ but ‘the bathroom sink’. you are not choosing a range, you are choosing a center; you will move around, but your location is where you’ll keep coming back to. mentally stick a pin in it. consider yourself tethered to that spot by a long mental bungee cord.
go to your location. look at stuff. move stuff around. do a thing. get distracted. remember you’re junebugging the bathroom sink and go back there. look at it some more. do a different thing. get distracted. get a sandwich. remember you’re junebugging and go back to the bathroom sink.
nt’s will go crazy watching you, and if they demand to know When You Will Be Done you will probably have to roll them in a carpet and stuff them up the chimney. you’re done when you feel done, or you’re too bored to live, or it’s bedtime, or any number of other markers, you get to pick. but the thing is, by returning repeatedly to that one spot, you harness the ‘hyperactivity’ part instead of wasting all that energy battling with the ‘attention deficit’ part.
not only will the bathroom sink almost certainly be clean, and probably the mirror and soap dish too, you might’ve swapped in a fresh toothbrush, a new soap, you might’ve unclogged the drain – you will probably also have cleaned or fixed up several things in the near vicinity, or in the path between the sink and where you get the fresh toothbrush, or maybe you did your grocery shopping cuz you were out of soap, or maybe you couldn’t find a clean hand towel and ended up doing laundry.
this is good. you got shit done! it wasn’t necessarily Cleaned The Bathroom in the way nt’s think of it, but screw ‘em. things are better than they were.
plus you worked off enough energy to be able to sleep. which is not small potatoes when living the ADHD life. :D
So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.
Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.
I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”
And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone!
I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.
This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that.
Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener.
Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”
TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.
I’ve been trying this out and it’s been quite helpful 🤗
i often use a similar strategy - instead doing things for a younger me (like, still definitely counting as a child) … i wouldn’t force a child to starve or throw up their food etc
With my type of executive dysfunction, often the biggest problem is just starting things. I know the floor needs to be vacuumed. I know the recycling needs to be taken out. I know I need to start cooking the stew so I can eat it later. But I just can’t seem to start it.
On the other hand, If the cat asks me for food, it’s easy to get up and feed him. If someone asks me to do something or just says “do it now”, I can usually do it. I just need that trigger.
So here’s a strategy lifted from Dungeons and Dragons: preparing an action. During combat, a player can, instead of taking an action on their turn, prepare a specific action to be taken when a specific trigger happens (ie, the character is hiding behind a door and if an enemy walks through the door, they’ll attack).
So I know a task needs to be done, but I can’t start doing it. I choose a trigger I know will happen soon, and I prepare my action. Examples:
The next time I get up to go to the bathroom, I’ll also wash the dishes.
The next time the cat asks me to feed him, I’ll clean the kitchen floor first.
When this video I’m watching ends, I’ll start writing that article.
When the clock hits 12:30 (I can even set an alarm), I’ll start cooking lunch.
Just about any combination of triggers and activities can work. It’s not 100% effective, but it definitely helps. Maybe it will help some of you as well.
One of the most helpful things I’ve learned to do with ADHD is when I need to start a task, I don’t think “I need to do this task” I think “I need to do (first step of task)”.
I don’t tell myself “I need to wash the dishes piling up in the sink.” I tell myself “I need to get the scrub brush and turn on the facuet.” That’s easy, so I do it and bam, I’ve started the task.
“I need to brush my teeth” -> “I need to get my toothbrush wet and put toothpaste on it.”
“I need to write this essay” -> “I need to pull up the assignment guidelines and open a word doc.”
“I need to go to the store.” -> “I need to put on my shoes.”
Tasks are easily overwhelming when you constantly think about them in their entirety, so picking the most immediate part you need to so and only focusing/doing that helps to get you to start it with less anexity & stress.
When I was at one of my lowest (mental) points in life, I couldn’t get out of bed some days. I had no energy or motivation and was barely getting by.
I had therapy once per week, and on this particular week I didn’t have much to ‘bring’ to the session. He asked how my week was and I really had nothing to say.
“What are you struggling with?” he asked.
I gestured around me and said “I dunno man. Life.”
Not satisfied with my answer, he said “No, what exactly are you worried about right now? What feels overwhelming? When you go home after this session, what issue will be staring at you?”
I knew the answer, but it was so ridiculous that I didn’t want to say it.
I wanted to have something more substantial.
Something more profound.
But I didn’t.
So I told him, “Honestly? The dishes. It’s stupid, I know, but the more I look at them the more I CAN’T do them because I’ll have to scrub them before I put them in the dishwasher, because the dishwasher sucks, and I just can’t stand and scrub the dishes.”
I felt like an idiot even saying it.
What kind of grown ass woman is undone by a stack of dishes? There are people out there with *actual* problems, and I’m whining to my therapist about dishes?
But my therapist nodded in understanding and then said:
“RUN THE DISHWASHER TWICE.”
I began to tell him that you’re not supposed to, but he stopped me.
“Why the hell aren’t you supposed to? If you don’t want to scrub the dishes and your dishwasher sucks, run it twice. Run it three times, who cares?! Rules do not exist, so stop giving yourself rules.”
It blew my mind in a way that I don’t think I can properly express.
That day, I went home and tossed my smelly dishes haphazardly into the dishwasher and ran it three times.
I felt like I had conquered a dragon.
The next day, I took a shower lying down.
A few days later. I folded my laundry and put them wherever the fuck they fit.
There were no longer arbitrary rules I had to follow, and it gave me the freedom to make accomplishments again.
Now that I’m in a healthier place, I rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher properly. I shower standing up. I sort my laundry.
But at a time when living was a struggle instead of a blessing, I learned an incredibly important lesson:
