Understanding Executive Dysfunction

Executive dysfunction is the part of ADHD that makes people call us lazy. The answer seems obvious, just do it, right? But for those of us with ADHD, it’s not that easy. People only see the parts that affect them: the inability to get somewhere on time, the laundry piling up, work left undone. They don’t see that it’s not about not wanting to do it, we physically can’t do it, not yet.

It affects the things I enjoy doing just as much as the things I dread. Even when I know with complete certainty that doing something will make me feel better, I still can’t bring myself to start. The outside world sees that I’m late to class and assumes I’m lazy, but they don’t see my mornings with executive dysfunction. No matter how much sleep I get, no matter how healthy I eat, it’s always there. Waking up and forcing myself to keep my eyes open is hard. Turning over to shut off the alarm is hard. Watching my favourite movie is hard.

Executive dysfunction means not being able to start. Even the most joyful of tasks, even something as simple as scrolling to the next video on my phone, can feel like sticking my hand in a fire. I know it won’t hurt me. In most cases, I actually want to do the task and know that not doing it will have consequences. But my brain still refuses to believe that standing up is not as impossible as climbing Mount Everest.

The only way I’ve found to overcome it is to convince myself that the pain of inaction will be worse than the pain of action. Standing up may feel like sticking my hand in a fire, but staying in bed and missing school means I’ll have to suffer more later, catching up on missed lessons, dealing with the stress of falling behind. That’s my sole motivator. If I don’t plug in my phone, I’ll have no entertainment, no communication, and I’ll still have to plug it in eventually, but now, I’ll have to wait for it to charge. The easiest way around executive dysfunction is to understand the consequences of inaction. This gets easier with age. It’s easy to convince yourself that skipping class won’t matter. But convincing yourself to skip work, knowing it could cost you your job, your home, that’s harder. You have to trick your ADHD into believing that the bigger fire is imminent and will hurt more.

But sometimes, even knowing the consequences isn’t enough. It wasn’t until I started taking ADHD medication that I realized just how much I had been fighting against my own brain. You don’t realize you’re burning until you’re out of the fire, right? I believed I was lazy or broken. I couldn’t understand why things that seemed so easy for everyone else were so impossible for me. The first time I took my ADHD medication, I was in high school, working on an English assignment that had me write 50 note cards worth of information. The first day, in four hours, I completed two of them. The second day, on my medication, I finished the other 48 in the same amount of time. I felt like the weight of the world had lifted off my shoulders. That same day, I showered, organized my dresser, washed my clothes, and watched an entire movie from start to finish. Incredible! I had no idea before that day that it was possible to accomplish so much in 24 hours. I asked my roommate if it was always like this, if it was supposed to be this easy. Taking that first pill felt like a crowded room going silent. I had never noticed how loud it was, until it wasn’t. I suddenly realized that the rest of the world doesn’t hear the lights buzz, doesn’t constantly think about the tags in their clothing and how uncomfortable they are. For the first time in my life, I got to choose what I thought about, what I spent my attention on, and what I did or did not do.

I didn’t know what it was to be lazy until I had a choice in the matter. Sometimes these days, I’ll take my medication and still lay in bed all day, but it will be a weekend, and the time is actually restful, not spent desperately bargaining with my own brain and letting the guilt build up inside me. The difference is choice. Executive dysfunction takes away that choice, and for those of us without access to medication or proper support, we’re left trying to fight a fire without water.

Executive dysfunction also means that, for me, doing the laundry is just as hard as working an eight-hour shift. ADHD makes them feel equally impossible. It can be a superpower at times, but mostly, it’s disabling. On the same day, I can spend 30 minutes convincing myself to get out of bed and the same 30 minutes convincing myself to write an entire novel. And at the end of the day, both will have taken the same amount of effort. I will have suffered just as much to do either task.

Supporting people with executive dysfunction is like dampening the flames, or even putting out a few fires entirely. My partner plugs in my phone for me at night and leaves a glass of water by my bedside. I keep my ADHD medication on my nightstand. I might never take the pills otherwise because the fire of checking the time, walking to the kitchen, filling a glass of water; it’s too much. But if the water is already there, that’s one less fire I have to burn through just to start my day. I know how easy it is to get a glass of water, but my ADHD is not convinced it won’t kill me.

Every moment is a war, and with every moment that executive dysfunction wins, the guilt doubles, triples, until just lying still becomes a fire in itself. ADHD is a battle of flames, and the brain will always choose the lesser pain. If you want to support a friend, coworker, employee, or student with ADHD, put out a fire for them.

Yesterday, I misplaced my medication. I was able to drag myself to school though, knowing I had an important exam. During my exam, I dropped my pencil. If it were up to my ADHD, it would have stayed on the floor until I had barely enough time left to finish the test, my grades suffering over something as simple as a dropped pencil. But someone picked it up and handed it to me, and I grabbed it like a lifeline. The quiet “thank you” I whispered could never begin to explain how much that simple act saved me.

For a neurotypical person, grabbing a glass of water for your partner, picking up a dropped pencil for a classmate, these things take no effort. But for someone with executive dysfunction, they can mean everything. They are the silent gestures that keep us going.