3 Symptoms of Executive Dysfunction – And How Not Recognizing Them Might Result in A

[firemonkey]

I’ve been trying to write this article for weeks.

> Every time I think about writing it, I’m frozen. And the more time that elapses, the harder it is for me to get started.

> In fact, just the act of opening up my word processor took about as much energy as I imagine it takes to lift a car above your head, move a pile of bricks with your mind, or make a billion dollars over night.

> And this doesn’t just apply to this one article. Most of the time, this inability to act expands to everyday tasks. Cleaning the dishes, making the bed – hell, getting out of bed can be just as difficult.

> This is nothing new in my life.

> Throughout my academic career, I’d constantly leave things at school that needed to be brought home, forget that certain assignments were due, and would leave everything to the last minute.

> This was so bad that almost every night, my mother would have to drive me back to school just to pick up all of the things I had left in my desk.

> Many folks see this behavior and are quick to label it laziness.

> However, this process wasn’t a way to escape my responsibilities or shirk off school work, but the result of a brain incapable of the necessary planning and self-motivation it took to get things done in a timely fashion.

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/09/...=SocialWarfare

This is definitely a problem for me. Especially with regards to organising and planning. I really struggle with multi step tasks and tend to back away from things because they seem too overwhelming. This can affect things like keeping my flat clean and tidy. A while back via the schizophrenia.com web site I did a cognitive assessment. I scored average or above on all categories but executive functioning. On that category I scored 1.5-2 standard deviations below average. It does very much seem to be something those with developmental/learning difficulties can struggle with. The problem is getting those things recognised especially if you went through your childhood/teens before there was much recognition of such problems. In my experience you are more likely to be seen as awkward,passive-aggressive and subversive than you are to get help and support for it especially if you are well into adulthood

[David K]

Crikey, this sounds familiar. Thanks, FM! I'll read this and post more later.

If I can be arsed.

[choirgirl]

I'm pretty sure I have some deficits in executive function. In fact I came on here to moan about them.

Two difficulties that have ****ed things up for me so far are essay writing, and multi-tasking.

Essay writing at a higher level, even when I really TRY and don't spend hours watching youtube and going down research rabbit holes. I just get confused and go wrong somewhere in the planning stage, or occasionally the structuring stage. Never the writing stage or the editing stage. I've got that shit down. I have to do that super fast because I went so wrong in the earlier stages. I have not found much advice that addresses my specific difficulties. It surprised me to get to second year of university and suddenly find myself unacademic, and well, thick. It's like, well, if I'd known at 16 I was thick, I would have made different choices. It has been hard to accept. I dropped out, did OU years later and STILL struggled, at least at third year level. For God's sake. Also, I've taken on board the idea that you can find and learn to overcome your academic weaknesses, in fact that seems what the education system is all about, unlike the workplace. There is so much focus on improving and learning techniques for doing things better. So I thought I could find a technique that would help me, but I couldn't.

I think most people who run into problems academically just drop out and move on. I would have done that too had I not run into problems so late in my academic career, and had I not been so invested in an idea of myself as 'not a thicko', and had I not been under family/peer pressure to succeed. Had I been from a background where everyone starts work at 18 and no one goes to university, it would have been no biggie that it didn't work out. I know at least four Oxbridge graduates well, and I do not have a wide social circle. This shit is embarrassing.

And multi-tasking really takes it out of me. I might as well be performing on stage. Just a basic, minimum wage job that requires social interaction and multi-tasking, like working in a shop or waitressing, takes a LOT of energy and concentration. I think I may have some working memory deficits. I feel like a computer trying to do too many things at once, and thus doing all of them slower and occasionally crashing. And like other people are better computers with more memory, and they can just do it.

Also, I don't know how much it is stress making me stupid. Stress does make me stupid. But am I stressed in the first place because I am stupid, or slow, and then I worry about that, and that makes me even more stupid?

I feel like saying to people, 'but you don't understand. I'm not really as thick as I seem.' But I guess I must be. It's weird how subtle, but still life-wrecking these problems can be. I don't have any problems with housework, cooking and those type of tasks. So if I'm not nervous and I'm doing a task I do all the time, that doesn't demand all my concentration, like a domestic task, I'm okay, even if there are multiple steps and multi-tasking involved. I think I do get better at multi-tasking over time. But I have to learn from scratch again in each change of environment. Also, for me, social interaction with people I don't know well takes up more energy and concentration than for a normal person. So if I have to interact on top of doing several other tasks at the same time, well, that is HARD.

Anyway, I've only recently learnt about this stuff. It seems that nowadays kids are assessed on every aspect of normal development. I do wonder what abnormalities they would have found with me had they done that stuff then. Probably slowly developing social skills, but I don't know about anything else. The executive function stuff seems to be talked about in relation to autism and ADD, and I don't think I have those.