eli5 – Can someone explain ADHD? Specifically the procrastination and inability to do “boring” tasks?
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Look up executive function disorder. The procrastination and inability to do boring tasks is not necessarily adhd.
The basic theory is that people with executive function disorder have synapses with bigger gaps than neurotypical people have. Those larger gaps require a bigger charge to fire off the impulse to act.
It takes either the excitement of having a task that people enjoy to generate those larger charges. Or the stress and anxiety of being up against a deadline, in the case of procrastination.
ADHD has a number of disparate facets, but AIUI it mostly boils down to an impaired ability to control what you give attention to. You can’t just decide to focus on something – or to *not* focus on something – no matter how much you may know you need to. You procrastinate because your brain doesn’t believe that there’s enough of a reward to be gained by doing whatever task it is – usually because it’s boring in and of itself, and any longer-term reward isn’t taken into account – and you can’t override your brain and force yourself to do it anyway. You might also procrastinate because even though what you should be doing would be engaging, what you’re doing now is *also* engaging, and you can’t convince your brain to break away from it.
In effect, it feels rather like being a passenger in your own mind. Your brain thinks about whatever it’s going to think about, and you’re just along for the ride. You can try to give it suggestions, but ultimately it decides where you go. In fact, IIRC studies have shown that the harder an ADHD person tries to force themselves to focus on something their brain doesn’t want to focus on, the more brain scans show their brain seeming to just shut down.
Sometimes it’s possible to work around this – medication can help make your brain consider just about anything rewarding (which sometimes comes with its own downsides!), and often it’s easier to do something for or even just with someone else because of the social reward of helping them or interacting with them. A lot of people with ADHD also use stress and anxiety as ways of coercing their brain into engaging with what they need to do.
People without ADHD struggle to understand this, because they *can* simply decide to do something and then go do it, and the idea that this might be difficult or impossible is very alien to them. As a result, ADHD-related traits often get stigmatised as willful unwise behaviour, when in actual fact there’s little to no will or wisdom involved in the situation at all. It’s just a cognitive impairment.
I see some really awesome scientific breakdowns of executive function disorder and ADHD…let me give you more anecdotal, and less science explanation
You see a pile of laundry in your room. You have no clean clothes left. You know you have a pile of dishes in the kitchen that need to be cleaned. You also need to run the garbage out.
You know you have to do these things. You know how to complete these things. You know that cleaning the dishes will make the kitchen feel amazing and you’ll feel amazing. Having clean clothes and a clean room will make you feel better. Taking the garbage out will keep the house smelling nice.
You know how to do these tasks. You know the reward at the end of these tasks. In fact, none of these tasks are difficult to achieve. However, your brain has a really tough time getting these tasks done because they feel overwhelming, or just impossible.
When you have ADHD, it isn’t that you can’t focus. In fact, many people with ADHD are renowned scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc. It’s that you don’t have a lot of choice over what you focus on.
Let’s use the above examples. Let’s say I finally get into the kitchen to clean up. I’ll start cleaning up, but then I notice the cupboards look a bit messy. So I stop doing dishes and start cleaning the cupboards. While I’m doing that, I notice that this one cupboard door is squeaky. So I get some lubricant and oil it up, but don’t return to cleaning the cupboards or kitchen. Instead, I noticed while grabbing the lubricant that my storage room is a mess. I get overwhelmed by how messy it is and then I crash, and have 3 tasks started, but none completed.
ADHD has three main “types”
Hyperactive
Inatentive
And combined.
It’s a spectrum. You can fall more in one category, or another. Or maybe you’re kind of all of them at once depending on the day. Or maybe it constantly shifts depending on what’s going on in your life.
Some people benefit from stimulant medication (Vyvanse Adderall etc), which just gives your brain that little extra boost to stay on task maintain mood regulation and many other things.
Hope this helps.
Recently diagnosed with ADHD at 60 and I apparently have developed a lot of coping strategies that mask the symptoms. I can’t focus on a boring task so I do several things at once. I’m worried that I’ll leave important tasks unfinished so I make a list of steps and tick them off as I go. I get anxious about procrastinating too much so I do everything straight away and then feel smug that I finished before everyone else. I always struggled to get to sleep because my brain is zooming so rather than trying to calm my brain I make a real effort to focus on one thing – currently I’m writing a novel – it must be really boring because I fall asleep at the start of chapter one…every night. I see it as my super power and it does let me have intense focus when I am enjoying a task, to such a degree that I have to be reminded to eat. I used to self medicate with alcohol but that is a crap way to live and cannabis is very bad, it makes me think of every possible thing in the world all at the same time – definitely not chilling out.
ADHD imo is poorly named. It’s not that you have an attention deficit. It’s more like you have an attention surplus. While having a conversation with you, I am also hearing the music 20 yards away and the lyrics, the conversation across from us, and any other sounds and movements nearby.
While most people filter those out without thinking about it, it takes effort for someone with adhd to do so. Hence why they appear more easily distracted.
Back in school, my teacher would shout at me to repeat what she just said to me, cos I’d be lying on the floor with my legs up in the wall. I’d repeat back word for word. I just needed more stimulus for it not to be boring.
This is one reason background noise things, familiar music while reading, and other things can be helpful. It placates that attention surplus while allowing you to consciously focus more on whatever it is you’re reading or writing or doing.
A lot of caveats to this. But it’s ELI5.
You know [that intro from Malcolm in the Middle](https://youtu.be/AbSehcT19u0) where Hal get back home and when trying to turn the light on the bulb is dead and he ends up under the hood of is car when Loïs comes around to tell him to change the bulb?
That’s relatable for people with attention deficit, which can, but not always, include ADHD people
IMO what trips people up the most is that the “deficit” part of the name is a misnomer. It’s not a lack of attention, it’s an inability to regulate that attention. You cannot *decide* what gets (or doesn’t get) your attention, why, and for how long.
Attention Dysregulation Disorder, Executive Management Disorder, Focus Management Disorder, or something would be less misleading to the public.
ADHD is like having short-term attention amnesia most of the time. You were focusing on one thing, and now you’re focused on another, and you don’t notice or remember the transition. Typically, you are distracted by an interesting thought and then whilst you focus on that, your brain autopilots you into whatever you habitually do until something new takes your attention.
If you try to force it not to shift focus, or to focus on something that it doesn’t want to, it can be physically painful. I’ve nearly thrown up forcing myself to fill out forms before, and long meetings give me intense headaches (if I even remember anything said in the meeting after about 2 minutes.) Zoom meetings have been a blessing, I get most of my work done trying to distract myself from how boring the meeting is.
Generally, attempts to remedy procrastination don’t really work because your brain filters them out and forgets them quickly, and if it can’t, it gets stressed out.
It’s not like we can’t do anything though. If it’s interesting, stimulating and engaging, we can do it (and get addicted to it.) If we care about it enough, we can do it e.g. if it’s for someone we love. If it’s about to kill us, we will deal with it. People with ADHD are often drawn to intense professions like journalism and emergency services.
I have ADHD and I have 2 full-time jobs. However, I suck at both in a very particular way, normally whenever there are barriers that require me to wait (because that’s prime time for me to get distracted and then waste 2 hours before I realise I’ve not been doing anything.)
The acronym “ICNU” is useful for explaining the things that can actually motivate us adhders. Something has to be one of the four:
Interesting
Challenging
Novel
Or urgent
For us to be able to focus on it. Explains the procrastinating things until they become urgent enough to meet the stimulation requirement.
Saw a few personal stories so I thought I’d share my own. For me, it’s a lot of not noticing little things that haven’t gotten done (think missing spots while sweeping, slightly dirty dishes, bagging garbage but setting it down and forgetting to finish taking it out, etc.). I’m usually SO focused on the tasks I’ve started (usually clean a few things at a time to keep from getting bored) that some of the details get left behind. For me, it’s like my brain doesn’t register the bag sitting in the kitchen, the spots on a fork, or the one stripe that’s slightly dirtier than the rest of the floor. With that being said, repetitive things like mowing (who the fuck wants to walk back and forth in a straight line for an hour? It drives me insane) are way harder for me to start, especially because I don’t find the end result reinforcing. Idc that my lawn is long, but I know my wife and others do, so I begrudgingly mow it. It’s not my idea, I hate doing it, so I put it off until I can’t anymore. In addition, when it’s something I dislike, it seems like it takes waaaay longer than it should. Classes with clocks were the worst because I could hear the clock ticking and realized how slowly the time was moving. I usually compare it to a speedster staring at a clock. That shit seems like it moves in slow motion when I’m forced to do something I don’t want to do. That’s also a big reason why the lazy aspect always bothers me. I’m actually pretty active (about 15,000 steps a day between work, home, and the gym), but to the outside world who doesn’t see how much I’m trying to do all at once, or how my brain is processing a ton of sensory inputs all at once, it can seem like I don’t care about finishing or starting something else. It can turn into a vicious cycle, but a good support system, medication, and some behavior shaping on my own have helped tremendously.
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