Eli5 executive functioning. I have ADHD and want to tie my shoe, and I’m reaching to tie my shoe, but the part.exe that makes me actually tie my shoe doesn’t work?

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Eli5 executive functioning. I have ADHD and want to tie my shoe, and I’m reaching to tie my shoe, but the part.exe that makes me actually tie my shoe doesn’t work?

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Executive functioning is like your brains task manager. It’s not that you can’t do the action, you’ve set the priority for tying your shoelace too low and other stuff too high and can’t reprioritise

Anonymous 0 Comments

I know my shoe is untied, I know I could trip, I know I look sloppy, but to tie it would have to find a place where I could stop walking without disrupting anyone, and be tucked away, not noticed, and also not stop walking where I was going because I need to get to that place and if I stop i will be later than I already am, or might get distracted and side tracked by something I see while I stopped, and maybe I should sit down in a bench instead of just kneeling because then I’m out of the way and I wouldn’t get bumped into, but that bench has someone sitting on it and they look like they might be grumpy so maybe the next bench, it’s just a little farther away, right beside that food truck, and I didn’t have lunch and it’s already 3pm and i really should get something to eat, but I don’t really want what they’re selling, so I’ll just keep going, oh- I passed that bench, but the place i’m going is just around the corner so I’ll keep going and get there pretty much on time, and isn’t it convenient that I don’t have to undo that shoe, i can just slip it off at the front door. I’ll have to remember to tie it better when I leave.

Anonymous 0 Comments

The brain always searches for an opportunity to make a reward neurotransmitter called dopamine. Normal people produce enough dopamine that they can motivate themselves to complete a task. An ADHD brain doesn’t produce enough dopamine, so the brain’s thought process is: “I’m not getting a reward from this, so I’d better do something else instead.”