I struggled to understand executive dysfunction and I was reading on ADHD

Question

I procrastinate. I sometimes hardly start something I’m interested to, if i start i don’t get the work done for example if i want to read an article i find myself checking instagram or whatsapp or reading an extra link
Please i really suffer with this

In: 24

Answer 1

This is a big one and I feel your pain; it took me 44 years to really come to understand and see the threads.

The brain has a lot of working systems in it, and is fundamentally a learning system. It learns in different ways, and in most people there is a system that causes dopamine to get released in anticipation of reward. So simple conditioning, do thing, get reward, do thing again, get pre-reward to tell us “doing the right thing”. That is how learning works. In people with ADHD, one of the most common reasons for executive dysfunction, this doesn’t work right.

What this means is that motivation works differently for me. ADHD brains pay attention to urgency. So if you have something that is urgent in any way, we can focus on it to the point of obsession. We can look like the most dilligent workers in the world, if the world is on fire.

What doesn’t work, is getting excited about, and paying attention to, the future, or things that are important but not urgent.

So facebook and arguments on reddit? Urgent but not important. This discussion is now, it wont be happening later, that is urgent. Its not important, my life wont change if I hit cancel and walk away. We are not becoming friends, this is ships passing in the night. But I am here because, my brain tripped on it and now its more important to me than what I should be doing.

Whats not urgent? Making friends, maintianing relationships, that paperwork my boss isn’t actually going to complain about. These things can be ignored for years and years, because they never become urgent until depression or loneliness comes in and makes them urgent.

There are treatments, like stimulants. They really help, but there is no cure and really what the stimulants do, is help me focus enough that I can start learning how to control my own attention and hopefully find tools to do it with. They will never cure me to the point that I don’t need to actively manage it and work on connecting with my self and my future.