{"id":280134,"date":"2018-10-21T17:06:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T17:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/21\/executive-dysfunction-is-telling-yourself-for-two-3\/"},"modified":"2018-10-21T17:06:39","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T17:06:39","slug":"executive-dysfunction-is-telling-yourself-for-two-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/21\/executive-dysfunction-is-telling-yourself-for-two-3\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

backuppixiedust<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

sometimesyouhavetobebrave<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

mememic-bry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

mememic-bry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

mememic-bry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

executive dysfunction is telling yourself for two and a half hours that you need to shower bc you smell like your workplace and you absolutely Cannot do Anything Else until you shower, doing Any Other Thing before<\/i> showering is illegal!!!<\/i> but you still haven\u2019t for some reason??? you\u2019ve just been sitting on your bed in a towel scrolling tumblr for 2+ hours thinking \u201cI need to shower right now immediately\u201d and growing increasingly frustrated that you are still not clean and you haven\u2019t eaten or done your laundry either<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

ok actually no I\u2019m reblogging this because a) I am clean now (and I smell amazing, thank you), and b) I had a heckin Realize <\/i>and I wanted to share it with y\u2019all in the hopes it\u2019ll help someone else with a brain like mine.<\/p>\n

I figured something out about myself a long time ago\u2013 it\u2019s only just now occurred to me that I was in fact solving a problem caused by executive dysfunction, and I haven\u2019t been implementing this solution lately because my brain went\u00a0\u201cthat\u2019s a relatively new term to me and therefore a Different problem that requires a Different solution\u201d. thanks a lot, brain.<\/p>\n

anyway<\/i>, long long ago, before I knew these fancy schmancy Official words, the problem, as I phrased it to myself, was such:\u00a0<\/p>\n

sometimes I get Stuck. I was doing something, or on my way to doing something, and then\u2026 I just. got stuck.<\/p>\n

\u201cStuck\u201d looks like refreshing my feed or dashboard repeatedly. or it looks like staring at a spot on the wall. or chewing my fingernails. or picking at a stubborn sticker. all the while, my brain drifts through various unrelated topics I wouldn\u2019t be able to recall if asked. sometimes I can get Stuck for hours before realizing I am Stuck. sometimes I get so <\/i>Stuck that I go to bed that way (feeling especially bad for being unproductive) and I have to just reset everything by sleeping.<\/p>\n

one day I asked myself, \u201cwhy is this happening? why am I stuck, right now, at this moment in time?\u201d the answer, as it turns out, was pretty simple: I was trying to make a decision, and I got distracted. I haven\u2019t moved forward because I haven\u2019t answered that one question or made up my mind.<\/i><\/p>\n

let me rephrase this in terms of executive dysfunction: many people have expressed that it feels like knowing you need to do a thing but not feeling\u00a0\u201cready\u201d to do it. many with ADHD may also be familiar with the feeling of needing things to be\u00a0\u201cjust so\u201d before you embark on a task- you need your setup to look a certain way, or you need to set a timer, or have the right music playing, etc.<\/p>\n

when I get Stuck it\u2019s often because I got lost somewhere in that setting-up process, and my brain took the opportunity to nyoom off into Distraction Town.<\/p>\n

getting myself Unstuck is solved, 95% of the time, by tracing my steps back to the original decision I was trying to make- often something small and inane- and then troubleshooting from there. (out loud! verbal processing is totally punk.)\u00a0<\/p>\n