Can someone give me some examples of what struggling with executive functions looks like for an adult with adhd?

Had been meaning to come back and read the whole thread but executive function is making that impossible. It might suddenly ease and happen or it might not😂.

But I thought I might mention the books Why Can't I Just Shower? (and there is also an audio book I think called Why Can't I Just Clean for 10 Minutes?) as they give quite a detailed break down of what's so difficult about these easy tasks for people with executive function difficulties. Although they seem to offer strategies to get over these things and I've never found anything that works so am guessing they wouldn't work for me. And I haven't actually read them because of task initiation paralysis but I hope to one day if it ever briefly lifts. They look quite helpful from what you can read about them too. If you don't have executive function issues but want to understand more I am guessing you may find these helpful. Although who knows. Haven't managed to read them despite being quite excited to find them several days ago!

No im a woman

DH has ADHD and I have autism - we both struggle but in different ways.

He forgets things - a lot. There have been a ridiculous number of occasions he’s driven to work and had to turn round and come back home (he’s self employed) because he’s forgotten a vital bit of equipment even though before he left, he said he needed to get X from the garage before he went. Multiple times a day he walks into a room and forgets what he went for, or he’ll go to the shop and buy everything but the bread/milk/cat food he went for in the first place.

My issue is more that my environment makes me struggle - for example, I can’t really cook because the noise and smells and textures all stress me out and often I’ll cook a meal and then chuck it in the bin because I feel sick at the sight of it. I get overwhelmed incredibly easily too - wind is the worst and humid weather too.

Out of interest are you male?
You sound like my dh minus the smoking.

It’s been really validating reading some of these posts as I don’t feel like I’m alone with my malfunctioning brain! Even though I’m sorry so many of us share these struggles. Totally relate to all the talk of paralysis, time blindness, knowing you need to do a thing but Just. Not. Being. Able. To. Do. It. The self-esteem issues. I don’t have anyone in RL to speak to about this as I feel like I’m minimised a lot (oh you’ve always been a bit lazy since a child! Gee, thanks) or they have a certain idea of who I am in their mind so wouldn’t really believe the struggles I silently carry. DH hears about it all but unfortunately (well fortunately!) cannot relate, although he tries to be as supportive as possible.

Oh my gosh, fully relate especially re post and overdue parking tickets!
I have one I need to do but haven’t and I just keep putting it off!

Some more.

Cooking. I can sometimes just about manage to pour a can of soup into a pot and heat it up but most of the time that's too many steps and too much executive function and I just eat the soup cold, straight from the can. And I don't manage to wash anything afterwards. It all piles up until someone else does it. Sometimes i put aside time to wash stuff up but i just spend the time standing staring at all the plates and feeling overwhelmed, regardless of how few or how many plates there actually are. I've tried making a rule that I'm not allowed to walk away until the plates are washed but that just ends up with me standing staring for 2 hours instead of 20 minutes and in the end I usually give up and walk away and leave it. Occasionally I try to break it down into small steps and manage to persuade myself to pick up the washing up liquid in one hand and a brush in the other and then I try to gear myself up for the next step but that takes it out of me to even get that far (I usually don't). And I normally eventually give up and leave it to build up and someone else eventually does it (my parents used to come over every so often and stage a frustrated, tearful intervention before I met DP who now does everything more or less). He is very understanding because his ex was totally the same with the dishes. And just lived on junk food.

I always knew I couldn't manage to cook meat, fish, chicken etc and it's just too overwhelming and too many steps but for many years I held out on the idea that I could learn to cook fresh vegetables to go with my tin of soup/fish/ready cooked chicken. But no. I would buy them over and over and over again. They would sit in the fridge. Then I'd go and try to cook them but just open the fridge and stare at the vegetables and not be able to start the process at all. Sometimes I'd stare for twenty odd minutes, shouting in my head to just reach out and pick them up to get things started but I usually couldn't persuade myself to even do that and I would usually just close the door again after staring for ages. And eat cold soup/tinned fish on its own. I'd repeat this process every night until the veg was mouldy and had to be thrown out. And I'd do this over and over and over again. I'd spend just as long staring at the stuff I'd bought unable to start the process than it would taken an ordinary person to cook it but I'd do it night after night after night. I ended up with quite severe malnutrition because I wasn't managing to feed myself properly. I think I bought enough veg to eat multiple veg every night for many years but in an average year before I met my partner I only managed to cook the veg maybe once or twice a year (and it was so depleting I'd feel like I'd climbed a mountain). I spent a fortune. Every single time I would say to myself - "that won't happen again because it's a really easy thing to do and you will be able to do it next time because there's nothing hard about it" and every single time I would fail and not understand why. Diagnosis and medication were so enlightening. I could manage to cook the veg without any problem at all on the meds and it didn't exhaust me - it felt like I hadn't even done it - my energy wasn't gone. But as I said above I had to come off the meds so now my partner just cooks every night. I'm in awe of his veg cooking prowess and he can make meat too - the joys of not having any major executive function issues!

When I got diagnosed and joined loads of ADHD support groups I came across posts describing this exact problem over and over again. I do wonder if it was to do with the algorythmn as I spent so much time starting at the posts that it probably rightly deduced that I was fascinated that other people were having this exact same problem when I thought i was the only weird person in the world who could achieve things academically and socially but persistently fail to just cook some brocolli. It's baffling when you can do things that many people find difficult but can't do the things that most people find easy.

ADHD has a specific neurological cause. That is the difference between it and just being disorganised.

I also shared your view about what I thought ADHD was until I learned more about it. What you describe in your brother is certainly one manifestation of ADHD, but it is wrong to think it is the only one, and there is a huge span of how ADHD manifests itself in individuals. For one thing, ADHD itself can be either Inattentive ADHD (more associated with difficulty focusing or hyperfixation, difficulty in organising oneself or getting going), Hyperactive ADHD (more associated with impulsivity, risk-taking etc) or combined ADHD. And within those broad categories there are variations in symptoms.

Scepticism about diagnoses does nothing to help those who have ADHD and could benefit from an early diagnosis and, if they wish, treatment.

Oh, the PARALYSIS! Thank you so much for this!

Why am I on Mumsnet instead of packing, washing my hair, making sure I've got all my meds for the weekend??

Yup.

Came looking for this thread because I have a live example! I don't have ADHD, not even self-diagnosed, but I've got executive dysfunction in spades. This is what it looks like:

I'm going to an event this weekend. I paid for my ticket and booked a hotel six weeks ago. In that six weeks, I have not prepared a single thing. I've thought a lot about what to wear on each of the days and what I'll need to take.

I have not prepared anything, much less packed. I'll be wearing whatever doesn't need washing: my planned outfits are all in the wash 😬 I haven't emptied my weekend bag from its last use - months ago - and have just placed a supermarket order to the hotel, to cover off the essentials I'll probably forget or can't locate right now.

I may well miss my train. I booked the latest possible, so I'll have some time in the morning but, as you can see, I need to compress six weeks of prep into three or four hours.

I've been like this all my life - and, yes, I have missed international flights, crucial exams, interviews and surgeries. I am genuinely great at planning. In between planning and enactment, some necessary link falls into a bottomless void and I'm left with plans, panic and failure.

Very, very occasionally, like once a year or less, I do things at the right pace in the right order. Then I marvel at how nice it is! How calm! This must be how people do things, I think; I should do this all the time! The next thing comes and the magical link is in the void.

Also to add to my previous post - everyone I know who is diagnosed with ADHD, particularly those diagnosed a little later in life, had a deep sense of something being profoundly wrong with them before diagnosis. I think the explosion of adhd content on social media (while supportive and helpful in some ways) has created this idea that ADHD is 'teehee I'm so scatty and untidy and creative!'. But in reality it goes hand in glove with depression, anxiety and low self esteem, along with higher rates of self harm and suicide (before I was diagnosed I was hospitalised twice for self harm and on and off antidepressants for years). It is a brutal condition to live with.

I suspect I have ADHD traits - at university the only way I could get my essays done was to stay on campus during the holidays when everyone else went home so that I could work quietly and not feel distracted. I struggled to get into that space where I could concentrate. I required frequent changes of scene to help me concentrate. Sometimes the only way I could form an idea for writing was going for a run - I needed a lot of movement to keep my thoughts clear. I tend to put things off and struggle to prioritise work without a lot of structure and planning.

It's a question of degree and impact. Absolutely yes, everyone struggles with disorganisation and executive function sometimes. I think the distinction is really about impact, persistence annd pervasisveness. Everyone is disorganised, forgetful or prone to procrastinating sometimes, that's just being human. With ADHD, those difficulties are persistent and significant enough to have a negative impact on your functioning, and they tend to show up across different areas of life (work, relationships, home, managing day-to-day tasks etc.), rather than just being occasional lapses or personality quirks. It’s not that someone with ADHD is more scatty than everyone else; it’s that the difficulties are much harder to control and have a meaningful, ongoing effect on our lives.

Over the years (and especially in the years before I was diagnosed) ADHD has cost me friendships, opportunities, jobs, literally thousands of pounds, innumerate belongings, my self-esteem and considerable mental well-being. It has made me behave in profoundly unsafe and inexplicable ways. It has frustrated people I love, and who love me. It has caused me deep grief and been a source of sef-loathing for years. I would love to not be this way, and I would give up the 'benefits' (creativity, unparalleled ability to produce good results under intense pressure, associative imagination, deep empathy) in a heartbeat if it meant not having ADHD anymore.

Thoughts coming continuously but not getting organised into a sequence. Difficulty choosing which thoughts to act on. Things feel disproportionately hard, even when I want to do something. Losing large chunks of time and then feeling awful about ‘wasting’ the time. Procrastinating until it becomes urgent. Often being late as I’ve procrastinated so much. Or just a poor sense of how long things will take. Noise sensitivity sometimes feels painful (kids screaming) or just makes it hard to think. I’m always noticing the small details which becomes exhausting. These are the main ones that apply to me, any way.

I don't fully understand it myself but I can only assume that the neurotransmitters needed to transmit the instruction from my brain to my limbs were just more or less completely absent rather than merely being a bit too low as they possibly are in people with less severe presentations. Although I'm only hypothesising. I can't see that it's any kind of OCD - can I ask what made you think that? I don't have any other symptoms of OCD as far as I understand OCD. And the response to the meds was phenomenal.

Weirdly, on the one or two occasions when I did manage to pick something up off the floor after hours of wrangling and negotiating with my brain I was immediately overwhelmed by this enormous wave of rage and anger, which was totally unexpected (I had kind of expected relief, euphoria or a feeling of achievement - I'm not someone who struggles with anger at all usually). I was awake for about 8 hours after managing to pick the thing up and it took all of those 8 hours for the rage to subside and to feel normal again. It made no sense and for a while I wondered if I had some weird entitlement issues where I subconsciously believed I was too good to be picking things up off the floor but I couldn't see where these could have come from. I'm a hard working, conscientious person with a solid work ethic and hight standards in other parts of my life. When I was on the stimulants, I could pick things up off the floor easily and there was no wave of rage and anger at all. I felt totally neutral. It was just picking something up off the floor. No tomato induced rage!😂

When I'm in public with people watching me though I can do these things - they take it out of me a bit but it's not impossible. I've found out this is called contextual impairment. This made me think it was psychological for a long time but I no longer believe that. I think it's neurological but I still don't understand it.

My close relative with ADHD is very impulsive and it’s a real emotional rollercoaster for them of joy and creativity and then terrible self criticism afterwards in an ongoing cycle.

I struggle with how this all gets defined. Whats the difference between this in an adhd context and being a disorganised person?

I start to do something and then get distracted because I'm thinking about something else and I go off and start doing another task whilst leaving the first one unfinished and then i ll get distracted again and start something else so I end up with a few things on the go and go back and forth between them all.

A friend with adhd diagnosis described it exactly like this but isn't this loads of us? I dont have adhd but Im like this, i'm quite disorganised, especially at work and if theres no real deadline. Ive realised over the years that often its just about what i "prioritise" doing in the moment.... things that interest me/i care about are more likely to distract me! For me the natural consequences in life have basically trained me resist the temptation by creating external motivators that force me to prioritise what i need to eg...
a) GCSE results were a bit of a disappointment, i got good results but dropped grades in most subjects because i was too last minute with revision.
b) i missed my first choice uni offer because I dropped two grades. Less bad than a) but variation on a theme
c) i failed a professional exam and came close to losing my job.

I've got steadily more successful through my 20 year professional career as consequences for fuck ups have been increasingly clear & firm, it forces me to get done what i have to in time.

I think a hell of a lot of people are like this? Especially around work/study. Theres way more personal motivation to do fun stuff!!

For me it’s task blindness. I rationally know I need to do x but it’s easy to get side tracked or not see it. I don’t mean anything by not doing it, if pointed out, I know I need to but my brain doesn’t pick up on it. (Tidying, etc) I can easily forget what I was in the process of doing. Repetitive tasks are like hell even if initially get excited about it.

@LilacBalloonsgreat, realistic post.

I'm not suggesting your time isn't important, apologies if it came off that way. I'm actually saying the same thing you are - not everyone wants or is able to make adjustments and accommodations for people with disabilities all the time, it's part of life.

You have people in your life you're willing to make adjustments for, and people you don't. You have people in your life who made adjustments for you, and people who won't.

I have people in my life who make adjustments and accommodations for my disability, and I accept that other people won't make those same accommodations and adjustments, and that's entirely their right. I'm not going to be everyone's cup of tea, I'm not going to be worth the effort of accommodation to everyone. It's normal and inevitable and I accept it!

(This does not go for legal accommodations to which disabled people are entitled - those aren't optional and must be adhered to, of course)

I am disabled. My time is also important. I make loads of adjustments for my disabled friends as they do for me. But being consistently late is an awful trait. It leaves everyone else just waiting.

Thank you for replying. So it is more extreme than me then. I'm usually late because I think I've got loads of time then start doing things and then end up being late or I have extra time and think ow that's good I'll fit this in and still late rather than just go and be early! Again I don't think I have Adhd but my brain does annoy me sometimes! Yours seems more extreme like the walking past cup 5 times so I suppose it's the level that makes it more difficult. My colleague has it and she does the butting in but we know she can't help it, she just has to get her thoughts out. I wonder if some people saying adhd mean ADD as a lot of women seem to have it without the hyperactivity part. I'm glad you have found some coping mechanisms x

Yeah, fair enough - that's your choice to make, and people with disabilities do get used to the fact that not everyone wants or is able to make necessary accommodations.

@LilacBalloonsyeah I get the “why don’t you just”. It’s ultimately a decision for me as to whether I can really be bothered to have someone in my life who can’t deal with this stuff. I am busy enough myself: I can’t adult for her and she doesn’t have a husband and secretary to do what yours do for you.

Saying “Oh, I can’t help it” doesn’t diminish the impact it has on other people, I’m afraid.

I have calendar reminders too but in order to work they require me to 1) remember to put the reminder in my calendar if it's not something I can do on the spot for whatever reason, 2) open and review my calendar regularly and/ or 3) see and take notice of the calendar reminder when it pops up on my phone, which is something I am particularly bad at doing because the sheer number of reminders I have gives me notification blindness and a general sense of dread/ overwhelm which makes me less likely to look at them.

I get by because any time I get invited to anything I forward the message to my husband and he is the keeper of our calendar. He tells me about upcoming events etc and lets me know when we're double booked. If he couldn't or wouldn't do this for me I'm genuinely not sure what would happen, because in the years before I met him I never had a workable system for myself.

I have similar scaffolding at work because my secretary has access to my inbox, and she adds everything to my work calendar and reminds me when deadlines or events are looming.

Without outsourcing this aspect of my administrative life to other people, I wouldn't be able to successfully deal with invitations, RSVPs etc.

(As a general rule, if your response to someone struggling with ADHD is to say "why don't you just..." followed by a suggestion for some kind of system or organisational habit, it's basically the equivalent of telling a person with no legs "why don't you just try putting one foot in front of the other?". I.e., telling a person to overcome ADHD by being more organised fails to recognise that the solution requires the functioning of the very equipment people with ADHD don't have).