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

[Coldwetlettuce]

Not really an AIBU but would like replies! I understand executive functions to be stuff like driving, doing laundry, having a shower, making the bed. Am I right? People keep telling me I have ADHD and people with adhd struggle with executive functions (I find all this language around it annoying). Anyway, can anyone give examples of how an adult with ADHD would struggle with these ‘executive functions’?

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

No im a woman

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!