geekhyena:

beowulfstits:

fuckyouephraimgoodweather:

beowulfstits:

Friends, family members and loved ones of learning disabled and mentally ill people need to have a working knowledge of what Executive Dysfunction is, and respect the fact that it is a prominent feature of that person’s psychology and life.

Executive Dysfunction is best known as a symptom of autism and ADHD, but it also features in depression, anxiety disorders schizophrenia, OCD (which by the way is also an anxiety disorder), personality disorders; etc, a whole myriad of mental illnesses and disabilities can result in executive dysfunction.

(fact: I have personally known people diagnosed with each ofthe above mentioned disabilities. let me tell yea having mental disabilities in aneurotypical world turns your life upside down and we often feel suffocatedand trapped by it with no way out)

Years ago when I was like 14 and had recently learned of my autism diagnosis, I watched a youtube interview between autistic people, and an autistic woman said something along these lines, “Sometimes, a lightbulb will burn out, but I cannot change it. I have the physical capability to change the lightbulb, and I want to change the lightbulb, and I know I need to do it, but because of my autism I just don’t do it. So the lightbulb remains unchanged for weeks. Sometimes people have to change the lightbulb for me.”

When she said that I related so much, because constantly throughout my whole life I have wanted and needed to do things with my wanting and needing being akin to my spurring an extremely stubborn horse who refuses to move. For the first time I learned that I wasn’t just “lazy”, I had a condition that prevented me from doing things as easily as other people can, but unfortunately it took me years since then to understand that.

Actually, I like the horse analogy. Imagine that you are a horserider, but your horse is entirely unwilling to move even if you want to move. You dig in your heels, you raise the reins, but the horse refuses to respond. Your wants and needs are the rider, and your executive functions (the parts of your mind responsible for getting things done) are the horse.

I think it’s incredibly dangerous for neurotypical loved ones to not understand, or be aware of, or respect executive dysfunction. Neurotypical can assume that we are just being lazy, careless, selfish or difficult, when in reality we want to do the thing but our brains prevent us from consistently and reliably doing the thing.

That misinterpretation can lead to toxic behavior and resentment on the part of the loved one, which will harm us emotionally and do us a lot of damage gradually over time.

That damage can take the form of internal self-criticism, complicating executive dysfunction even further and making it worse.

a note on ocd in particular tho is that like, a lot of things surround obsessions and compulsions and the rituals associated with it, so for the lightbulb example it might be ‘bugs may have touched the lightbulb. the lightbulb is therefore dirty. i need gloves. but im out of gloves. i need to go to the store. i need to find paper to open and close my house door so i dont come into contact with the dirty door handles. i need to remember my hand sanitizer. i need to buy the gloves. i need to sanitize my hands after paying the cashier. i need to open my house door with paper again. i need to wash off my keys. i need to grab a chair, but only move it with my feet, because someone i dont like sat or touched that chair, making it dirty.’ like. its a fuckload of steps to just change ONE fucking lightbulb and its why a lot of people with ocd, including myself, just..avoid cleaning shit up or doing things that need to be done. bc if we dont do it, it doesnt trigger the ritual process and its a fuckload less stress. its easier to sit in the dark than fuck with ocd rituals.

very Good addition

also I said this on the facebook post would you agree with it?

“but executive dysfunction I think can manifest differently depending on the disorder of the individual, for example, an OCD person might want to keep their room clean, but have the compulsion, “In order to clean my room I have to do XYZ, ABC, and FGH exactly right, and if I don’t do all of that correctly everything will be horrible forever” and because of the involved and anxiety-inducing nature of that process the room-cleaning seldom gets done.

Keeping in mind that I DON’T have OCD, I’m describing based on what friends with OCD has said. (If it isn’t clear, OCD isn’t always ‘I keep everything spotlessly clean and organized 24/7’; in fact the living space of an OCD person can be a total mess)”

And then you get into a spiral of ‘I want to do this but I don’t have XYZ/the spoons’ and then it builds up ans as it builds up you get more and more anxious and you put off doing it more……