executive dysfunction and laziness

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Yeah, I tried L- deprenyl. It's a dopamine drug that is used for parkinsons, but it didn't work for me. I know I'm low on dopamine because I lack coordination, as motor ability is affected by this, but anytime I've went to this dopamine side directly, such as tyrosine, deprenyl, I get nothing.

I think it's "speed" or nothing my friend.

List-making is not a good idea for my kind of executive dysfunction. My kind is the hyperfocused kind, so if I made lists, then I would become obsessed with making lists. I used to do this all the time, because I read that list-making was a good "Getting Things Done" strategy. GTD, my @$$. Also, tracking progress was another good strategy. Just say NO. At some point, I got fed up with these complicated ill-advised externalization doohickies and decided to just keep everything in my mind, in a structure made of blocks, vaguely castle-like, in which each block is a task, large or small, and I move around the structure to do the tasks or their steps in any order, and I can arrange and rearrange the blocks for prioritization purposes or just for funsies.

Like "Write a novel" is a block of this structure, so when I land on the window of this block as the raven from "The Raven", I start pecking at the stained glass to start writing Chapter 23, and the whole time that I am writing, I am pecking at the glass, and when I am done with Chapter 23 for the moment or the day or good, I stop pecking at the glass, and I flap my wings and make a cawing sound, and that lets me fly away to another block, like the one that stands for "Eat a peach", and after I eat the peach, that block disappears, but the "Write a novel" block remains in place, until I am done with the novel, which I am still working on, but if I fail to write the novel in awhile, like several weeks, then I don't feel too bad about it, because I have shuffled that block to a different position in the structure, and I have moved myself to a different position around the structure, where I can no longer see the "Write a novel" block, and this re-arrangement is necessary for focus and peace of mind when I have prioritized the "Learn neuroscience" block above the "Write a novel" block for an extended period of time. If there is a distasteful task that I really need to do as soon as possible, the block grows four legs and bunny or cat ears and romps after me wherever I move around the structure, so I have to do the task or at least a step of it, and when I am done with that, the block either disappears or sinks into the ground to grow a flower that turns back into the block animalcule the next day, and there is a happy computer game "Level up" noise encouraging me to move on to one of my more tasteful tasks.

In conclusion, I admit that list-making works for a lot of people, but it does not work for me, with my particular kind of executive dysfunction, and I have devised this structure to replace it. This structure feels very natural and comfortable to me, since I am a lifelong block-stacker, who likes to relate everything to block-stacking. I don't get obsessed with this structure, although it sounds like I do, because it is internal and flexible, not external and rigid, so as long as the positions of the blocks make sense, the whole structure is perfect and perfectly welcoming, so I can get on with doing the tasks in it.

I think parts of my problem with list-making are (1) inflexible linearity and (2) inflexible words. Teehee, I made a list, but not the GTD kind.

Wow, thanks for the responses!

And I have never heard of the term of inertia in the autistic sense before, and I think that fits me as well. I remember the problem really rearing it's ugly head starting in college (as I was home my mom always tended to do things for me) where the only saving grace for me was to cram everything before the due date of projects or exams. I had plenty of raw intelligence but not much else...skipped more classes than I went to and spent most of my time in my dorm rooms..alone.

That just about covers it. They also have a penchant for tu quoquery.

What I know is that constantly calling me lazy actually made things worse for me, being as it was part of a system of emotional abuse that was sustained during my childhood and teen years, that I was treated as if my inability to perform as expected was a matter of being oppositional, as if I chose to find it difficult to organize and complete tasks. This is obviously not a situation unique to me, as several people on this forum describe similar, and similar happens among people with ADHD, along with other conditions. There's a reason one of the self-help ADHD books is titled You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?

This video is focused on ADHD, but is relevant to executive dysfunction. The pertinent part starts at 0:50 or so:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF1YRE8ff1g[/youtube]

Again, while in reference to ADHD, difficulties with time awareness and executive function occur amongst autistic people as well, and many autistic people fit the criteria for ADHD.

OMG... That is me. In a nutshell. I started at the beginning and it defines what I have been going through for almost 31 years of my life.

I had to turn on the transcribed captioning feature of youtube as I am deaf. Some words were messed up but I understood him completely. At least this is out there for me to show other people, but unfortunately - about half of them, maybe more might still disregard this video and continue to believe what the society have been telling them to believe about "us", that we're "really lazy" and not disordered at all.

The guy who put that video up put several more short excerpts from that entire talk (and it is a really long talk - I think it's actually two or three presentations over a weekend) up on his channel, so if you look for his other short Barkley videos you'll probably find a lot of stuff that fits.

Wow, that was good Verdandi, thanks for posting.

Well, I'm glad that you have, in a roundabout kind of way, admitted to your own hypocrisy. I hope you realize that appeals to hypocrisy, like the one I've made in this thread, are often perfectly valid. My point is not to reject your proposition entirely on the basis of your hypocrisy, but to illustrate the limitations and dangers inherent in that type of thinking (basis vs. behavior).

Whatever you do, don't actually reply to what I said!



You are so caught up in the concept of "choice"--do you get the feeling that perhaps the concept of "choice" in general is rather illusory?

A guy murders his wife. Did he "choose" to do this? Is there some part of him that exists entirely apart from the realm of stimulus that made a purely free decision to behave in this way? Of course not. His "behavior generator" is "dysfunctional". How could it not be?

I hope he enjoys my new self-help book for people with dysfunctional behavior generators: You Mean I'm Not A Murderer?

I second it.

Oh my, it's definitely limiting. It's a real time performance disorder. I wouldn't wish it on one anyone, even for 1 second of time. Add in SCT in that, and you are displaced out even further from reality.

When I think of doubling this up with autism, I cant even imagine how anyone could have the wherewithal to 'live.'

Do you mean adaptive functioning and self-help skills? Because handling that is a pain in the ass, but staying alive hasn't been an issue yet.

Otherwise, it probably varies based on severity.

All the issues associated with autism seem to be related to the area of executive functioning. For instance, sensory issues result from the brains inability to prioritize and block out sensory input that it doesn't need. The stimming and repetitive behaviours result from attempting to deal with that(they should call them self-disctracting behaviours rather than self-soothing IMHO) . The narrow focus and tendency to break everything down into details springs from an inability to multitask and sort information that comes from different sources. Lack of eye contact and body language comprehension are the same deal. If you can only focus on the words being said then you cant devote any attention to body language or tone or any of those subtle communication devices that people naturally put to use.

Maybe that's all well known? I dont know

anyways. Im pretty close to loosing my job because of this. I work with lower functioning autistic people in group homes and part of my job is to make sure I keep the house clean and get the dishes and laundry done. This should be easy but when it comes to actually doing it I just get frustrated and my brain shuts down. For whatever reason, if someone is there providing me with external cues it bypasses all the anxiety that usually results from attempting to do these sorts of things but for the most part I work by myself (and when I work with other people they just do it themselves and complain about it to the boss later). I dont know. My boss has asked me several times what my deal is and told me that he didn't think I was lazy because Im always willing to come in to work when needed and help out whenever I'm asked.

The whole caboodle V., as leading to the wherewithal or means to make a living, mate, etc.-- getting what you want.

I'm looking at this as having ToM, but with EF issues. Now add in a lack 'in this,' and using my imagination here, seems so daunting. I know what is like to miss ToM, and the consequences of this. I used to miss a bunch when I was young or 'green.' I'd pick it up a little here and a little there, to eventually make this into a mature state; ('it spawning to a later understanding: "oh , now I see how it looks" ) I was behind. I just don't notice a lot of things.

It's tough and rough enough as is.

I think, whether you were lazy or had executive dysfunction, either way it would be a step in the right direction to try to figure out ways to work around it--to set up reminders. If you're lazy, just caring enough to take those steps would mean you weren't being lazy any longer. And if it were executive dysfunction, then you would have started to do the experimenting necessary to find a system that worked for you.

But you have to remember to use the reminders, and to set them up. So, you find out where your bare-minimum executive functioning ability is, and base your support level on that.

The trick is that some things are easier to remember and respond to than others.

For example:
It's hard to remember to do a task at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday.
It's easier if you have a clock on the wall.
It's easier still if you have a clock and a schedule.
If that isn't enough, setting an alarm might help.
You can make the alarm harder to turn off, so that by the time you turn it off you will have had time to think about what the alarm means.
You can add more than one alarm.
You can use an alarm that speaks a message instead of just beeping.
You can train an animal to respond to the alarm and make sure you follow it.
You can live with a person who reminds you, or have someone call you.
You can have the person remind you and walk you through the steps one by one.

The further down that list, the easier it is (for me; YMMV.) So, if you have a problem with executive functioning, the solution is usually some version of "Replace the problematic task with a less-problematic task"--it takes less organization ability to respond to an alarm than it does to remember to check the clock often enough and match it to a schedule in your head.