Executive Dysfunction : locus of control and my experomints

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In this case, it's really not that different, if you remind yourself from time to time by pausing your eyes for a moment at the computer's clock...

That doesn't seem to work for me. I need something that breaks my current activity somehow, makes me move. Looking at the computer clock is too easy. I don't need to get up to do anything. I can glance at it and go 'yep, it's 3 hours past bedtime' and then go back to doing whatever it was.

I'm finding that one of the keys to this technique is structure, and giving definition to tasks. If I make a promise to myself that I will only tidy for 15 minutes, that gives the whole thing a frame in my mind, and somehow that helps me to get on with stuff. I have such a mess in my house and life, that if I set myself a vague task like, I should really tidy up today, that's so potentially big and open ended, I balk at it, and instead end up doing nothing.

Last edited by Moog on 06 Jun 2011, 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't want to turn you down, but this doesn't work for me either. Planning to do short part-tasks can help to overcome the initial difficulties with the starting, but there are more complex tasks that are much easier to do impulsively from start to end. I struggle with both. However, I think it's better to think of it this way you suggested, at least some progress is expectable.

Interesting idea.....personally I haven't noticed much of a problem with my getting inefficient towards the end of a long session. Once I get started on a task, I just want to continue to a natural break. So there's no problem there for me to solve. I don't think I'd like being interrupted by alarms....it's bad enough when I use them to remind me of an important deadline. I just hate being pulled away once I've got my teeth into the rabbit.....

The only thing like it I can think of is when I talk to people - these days I try to apply a limit to how much I say at one time.......a sentence or two is about the maximum. It's surprising how much of the meaning has already been conveyed by then, and I'm hoping that the time limit will force me to get better at being concise. But so much depends on the individual listener, and on how interested they are in the content.

I like the idea of time limits on tidying up.....I usually can't get started on that, and one reason why not is that I fear I'll be tidying forever once I begin.

Putting out fires.


good one.

What you described Moog, characterizes myself pretty well. I always sensed this was the fundamental difference in myself and NT normalcy - this hyperfocus, or narrower bandwith of consciousness, i.e. executive dysfunction.

I find myself tied to whatever I'm inertia'd in, and it's hard when in a change or I'm just slow in changing to move into another direction.
I can sit like Buddha, in a chair on the internet for an inordinate amount of time...... I need to write things down on a log that need to be done. It will leave me if I don't write it down at the moment. I'm very random and thoughts enter in this way and leave. I can miss something very important-- otherwise. In a strange uncanny way, I'm unimpressionable.

Moog, I think I know some of your M.O. a bit, as I catch a glint of Carl Jung in your posts, i.e sychronicity--(Ive read it).. I think you try to counter this "cognition" through a self imposed CBT, e.g. meditation.

This other might work, but if you find your 'niche' to work out of you will have to stick to that "routine."

I'm doubtful anyone would be able to counter this in any significant degree--you won't alter your neurology fundamentally--anything short of plugging a chip set into the side of your head to ADD in working memory, bro.

I don't know if you are Aspergers or not, and I see you're hunting for the answer. One thing I'm sure of is it as least adult ADD. By default there is nothing out there to do this, other than right side brain injury, or an ASD.

One thing I've managed to stumble on, rather serendipitously in the past, is countering SCT ( sluggish cognitive tempo) with substances. When you have ADD and SCT combined this makes a gawd aweful combo. I used to bipolar in and out of SCT , and I had found a remedy for "SCT."
I have not had a bout of SCT in years.....Oddly, I've read of anecdotes to where people have grown out of SCT, merely by chronological time, (i.e. 'neurologically developed' or outgrew it later).

Myself, If I don't do Nootropics, I'll slip into SCT. I've experimented with this to wean myself from being tied to pills. A safe bet: at my age it is here to stay.

Hi Mdyar, thanks for very much for your interesting post.

Oh yes. I am very glad that I keep the amount of fires I have to think about low.


That's interesting, like you see this problem as a limited scope for keeping many things in consciousness, at least on some level?



I am very influenced by Mr. Jung and his ideas. (In fact, I want to talk about your avatar, but this probably isn't the conversation for it)



I beg your pardon, but these parts of your post didn't make a lot of sense to me, could you perhaps expand on what you mean?



Hmm, we'll see



Me neither. And to be honest, it doesn't really matter what I have, just that I understand and do what I can. I do have a lot in common with people on the spectrum.

I'm thinking more about seeing a doctor though.



Could you perhaps talk about SCT a little bit more? I am aware of the term, but have not explored what it is or how the term is being used in a very thorough way. What does SCT feel like to you, and how do you think it differs from ADD or Executive Dysfunction?



What sort of Noos do you use? I've been experimenting with a melatonin supplement to help get good sleep. I don't really want to resort to drugs (even herbals) if I don't have to. But I guess I have to recognise and deal with being a symbiotic organism.

Do you take any prescription drugs at all, if you don't mind talking about it?

Hello Moog. I'm glad it can be of some use .

SCT is sloooooow thinking : In my experience , you are unable to keep up with a conversation because you get railroaded so to speak; the incoming is greater than your processing speed. Imagine that you are drugged is the best analogy. (I thought I had hypothroidism at one time, but endrocrines checked O.K.)
The executive d. part is standing there in front of someone and missing any implied meaning, and it later dawns on you of what happened. Sometimes weeks.


You've probably seen this, but SCT is in: http://www.devcogneuro.com/Publications/ADD.pdf ( This was posted here @ WP by Aimless.)


Funny thing is that, so far I'm unable to find out why I vacillated or drifted between SCT and semi-functionality.....(Either you have SCT or you don't.)

When I say "semi" I mean better but not complete....I've yet to find someone whose walking around on earth saying, "I took Adderall and I'm cured."

On to Nootropics.

I use natural as : lecithin and Acetyl L Carnitne. I started in the 90's on this, before I knew anything about ASD, ADHD. I didn't have online resources , and the library was my only shot. Medical profession proved to be an epic fail.

It was 'pure accident', like John Cade, who in 1948 injected guinea pigs with bipolar patients' urine and anti- doting with lithium.
(He found "lithium," but the U.S. didnt allow this in until 1971.)

I've recently found a few posts of exact find( lecithin & ALC) in a ADD forum. I also added in lithium orotate because of mood swings and it helped out in the cognition department. Recently, Ive found this out too, that lithium helps out in some cases of ADHD.
Funny thing is that when I reached a baseline of improvement, lithium was longer needed. You can buy lithium without a script in US.

It took years to ameliorate or lift this horrible in an out malaise of mired thought and mood. There are different degrees of this as in autism.
I still have good and bad days, but without this^

Someone with an ADHD Dx, told me by observation," you got it pretty bad." This was a bad day of only about 2 years ago or so.

Yes. keeping track of new things in a dynamic.




The "other" is your experomint.

The former: I believe that physchotherapy works because the insight gained causes a structural change, but modern drugs have proven to be the panacea. In the 80's when the first SSRI came to be (Prozac, btw), talk therapy worked, but at a glacial pace.... proof in CBT efficacy.

.

It will bring closure for one.

Avoidant personality disorder?

I rush off to hide myself with work when people I am not very close to visit me unexpected.. Its rather better than staring at faces blankly not knowing what to talk :p

When I was at home my mum did all the pushing now I have to do it myself which I just don't seem good at sigh! partly maybe because I half expect someone to tell me what to do.. I can do things when the deadlines are coming close but never organize myself better... I guess I should try to be more organized! I hate it when I forget to do something absolutely necessary and then the tension from not doing it starts wearing me out...

I am avoidant to an extent, but this is more like... dealing with people isn't stimulating enough, and I feel I might as well do something useful while I'm forced to do it. I feel like I can't do anything truly useful when people are around and expecting some cursory social interaction, so I might as well combine the task with something else. Sometimes I play guitar while I'm talking to people, if there's one around. I can get this really antsy feeling when I am just talking to someone. I don't fully understand it, I am not 100% conscious of what it is. I need to mindfully investigate these things.

I am able to give 100% attention to interesting social interaction, but like everything else, I drift away very easily if it's not doing anything for me.



Yes, I have a lot of experiences like that. I never really had anyone pushing me to do things, I believe both my parents are like me in this regard, and would never remember to make me do my homework, do chores etc. They'd get really mad when I didn't do stuff after the fact, but none of us ever had the ability to 'get in front of it'. Like Mdyar said; fire fighting.

In that case, I only rarely suffer from SCT nowadays.



Yes, I have read some of that before, I remember it coming up before. Thanks for reposting.




Obviously not. Supplement or drug use isn't designed to create structural changes; whatever mechanism that is supposed to create whatever is lacking in brain and body doesn't get repaired or switched on by supplementation.

But that makes me wonder if drug therapy could be used to target the healing of natural mechanisms... there's a lot I don't know a lot about



I fiddled with some amino supplements before... I think L-Phenylaline, and something else, if i recall, I didn't feel they were helping much, but I was making a lot of changes at the time... wasn't a very 'scientifically sound' experiment. Might look into it more.

I have tried 5HTP recently, but only one night... mainly because of it's reputation to aid sleep. I need to experiment further to find out if it has any effect.

I don't think I'll be getting into lithium use anytime soon, don't think they sell it in the health food store



I have limited experience here, CBT seems more like a mental 'technology', a methodology for problem solving. I am in a therapy group at the moment which I guess falls into the category of 'talk', and it is slow, but being the way I am, I am often thinking of ways to expedite the process... anyway, that's a big subject; not really for here and now.



Gone off the idea again I don't really want closure... that suggests something final. I want continuous improvement in how I operate myself and in navigating the challenges in my life

At the moment, I've been experimenting with sleep... I've been using a herbal supplement which seems to be giving me much better quality of sleep, which seems to have a huge knock on effect on my daytime functionality, especially ADD symptoms.

I might give synthetic melatonin a whack if I can get hold of some here... they don't sell it in the shops.

Oh yeah, I was coming here to post this quote, I found it interesting.

And my experiment was quite short lived, though some useful and permanent habits (hopefully) have come out of it.

I'm finding that if I set short periods aside for 'organizing, cleaning, hygiene, boring stuff etc.' I get more done in a timely way, and imposing a limit (with the alarm) seems to help me get into it and actually do it... I just think, 'it's only for ten minutes', and that keeps me from lapsing into other behaviours for the duration.

is "experomint" from the title some kind of (false but related) cognate to "experiment"? Or a pun on the combination of expiring + mint, as in breathing out mints (menthol bombons)?

Yes, I think so. It is a misspelling of experoment

It's just a ploy to get people looking at my thread. I know how advertising works.



Nothing to do with mints, afaik.

Sneaky! You just seemed too well worded to unintentionally miss-spell exparemunt. I might use that tactic in case I ever want some additional attention from grammar/spelling nazi police in any of my (possible) threads.

M.
Sleep, sleep and sleep. So very important.

I have some type of additional developmental disorder with this.

One is Sleep Paralysis:
*Extreme examples: I had one bout to where I laid there for hours, watching the sun set indirectly, noting the shadow changes through the window. ( I must have napped.)
- I had another to when the paralysis did finally break, I got up, but had no physical or tactile sensations - I couldn't tell the water temperature of the hot water coming out of the tap (as a test), of even whether it was hot or cold - (when I walked ,somehow, I was floating on my feet.)

The other: I was a sleep walker and sleep talker. I'd carry on a conversation supposedly while sleeping.


Stating the obvious, my circadian rhythms are naturally out of the norm: I would reach peak alertness at bedtime - I determined this asynchrony by doing a PH test, plotting urine chemistry throughout the day for weeks, noting food intake and other habits. I was catabolic at night and anabolic during the day. This was exactly 180* out of phase. I'd be drowsy at the start of the day and bright eyed and bushy tailed at night. Driving home from work, my head would drop down, and to stave this off, I'd slap myself.

This did finally catch up with me to cause a burnout.

Near panacea:
I've found that using phosphatidylcholine ( lecithin) allows me to sleep thoroughly, and enough to repair the days run. I take it one hour before bed.
This works so well that it helps with my wife's sleep.
(My wife, and some family have ADHD, one takes Ritalin.)

-Melatonin, whether sub lingual or oral, never worked enough in my experience. And the oral would induce motion sickness. Sub lingual, strangely, wouldn't dizzifie me. Same exact effect on my wife.
-and 5-HTP nil.

Mr. Moog: try lecithin.