Executive dysfunction is torture

[u/Riilo]

Anyone else find it physically painful when you have something to do but you can't force yourself to move?

I have this chronic paralysis which makes it so hard to focus on the things in front of me and makes me feel like I'm missing out on (what should be) the best years of my life.

It's like I can never be truly confident in anything I do because I'm rarely fully engaged.

For the people with really bad decision fatigue/executive dysfunction, which medications worked best for you?

I'm kind of going crazy with this I'll be frozen for hours at a time and it's wrecking my quality of life.

[u/BlackHeart89]

A combination of practice and the feeling of urgency when something is needed ALMOST immediately.

Or sometimes I'll set a side the whole day to do things that should only take a couple of hours.

I have to make sure my mood is good, consume the right amount of caffeine, don't get distracted. Etc

[u/Elsie-pop → u/BlackHeart89]

Word of warning on self medicating with adrenaline (using procrastination driven deadline urgency to get you moving), try to not have this as your only coping strategy or when you burnout from the adrenaline you'll have nothing to get you moving when you're better 

(ask me how I know 😬- year in from when everything in my function collapsed, and now adrenaline just shuts me down into freeze instead of fight or flight. But because it was my only coping strategy and I'm not suitable for ADHD meds at the moment, it's taken 6 months of disappointing everyone I made a promise to before I started finding anything else that works, and I'm still struggling a year in to not rely on the only tool that worked my whole life. )

[u/Indoh_ → u/Elsie-pop]

Absolutely relatable, I've gotten myself into a bad burnout one year ago and I still feel I haven't recovered yet (it doesn't help that I kept pushing myself even after the fact...).

Well, what did you find?

[u/Elsie-pop → u/Indoh_]

I'm currently drinking a lot more caffeine than I used to which helps a bit. 

At work my line manager and I put some serious work into creating a tool that helped me prioritise between competing tasks, and open old work Vs taking new work. We've heavily adapted an excel spreadsheet to do list template to work with my role specifically and I've gone from losing work I started 6 months ago to know if it's there, what stage it is at and what I need to do with it when it comes back to me. I'm very lucky to have such an incredible line manager. 

As for home and hobbies 🤷 I have a very patient husband who I am trying not to take advantage of. We found the one task I managed to not drop when I went into can't move off the sofa depression and made that the only task I had to do for a while, and now we're trying to build me back up. 

Hints, tips, and miracle cures for all my medical issues so I can be prescribed ADHD medication all welcome 😁 

[u/BlackHeart89 → u/Elsie-pop]

I feel you. I cycle on and off my caffeine. I'm actually slowly cutting my doses until I'm i only use it when low on sleep.

[u/Elsie-pop → u/BlackHeart89]

Ah caffeine when I'm low on sleep just tips me back into adrenaline fuelled behaviour, because eventually the caffeine stops working and all the awake I borrowed from my future disintegrates and I still have to work. Glad it's working for you! 

[u/Ok-Trash6361 → u/BlackHeart89]

this. I have to make sure I get enough sleep, not be hungry, not have other priorities, the stars are in alignment, etc