ADHD - executive function impairment

What does ADHD executive function impairment feel like?

If you have ever been getting less than optimal amount of sleep for a while, and then tried to wake up early for something you really didn't want to do, you might know. When the alarm goes off, you find yourself slowly getting ready, washing up, making breakfast.. until at the next safety alarm time you set last night you realize you hadn't even sat up and are in fact still sleeping comfortably. More troubling options include statements like "I cannot wake up until I've found that engineer" or "I must decide what to wear, let me go through my closet.. in my mind.. while I'm still asleep", or "I can't get up until that essay is finished."

This is a perfect metaphor for what it feels like to act irresponsibly with ADHD. It's not that you don't know better, or that you would really be a terrible person by nature. Your brain cherry-picks details from the real circumstances, just enough to fool you. With that data it creates a new, warped image of what the situation is, and therefore you will see many of us be like "five minutes is definitely too much time to get myself out the door, I can chill a little" and then end up running late. Again. And again. And again. Exactly like the sleep example above, you do see that you need to "wake up" but your brain has tricked you into seeing some unreal task as more important. You do notice that there is not enough time to have another coffee, but at the moment it somehow becomes extremely necessary that you do, and right now, and suddenly you cannot fight that compulsion. 

This false urgency and priority creates a perceived circumstance where desires outshine any responsible actions in their importance, and it can manifest in many different ways. Distracted by checking a thousand times if you put your keys, wallet and the same red lipstick, that you put on in the morning, in your bag and then missing the train. Oversleeping, as mentioned above. Believing 5 minutes is enough for breakfast when experience shows you usually take around 15. Having tunnel vision about doing something you just really want, like going out on a Tuesday night when you know that you are never functional the next day (and maybe you have an important meeting at 9), but your brain is convinced that this time you will be perfect, and, anyway, your job is not that important, is it.. And at times you even feel rather like a spectator of your own mistaken assumptions, seeing them but having no control over your actions - later feeling like you should've known better, or rather, that you knew but somehow intentionally sabotaged yourself, again.

Since for ADHDers prioritizing according to reality is not our best skill anyway, and the dreams our brains paint seem so much more rewarding and comfortable, in many situations we do indeed act impulsively, irrationally or plainly dumb. It may not be our fault we were built this way, but learning to recognize such patterns may improve the situation by a lot. 

If you are a fellow ADHDer, do not beat yourself up about this, forgive but don't forget, instead - start noticing where these patterns appear, start setting up routines to minimize the chances of these things happening. But when they do (and they will happen sometimes, it's ok), remember to breathe and let yourself live without your own voice scolding you in your head. It's stressful enough anyway.

If you don't have these problems, please, remember to check in with us if you think we're stuck in one of the alternate realities while majorly f***ing up our actual lives. It is going to help us both.

Have a good one,
- K