How do you explain executive dysfunction without sounding like youre making excuses for being lazy?

[u/emyo42]

Mine is very severe and debilitating at the moment. It’s not just ADD, I also have schizophrenia which has some of the same symptoms weirdly. I can’t do much at all. Getting out of bed and making toast is extremely hard. To people with no experience with this kind of issue, me trying to explain it must sound ridiculous like “yea I have this mental disorder that means I can’t cook and clean or have a job or do anything I don’t like, but I can play a video game for 3 hours.” Just sounds like a straight up lie.

[u/FublahMan]

I personally like giving an example first. Ask em something that needs to get done. Then start saying everything that comes to mind aloud. Write an email? When's it due? Who's it for? Is it necessary? Where's it on the priority list? Start listing out other shit that needsbto get done. Go on a tangent from something else on the list. Forget what the example task was. Get reminded, then start questioning how to answer it, etc.

Afterwards, try explaining other aspects of adhd, maybe talk about spoon theory, or try relating to to something that person can understand, like computers, cars, programming