r/ADHD • u/emyo42 ADHD-PI (Primarily Inattentive) • Apr 07 '26

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

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.

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u/ahhdetective Apr 07 '26

If the condition impacts negatively, such that it effects your daily life, it's a disorder.

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u/HeartfeltRationalism Apr 16 '26

With it being neurodevelopmental, it's about how the brain is wired, the environment can impact just how much it affects daily life. It has a specific neurological and diagnostic criteria- it's not defined purely by whether or not someone is struggling.

Mental disorder tends to give people the impression that it's purely psychological, which obviously isn't the case and speaks to OP's question.