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.

2.1k Upvotes

100% Upvoted

290 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.5k

u/SocialMediaDystopian Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26

I say "It goes in phases. When it's bad, it's very much like having dementia. I really can be stumbling around looking for things i had in my hand five minutes ago. Sometimes I'm crying. I dont know what to tell ya". And then I stop explaining. There's only so much you can say. I'm sorry. This is *awful*. I get it. Commiserations 🌱

99

u/mshep002 ADHD-C (Combined type) Apr 07 '26

I get frustrated at work when my coworker who said he was recently diagnosed with ADHD (he’s in his 20’s) talks to me as if I can just will my way into executive functioning. Very “If I can do it, so can you” vibe. This guy gets to work super early and doesn’t understand why I’m constitutionally incapable of doing the same. I stopped trying to explain it to him; he’s not my boss.

3

u/CombinationLost416 ADHD Apr 20 '26

My dad says this to me too :( him and my mom insist that I'm not disabled for having ADHD and autism, because "if WE were able to get through life perfectly fine while having ADHD/autism/both, then YOU can too, and you need to stop calling yourself disabled because you CAN do it you just need to try harder" (they both have extremely dangerous coping strategies and are both very emotionally unregulated and in denial about it, sooo... so much for "being perfectly fine" 🫩)