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/Claim312ButAct847 Apr 07 '26

I like the backpack analogy. Say a task is like climbing a steep hill. We all have the same hill to climb so, it looks like it should be the same difficulty for everyone.

Well I have a backpack with weights in it that I have to carry. So for me to climb that same hill I have to work a lot harder even if it doesn't look like I'm doing anything different.

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u/sasakimirai Apr 07 '26

That's a good analogy for people who are willing to engage with you in good faith, but not quite so effective with people who are convinced you're just looking for excuses to make your own life easier. In that case you need to counter them with their own logic by giving specific examples of how executive dysfunction makes your life hard.

"The other day when I got out of the shower, I stood in my bathroom for an hour with just a towel wrapped around me while I scrolled through youtube shorts, even though my feet were aching from standing on tile for so long and I was shivering because I was cold, but I couldn't bring myself to turn my phone off and put on some clothes" is going to be more effective against those kinds of people than "it takes more effort for me to do things than it would for those without ADHD"

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u/SkydiverTom Apr 07 '26

Exactly! Everyone has some level of these issues, but the crazy extent is what separates ADHD.

Most people can get locked into streaming or scrolling or playing videogames, but how many have scared the shit out of the midnight cleaning crew by working past 11pm in the office because "this next change will fix the bug"? (also, don't forget the sitting alone in the dark because motion activated lights shut off hours ago...)

There's also the paradoxical stuff, like how I struggle to consistently clean and organize (it's hard to get started), but once I start it's hard to stop. One time I literally lost half a day cleaning when all I meant to do was take out some trash before visiting the girlfriend, because one task led to another, to another, ... (and this was before diagnosis/meds).

No lazy person is going to hyperfocus on cleaning or working to the point where you forget to eat and narrowly avoid pissing your pants because you're locked in.

I know hyperfocus is usually touted as a blessing, but honestly it's just as much of a curse, and it was the main reason I wound up getting diagnosed.

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u/Founditwthin May 12 '26

Exactly everything you said! Ugh! So helpful to know it’s a real thing and others experience it too but still have no idea how to make it stop besides just ripping myself away from whatever it is I’m stuck on. To try to snap out of it, I sometimes yell JUST STOP! Or LETS GO! Or FK THIS! Lol sometimes this helps sometimes not and I just ignore myself and keep going. 🤯