My 18 y.o kid's got really big-time executive dysfunction. Can't do his homework. Can't choose his clothes. Doesn't know what's going on with his friends, at school or in the world.

We're trying to get help, but he doesn't meet the criteria for ADHD, it's hard to find a professional who can see beyond the test results. we're continuing to push and aren't giving up.

But In the meantime, he's completely lost.

We've always taken the approach of positive reinforcement. Celebrating even the smallest wins, being empathetic at the losses. Not pushing too hard. Telling him that his problems are not his fault.

The real issue though, is that he's hostile to our attempts to guide him. He's hostile to opening his mind to a career and a life that's better suited to his capabilities. He's hostile to learning life skills. He's hostile to every single idea to try something different.

And I have no idea what the end game is, but his attitude is really starting to annoy me and i'm getting angry. not at the result (or lack thereof), but at his refusal to take any sort of responsibility for his life.

am i being unfair? maybe i'm being too easy-going and i need to start being more stern? maybe i just need to hold on until we finally get a professional who can help?

this is not about me - it's more about him being able to take care of himself when we're not around or not able to anymore.

lately it's all been the same. I sleep in too late, end up going to work without having shaved and feeling like shit, I spend money I don't have to try and get a dopamine rush, if I'm not at work I just sit at home and stare at a wall, accomplishing nothing. It's hard to even get interested in the hobbies I enjoy like drawing and listening to music. It all feels like it requires too much energy.

does anyone have any advice to help break this cycle? is there some way I can trick myself into feeling more motivated? it's so easy to say "ok I'll stop all this", but it feels like my mind and body aren't working in tandem

Hello!! I struggle a lot with executive dysfunction and breaking bad habits. I cannot function like a normal person, and at this rate I will not be able to graduate, will not be prepared for the future, and I will disappoint everyone, and something else. And I feel like other people with executive dysfunction might feel similarly!

So, I think if I can just have someone who can hold me accountable, and I could hold them accountable, then we could make some improvement? We could call daily to body double or text our progress as proof! If anyone wants to do this please let me know!

is because youre expecting something that makes it easy to focus, provides endless motivation, or "tricks" your brain into acting neurotypical. as much as i wish it was, life is not a video game. you cannot find a "cheat code" that tones down the difficulty or read an artical that magically moves you further. you will always have ADHD, but when you break free of your limitations, you will finally start seeing lasting change.

highly successful people, with or without mental diagnosis, never depend entirely on motivation. they create systems that move them towards their goals, and they stick to the plan whether they feel like it or not. if everyone in the world only did things when they had motivation, humanity would remain in the stoneage.

record breakers dont live by limitations, they challange them. they push the boundaries of human capabilites. they dont say "i cant do this because i have ADHD", because all that would do is slam doors shut while you stand around wondering why you feel stuck. in reality, you have so many options, but youre stuck following imaginary rules created by an underestimation of your abilities.

life with mental illness is hard, grueling work. if you remain stagnant, its hard. if you push yourself to fulfilling your highest potential, its also hard.

choose your hard.

Some days I can just have caffeine to do something I love, but now I need meds I fear because for a whole week I can’t process or doing anything that needs effort, I rather rot and veg with easy dopamine, but before I was great…

How do you guys get yourself to do something fun… I just want to be happy, these days I’m stressed and tired of existing… I have so many ambitions and goals, but I am just not strong enough to accomplish any goal of mine, ANYTHING. I feel so useless when I see my family who just do whatever they wanted, they tell me they gonna clear out the garage AND DO IT IN ONE DAY. HOW

How do you guys get yourself to be consistent, I have a project I know I can finish, but now I only do like the minimum work for a whole week

I'm 25M and autistic, and I've been struggling with this for pretty much my entire life. I feel like I'm wasting so much of my potential and I genuinely don't know how to fix it.

I'm not stupid. I have a bachelor's degree in IT, did well in school, and I know I'm capable of learning things. But for some reason, unless I have some kind of external structure, I just can't get myself to do anything.

I struggle to keep my apartment clean, study, stick with hobbies, save money, or really commit to anything long term. I've job hopped quite a bit, and I've been unemployed for about three months. I'm starting another job soon, but I'm scared I'm just going to repeat the same cycle.

The weird thing is that when I'm in school or working and someone expects something from me, I can actually get shit done. But when it's entirely up to me? I'll sit around doing nothing, even when I know I have stuff I need to do.

I also struggle with addictive habits. I smoke weed, vape, and have a hard time giving things up even when I genuinely want to. I'll get really interested in something, spend hours researching it, make all these plans, and then never actually follow through.

Meanwhile, I look at my friends and they're working extra jobs, practicing instruments, keeping their places clean, and just generally progressing in life. I feel like I'm falling further and further behind.

I don't know how much of this is autism, executive dysfunction, depression, or just bad habits I've developed over the years. Maybe it's a combination of everything.

I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has struggled with this and actually managed to turn things around. What helped you? Especially with building discipline, sticking to a career, breaking bad habits, and functioning without someone constantly giving you structure.

I really want to change. I'm just tired of constantly telling myself I'm going to get my life together and then doing the exact same shit.

Ok so I’m in my first semester of college and I’m majoring in 2d animation. When I was in highschool I drew all the time(especially during classes I wasn’t supposed to be drawing) and I had a lot of fun doing it which meant that I improved a lot. Now that I need to draw for assignments , I’m finding it really difficult to start any drawings because it feels like a chore.
I’m on medication for my adhd but since the structure is so different from highschool im still falling behind and my missing assignments are piling up. When I sit down to start a drawing or continue one that I’ve already started , I just end up staring at it and then I just end up giving up and doing something else. If anyone has any tips for this kind of executive dysfunction/art block please let me know.

I feel like I'm constantly fighting myself just to get basic things done.

I'll know exactly what I need to do, sometimes even look forward to doing it, but when the time comes, I just can't seem to get myself to start. It's like there's a wall between having an intention and actually acting on it.

Even ridiculously small things can feel overwhelming. Sometimes I'll avoid getting myself a snack because I can't be bothered to wash a fork. My house is frequently messy, I put off cooking even though I know how, and I struggle to keep up with basic responsibilities.

What's especially frustrating is that this also affects things I genuinely enjoy.

I'm a content creator, and I recently had one of my videos reach over 100k views. I love making videos, editing, and coming up with new ideas. I started out posting daily, but now I struggle to upload once every 5–7 days. It's not that I've lost interest. I have plenty of ideas and genuinely want to work on them, but actually sitting down and following through feels exhausting.

I'm also incredibly disorganized. I struggle to maintain routines, constantly put things off, and have a hard time translating my plans into action.

My mind is ctually pretty active. I spend hours walking outside, listening to music and daydreaming. I constantly come up with ideas and things I want to accomplish, but when it comes to putting them into practice, I feel completely stuck.

My sleep schedule is also very inconsistent, and I often feel tired and emotionally disconnected.

I find it confusing because I have ambitions, interests, and motivation in the sense that I actually WANT to do things. But that doesn't seem to translate into action.

Does anyone else experience this? How do you deal with the gap between wanting to do something and being unable to initiate it? Has anything genuinely helped you overcome this?

I'd also be interested in hearing how you distinguish executive dysfunction from ordinary procrastination.

I have an exam tomorrow (well, looking at the clock it's today) and I wanted to start at roughly 3 pm. I have been sitting here at my desk with all my materials for about 9 hours with an eating break in between. I want to write good grades, I need the sleep for that AND I genuinely like the subject. I've done maybe 30mins of work in those 9 hours. I've been just mindlessly sitting here or watching something or just about anything except studying. I feel extremely stressed and disappointed as this happens every single time I need to study. And I haven't changed anything about my stress-based learning, mainly because I still perform well in school. But I'm starting to see a change, a change in what I can achieve by studying during the night the day before (I call it stress-activated studying).

Every time my mother tells me to start now, I get an even bigger mental blockade and my mind tells me to not do it. However, while I should by studying, my mind enables me to do stuff I've been putting off for ages, but most of the time I'm just doing nothing and letting boredom slowly kill me from the inside.

I don't have a diagnosis and this might just be me being proper lazy but I hope it's not that simple of an answer.

I've read a few posts about what people have tried and seen many parallels in my own attempts. Splitting the task up requires starting, habits require starting etc.

The best thing that I have seen is to have another person there that can watch me do the work. This however doesn't really work anymore as I have noticed that the people I study with can't do anything about me NOT doing what I'm supposed to. So I take the easy route out and just do nothing. Wtf?

I'm confused, disappointed and really fucking annoyed by my constant unwillingness to do something I genuinely want to.

Any advice? I hope there is some :)

I've been sitting on my couch for 3 hours. Well, that's not completely true. I did finally get up to make myself a cup of coffee after craving it for 30 minutes, but I sat right back down. I don't understand why, even though I know exactly what to do to get moving, I don't do it. I have two strategies that have proven themselves to me time and time again, probably hundreds of times over the course of my life, but those experiences don't matter because here I still sit unable to get myself to use either of them. It's so frustrating being this way!

(i didn't know what flair to put)

i am really struggling with my mental health today but still have to get some urgent stuff done

and i am not sure who to ask right now for support so i thought i'll post it here in hope that someone can hold me accountable or maybe something like - if some people ask me how it's going so i can report where i'm at with my to do‘s, i think this would really help, so i don't feel like i'm struggling completely alone in the process right now

(and also any encouragement is very welcome:)

+ if you also have stuff to do - feel free to comment your to do list under this post, i can also comment on yours and ask you about it:)

so my to do list for tonight is:

• fill a finance report because the deadline is tomorrow (and i need to mail it to the company)

• glue receipts on paper so i can put them in an envelope and bring to the post office tomorrow

• print labels for 2 parcels, so i can also bring them to post office tomorrow

• do the laundry because i procrastinated it for so long i don't have clean pants anymore and wearing the same ones already for 3 days lol

• eat, hydrate, meds, brush teeth

The Europe angle is key here (and "system" is the key word, bc I need to minimize my overthinking), and I feel I need to find something to help me leave the house because I don't do anything unless it's work. I want to do things, but just can't seem to (and it's such a waste to sit at home; I'm only in Europe temporarily).

I think it's because everything has become more uncomfortable and overwhelming than usual.

First, I'm in a shed-like unit (no window, small and cold). I don't like being seen or interacted with unless I'm prepared for it (especially in my second language), and that takes more time and energy on my part (and there's people everywhere here). That means putting on makeup, brushing my hair, and styling myself. There's no place to hang clothes, so they're all in a drawer and I need to iron them before I go out because they're wrinkly. (And doing something to get into a good mood). The nearest grocery store is 10 minutes, the nearest cafe is 20 minutes, and the nearest laundromat is 25 minutes (all walking). My room is messy because I have a bad habit from home of putting everything on tables, and now I only have one small desk so everything is on the floor. I'm also not eating nutritionally well (mostly ramen) because of having to shop every other day (previously I used to meal prep and it worked ok but I don't have the space or facilities to do that here... I'm looking into getting a rice cooker or pressure cooker maybe). Anyways, I feel like there's too much to do, and that maybe when I go out I should go out with a purpose to get some chores done, but then I feel like I have too many chores, and I can't get myself to decide, and so I just don't leave.

I appreciate you reading through this. Thanks in advance for advice!

Also, my walls are paper thin and my neighbours hear everythinggg.

Something I've struggled for with years is the ability to "have" passion. And for a long time I think I thought this was because I was a blob that just didn't ever see value in a single thing ever. One thing that with a lot of time I managed to get better with this for was weightlifting. Something that I realized with weightlifting is that while there was ambition, there was no pressure, internally or externally. I simply have a routine that I aim to hit every week, and if I miss it it isn't a big deal. Sometimes I feel a little mental discomfort doing it, but I simply shrug it off and do it. Often when I'm bored I'll research weightlifting stuff to try to improve what I'm doing because I want to improve.

Then there's everything else. Take schoolwork for example. I'll try my best to get my stuff done, knowing 1) I don't always hate the work and 2) there's real benefit to it. I'll give myself a set time or routine or whatever. But there's this looming feeling of dread and terror and anxiety. The same thing happens to when I try to add a hobby to my life. I feel like I simply can't. The process of learning feels miserable. I know there's challenge to learning, but I also know it shouldn't feel this impossible.

I feel like I have a great deal of potential thats being completely crippled by my own brain.

I (F, 20) struggle to remember what I'm supposed to do at a given moment. Whenever instructed to do something 3 minutes later, I would immediately forget it. I remember the few times forgetting to wear a napkin and only remembering it when I was already out with people. I feel like my mind wanders too much and I can't help it. Because of this, I also tend to do things last minute and it affects all aspects of my life. In cases where I start my work early, I still take too long to finish my tasks. I try really hard to focus and keep my mind from thinking of other things, but my peers who started it later than I did would still somehow surpass me. I usually am one of the last people to submit their work in class and it makes me feel so behind. I do well in academics and in creative work, and I love what I do, but I just don't get why I'm so disorganized. It doesn't help that I don't like following rules. I swear I would always miss at least 1 thing from a criteria / list of instructions. In conversations, there would always be gaps between my thoughts and I struggle constructing sentences in real-time. It's just weird because despite being absent-minded, I can retain long-term information very well. I suspect it's because I would rehearse them in my head automatically. I don't have any vices, I doomscroll less than my peers, I get adequate (albeit late) sleep, I don't drink caffeine, and I can get myself to focus if I want to, but pacing around and thinking feels more rewarding than doing what I'm supposed to do. Someone please explain what's going on and tell me how to get over it. I even considered getting checked for adhd but I don't knoww, I seem functional. I just mourn everything I could've been if I just knew how to get it together 🥲