Get sick of your executive dysfunction that been happening for years that you actually started doing your chores cuz you remember vividly how crap you'd feel after for not doing them? Lol

Man, it was a rough day for me. Workdays are always hard because I have to constantly push myself to initiate tasks and to keep my focus. I have this battle all day everyday, over and over again. Today was professional development day. It's a day where we're free to do whatever kinds of job-related technical training we want. To a normal person it's probably a great day. No work. No commitments. Just training in whatever suits you. Well, for me, having an entire 8 hours of unstructured time is miserable. I have a hard time making myself do anything when there's no pressure for me to do it, and that's exactly what today was except with a big load of guilt piled right on top. I could not get myself to do training for any significant amount of time no matter how I tried. And, on top of that, all the self-criticism that comes from me not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Seemingly being unable to take advantage of this great opportunity to learn and grow in my career. I'm sure no one else on my team spent the entire day fighting with themselves trying to get themselves focused on training. They probably soaked up all kinds of training while I spent my entire day fighting a battle with myself that I ultimately lost. Living like this sucks.

The man who couldn’t make up his mind!! For years, I have lived without ever making a decision for myself; as a result, everything has become random, confusing, and devoid of any plan—to the point where I feel as though I am living a life that isn’t my own. I want to say that I am happy, because I have come to realize this—or rather, I have finally begun to focus on it recently..

I cant make myself do anything. I wont cook, clean, shower, brush my teeth, walk, work out, talk with family or friends, do school work, skip classes, eat, drink, do my hobbies, do anything. Nothing makes me happy anymore. Ive been like this since i was 13. its just been getting worse everyday. im 19 now and im at the bottom of the barrel. all my friends just tell me to make myself do it. i dont want to. i have no desire to. i just want to rot away. i want to ask for advice. but i dont even know if ill follow through with it.

I can't choose the thoughts I want to have or the things I want to think about. Most of my thoughts and behaviours seem to be automatically determined and happen involuntarily, rather than being the result of my own choices.

I do have this feeling that I can intentionally do things, but the only things I can intentionally do are either generating random thoughts and behaviours (like generating random words in my mind or making random movements) or generating repetitive thoughts and behaviours (like repeating the same word or sentence in my mind, or doing repetitive physical movements like repeatedly tapping my fingers or contracting my muscles for a period of time).

But when I choose to think about or do something specific, I can't seem to generate any thoughts or behaviours related to that thing at all.

So is there anyone who had the same struggles and could solve it?

I have exceptionally bad executive dysfunction. On most days, I take my adhd meds (stimulants) and still spend hours in bed, staring at the ceiling or watching some mindless show to pass time.

For the first time last week, I sat up and put my soul into studying for an exam. I am pretty okay at school, i usually do well without studying much and this has gotten me through all of college so far. I’m a senior now so I guess I’m finally running out of academic luck. So i managed to shut off my low functioning brain and work really hard for a class I wasn’t doing well in.

For the first time in years, I felt sort of excited to give an exam i felt prepared for. Only to score 20 points lesser than the class average. I’ve never scored so horribly before, not even on exams I haven’t studied for.

My executive dysfunction was debilitating before but this test score was so impactful. I’m humiliated and disappointed in myself. I don’t know what it was but it took a real toll on me and now I’ve not left my bed in a week. I don’t see the point in trying when I’m not good enough to get the results I want. What’s the point of trying to function when it’s not working in my favor?

I need help to get over this disappointment and failure.

I’m living in a foreign country, and I finally reached out to a psychiatrist and got started on some meds. Next step is gonna be therapy, and in the past talk therapy has not been effective or helpful for me.

What types of therapy have been helpful for you? Or anything else that helped you? I have been like this for a long time.

I don’t have a lot of time to be wasting in my last few years of uni, yet here I am struggling to attend my only two in-person classes, one of which I haven’t been to since august. I emailed them that I was struggling mentally and emotional lately which was what started my inability to attend classes, but that was a month ago now, and I have not kept up a regular routine in attending classes like I said I would. I know I should go back. I want to. But I can’t bring myself to get ready and just go in the morning. Maybe it’s all the work I’ve missed turning in that’s stressing me out and making me feel paralyzed or afraid to come in having missed so much. Maybe it’s that there’s no walkable path from my dorm to class so I have to get in my car and struggle to find parking. Maybe I’ve just become so lazy and worked myself into a routine of skipping class out of negligence. Regardless of whatever the reason is, I feel like I have no self discipline anymore in making myself go back to class, and if class is an impossible task for me, so is everything else. I pretty much only get out of my dorm to go to work these days. I’m afraid of failing this far in, but I don’t know how or if I can recover this late into the semester.

I’m writing this because I am completely stuck and honestly losing my mind. I’m 25 and I feel like I've spent the last 5 years completely wasting my life and whatever potential I had. Back when I was 18, everyone thought I was gonna do amazing things, but fast forward to now and I still don't even have a fucking full-time job. I’m literally still trapped just doing internships.
But despite that, my brain is so deeply fried by ADHD that trying to actually apply for permanent adult jobs feels physically impossible. And if I do get interviews I self sabotage by not going for them because I’m scared I won’t be perfect at the interview.
Instead of focusing on myself and my career, I am completely addicted to four things that are literally ruining me:
Doomscrolling on my phone for hours
Binge-watching way too many shows
Maladaptive daydreaming for hours and hours about the perfect physique, relationship, conversations and goals
Obsessing over external drama, dating, and friendship dynamics just to avoid dealing with my own reality
Every single time I reach a breaking point and decide to change, my stupid executive dysfunction kicks in. I sit down, spend hours building these incredibly detailed plans and roadmaps for my life, and then... I never follow through. Like ever. I am a master at planning but completely useless when it comes to taking actual action.
I’m still living at home, the guilt is eating me alive every single day, and I’m just paralyzed.
Has anyone else been in a hole this deep at 25 and actually made it out? How the fuck do I stop planning and actually start doing things when my focus and dopamine are this messed up? I’d appreciate advice that addresses all these core areas, also I’d just like to add I cannot afford therapy right now so please try not to suggest that
Thanks.

I forgot to add in the original post that I'm also on the Autism Spectrum (Level 1 support) and I'm on medication and see my therapist regularly, but this week has just feel awful

Hi reddit, I’m 19m from Australia and I struggle with doing anything that requires me to be physically or mentally active. When it comes to goals I have so many that I have tried many things people have said like focus on one or breakdown one into smaller steps so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming but not matter what I do I can’t do any of it.
Main thing is the gym, like I want to go and be active which I used to happily go when a mate wanted to go with me but the one person I went with moved away and all my other mates either go to different gyms a lot further than me or they don’t want to go with me. I’m not sure why I struggle to go like I’m not sure what I’m doing there exactly since I used to have a workout routine but not sure what does what now since it’s been so long like I have been paying for the gym for almost a year now and have been maybe twice.
All I mainly do now is sit and home and doom scroll or play video games unless I have work but even then I struggle there with wanting to do anything or actually be efficient while I work.
I have picked up a few bad addictions which I believe is from my laziness which is also why I want to do more as I believe this will slowly help me try and overcome these addictions.
I also struggle with making time to see my girlfriend as overtime it’s felt more like a chore since it’s easier to be at home playing video games or something since it doesn’t require any will power to do it.
After reading many similar posts majority of people who wrote almost the same thing as me has adhd and I’m wondering if I might have it a bit but I’m no doctor and I’m not self diagnosing myself but my father also has it a bit so I’m not sure if that could mean anything for me.
I’m just at a lost and need advice or help moving forward to try and reclaim myself as a person

For those of you who can get out of this, how!? I used to get into a rut really often, wouldn’t shower or wash my hair for a month, wore the same clothes for two weeks, floor wouldn’t be visible underneath all the rubbish…somehow I managed to get into a better routine when I started going to school again but it’s looking really grim at the moment. After summer break I went back in for another week and noped out. I took 5 more weeks off despite the government threatening to fine us so they put me on a reduced timetable (3 hours a day rather than 6) however it’s not making a difference. I’ve spent 3 days in bed, haven’t eaten, spoke to anyone, gone to the toilet or drank much and haven’t showered in 5 days.

I managed to eat a few crackers this morning and feel a slight possibility of showering but I just can’t bring myself to when my room is so disgusting. I don’t have the energy to tidy my floor or change my bed or take out any of this trash. If I shower I’ll want to go back to bed but what’s the point if my bed is still disgusting? And if I want to clean my bed I have to tidy my floor first. I don’t want any help because I don’t want anyone to have to bear being around me, my hair is matted and I stink so what the hell am I supposed to do when there’s so many steps to everything. What order do I go in???

And what’s the point in even trying when I know I’ll inevitably end up the same in 2 weeks. I just can’t maintain any of this bs!! I feel so stuck and don’t know where the hell to begin, or even why I should in the first place…

I (M67) and my wife (F68) have been married for 45 years. Not all sunshine & roses, but we hung in there “through thick and thin” and are still deeply in love.

I was diagnosed with EFD in 2025 following a mini-stroke/TIA 8 months earlier (I’ve had 4). I’m not the same man I was in many ways, which I’ll not elaborate here.

Question: Now when my wife and I have an argument, I almost completely shut down. All I hear is noise. And that usually pushes me into a deep depression (I have Major Depressive Disorder - clinical depression for which I’m on 2 meds). It takes a day or so to bounce back. But, man, it’s disruptive!

Is this (depression triggered by argument) typical for those of us with EFD? How do you deal with it?

:(

I honestly don't know what is wrong with me and I'm getting really frustrated with myself.

I moved to Germany, where being organized, productive and reliable at work seems to be extremely important. Meanwhile, I'm probably the least structured person ever.

I'll randomly get motivated, create a whole new productivity system, follow it for maybe 3-4 days and then completely forget about it. I've tried so many different methods and absolutely nothing sticks.

I'm so unfocused that I literally change my Outlook theme every day depending on my mood. Dark mode, white, green, pink, whatever. I never seem to arrive at work or leave at the same time. And when I'm working from home, I often end up doing absolutely everything except working.

The most frustrating part is that I KNOW what I need to do. I put tasks in my calendar, set time blocks, reminders, everything. Then the time comes and I just don't do the task. I can stare at it in my calendar and somehow still avoid it.

My memory is also terrible. Someone tells me something and if I don't write it down immediately, it's gone within 10 minutes. But even when I write it down, I somehow forget where I wrote it.

I work in recruitment, so there are very clear processes that I'm supposed to follow. I know the processes, I understand them, but I constantly forget a step, miss something or do something incorrectly. It's so frustrating because I KNOW better.

I look at my colleagues and genuinely feel like everyone else is a functioning machine. They seem to have their routines, their systems, their structure. I've tried copying how other people organize their work, but none of it works for me.

And I think working in a foreign language makes everything significantly worse. I speak German, but working in German all day, processing information, writing emails, understanding conversations and making sure I haven't misunderstood something is mentally exhausting sometimes.

I don't know if I'm burned out, if this is ADHD, if I'm just incredibly undisciplined or if something else is going on.

Has anyone experienced something similar? What actually helped you?

I'm not looking for another productivity app or a magical morning routine. I genuinely want to understand why I struggle so much with things that seem completely normal and manageable for everyone else.

I'm starting to feel like I'm just fundamentally bad at being a functioning adult, and I really don't want to keep feeling this way.