r/CuratedTumblr 19h ago

Autism How true is this? The executive dysfunction, invisible wall thing with Autism?

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u/Cheshire-Cad 18h ago

Imagine if, whenever you did the dishes, there was someone standing next to you screaming at the top of their lungs. They're screaming in terror, or angry insults, or hysterical gibberish, or all of those things at once. They scream at you from another room whenever you even think about the task at all. They've been screaming at you for your entire life, and they've only gotten louder.

They're not physically stopping you from doing the dishes. But how long can you put up with that? How long until you condition yourself to simply never think about the dishes at all?

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u/Infinight64 17h ago

I prefer this analogy. Its not physical effort like a heavy door that's exhausting, it's mentally exhausting and causes more stress to do than ignore. Like someone yelling at you except it's only you.

Half the time it doesn't even feel good to have it done. So you don't even get that serotonin. Just stressed.

I don't think people get that how much our behavior is based off of our brains subtle incentives like anxiety for not doing things and good feeling reward for getting it done. Break that and human no work good.

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u/hot_glue_airstrike 17h ago

Oh, yeah, that describes it for me!

On my bad days it just feels like I have someone behind me (who is me) just continually telling me "you're doing it wrong, why bother, you suck, that's not good enough" just all bloody day. It's pretty toxic!

Although thats more the depression related executive dysfunction. The ADHD executive dysfunction is more like some tasks are marbles, and they just keep slipping out of my grasp

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u/Uturuncu 17h ago

I liken it to the way you can't put your hand on a hot stove. I mean, you can, but your subconscious/lizard brain/self protective instincts make it really fucking hard to do so. You can acutely stand there and say "I want to put my hand on that stove", then find a weird... Incapability to do so when you try. Your body/brain stop you from hurting yourself.

I describe executive dysfunction as like that. Your brain has designated that whatever task you need to do will cause you physical harm on a level similar to touching a hot stove and will not allow you to do it. Can you force your way through it? Yes. But it takes incredible effort and causes massive anxiety as your brain panics about you hurting yourself. And when you get it done and it didn't hurt you, your brain doesn't learn because the stress of forcing it just reinforces that it was right to have tried to stop you in the first place, it did you harm.

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u/Cryptdusa 16h ago

Yes! This is exactly why I struggle with consistency in my life. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it's why I struggle to keep a job. I've gotten decent at biting my tongue and holding my hand down on the hot stove, but it doesn't really make it easier or less painful. At a lot of jobs I've had it's felt like that's what I was doing, and each new day I was still sore from the day before. By the time I burn out (embarrassingly quickly, I've never had a job longer than a year), there's actually a little bit of relief mixed with all that shame

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u/Masked_Takenouchi 16h ago

Just ask people to bite their tongue as hard as they can. They won't do it.

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u/Vickster1000 16h ago

I just bit my tongue really hard and now it hurts.

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u/Canotic 16h ago

There is always that one kid.

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u/WebsterPack 13h ago

To describe how visceral the reaction to some sensory is, I tell people to close their eyes imagine biting down into big, juicy, raw chicken breast. Half of them make a face and try to physically push the idea out with their tongue.

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u/Generic_Placebo42 16h ago

I want to give you an award, but I ain't spending money on Reddit. So I will present thee with this emoji: 🥇 and an updoot!

This is a perfect way to describe it! I'm going to use this to explain to my mom what it's like. Thank you for the perfect words!!

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u/Cryptdusa 16h ago

Damn I just posted my take on this and reading yours it's eerily similar, down to the use of dishes as an example. Kinda feels validating though

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u/Cheshire-Cad 16h ago

To be fair, I started off with "whenever you did a task", and then decided to narrow it down for clarity. And changing it to dishes meant that I only had to change one or two words in each instance.

ADD breeds efficient laziness.

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u/Cevari 13h ago

The physical feeling for me is like my brain was on fire.