i’m pushing 40 and have only recently been given an informal diagnosis (seeking out a formal diagnosis currently) from my therapist of ADHD, so it’s all new to me and changing the way i look at my behaviors and patterns. i’ve been thinking about this distinction between executive dysfunction and depression quite a bit lately and wanted to bring it to other folks who have a better grasp on how their ADHD impacts them and see if this resonates or if i’m maybe not hitting the mark.
i have two different things that i’ve always identified as ‘depression’, one that includes the sads, and one that doesn’t but has the same low energy and inability to get anything done without external pressure to move me forward. the impact is very, very similar, but the feeling is very different. with the one that includes being sad, it’s that sadness that’s the driving force behind my inability to move. for the one that doesn’t, it’s just… i don’t know how to describe it, it’s just an inability to get myself to take action.
i’m in the middle of an episode of the second one now. i find myself listless, bored but can’t get myself to do anything about it, hungry but nothing sounds good when i think about the steps it takes to get it, and it’s when my memory is the worst and i most often find myself misplacing things, unable to focus, or doing that thing that Hal does in that one Malcom in the Middle cold open when he goes to replace a lightbulb but is working on the car when Lois gets home. this doesn’t feel like a good description, but that’s how i feel about literally everything i do or talk about when i’m feeling like this, so i hope it’s coming across ok.
does this sound like there’s a differentiation between the two to ya’ll? anyone feel similarly?
One thing I’d advise looking into would be Autism as well.
I did/do experience a lot of what you are describing, and have been misdiagnosed with a few things, turns out I’m autistic. It presents very much like inattentive ADHD in me, so I was pursuing th ADHD diagnosis for a long time.
It took me a couple years to figure it out, but yeah, I’m autistic.
This video helped me quite a bit in understanding the difference.
I’m not saying you have Autism, but it’s worth considering!
one thing that is sticking out to me is when he talks about ADHD seeing a task and knowing they need to do it but can’t, followed by folks on the spectrum being unsure what to do… and i really identify with both in various situations.
at work, inferring what people need is damn near impossible for me and i’m constantly amazed by my boss who will be in the same meeting as me coming out with 13 action items when i don’t catch any at all.
at home, when i have big tasks, like how my garden needs to be weeded, i see it and i can’t get myself to do it. i had a 6 week stretch where i watched my backyard get overgrown and couldn’t get myself to mow it at all. the same happens with dishes and tidying of taking what’s in the dryer out and putting it away.
and these things seem to ebb and flow where sometimes i’ll walk into a room and know exactly what the vibe is and other times i’ll just be lost and numb to how others are feeling.
You can have both, colloquially known as AuDHD.
Thank you for sharing that video. I watched it, and I am definitely ADHD. Although there are times when some of the autism characteristics do resonate.
For example, there’s one time when I had a a teacher explaining matrixes and I raised my hand and asked him why we are learning this (which caused considerable snickering on class, and obvious embarrassment for the teacher).
I generally do need to understand why we’re learning something in order to have enough interest to focus on it.
However I don’t think that’s autism, as I feel that it is difficult for anybody to learn something if they don’t even understand how it is to be used.
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The video doesn’t load for me on mobile. Anyone else having problems?
It loaded on mobile for me. Maybe try again or copy the link and open it in a new browser window.
Thanks, it works now, apparently I need to wait half a minute after I click play. Maybe my AdBlock (firefox mobile) is messing something up.
huh. i’ve been extremely hesitant to go down that route, but you spotting it is making me think about talking to my psych about it. you’re the second person this month to mention it. i appreciate your comment.
I am experiencing the same kind of problems right now. I’m convinced that a large part of it is depression. I got an ADHD diagnosis couple of decades ago as an adult. I’m very successful at what I do and make decent money. He felt that I had done a great job of coming up with compensations for my problem.
However lately those compensations aren’t working. I look at my list of things to do, and I just can’t do them. I’m in the state where the key things I need to do cause me such emotional pain that I avoid them. This to me is depression.
It appears depression magnifies the problems caused by ADHD. One has an additional layer of “what’s the point of all this? It won’t change anything”, going through one’s head. It saps the will, which is needed to overcome the initial motivation barrier.
Now, instead of having to smash through one stone wall, one has to smash through two…
I’m similar. By all means successful (six figure salary, own my home, nearly no debt and none that’s ‘bad’, etc), and what I see now as my old coping mechanisms not working anymore as my life has become immeasurably more difficult to manage over the last few years in particular.
Same except I am in a decent amount of debt due to ADHD impulse purchasing. I was diagnosed as a teenager but only in the last year have I started taking meds to help control ADHD as my symptoms and issues have gotten worse in the last 2 years to the point of having a full on breakdown.
I finally created an account just to post this because OPs and other’s accounts resonate with what I am also experiencing.
I was just listening to The Hidden Brain, they talked about an experiment. Scientists bioengineered rats to have no dopamine receptors. If they put food in the rat’s mouth it would eat, but if they put the food even one body length away, the rat would starve to death. I have never felt so much sympathy for a rat.
Fucking hell
As someone with BP (mostly depressive) and inattentive ADHD (separately), both of the states you are talking about sound like depression.
Appreciate your input! This has been my take, but I don’t wanna be so stuck in the box if there’s more going on and I could be employing different tools that could be more effective.
They are closely linked conditions. I do not have anxiety or depression, but my undiagnosed and then untreated ADHD was causing me both conditions.
They are separate things but they are intertwined, so much so that ADHD very frequently comes with a dual diagnosis of one or more other conditions, or is confused/commingled with eg. autism. A proper assessment can disentangle them and reach the correct diagnosis.
Maybe I’ll start pressing for a comprehensive neuropsych evaluation. My biggest concern in talking with therapists is that I am never able to bring the whole story together. My last psychologist decided that everything I have dealt with over the course of my whole life had to do with the poor sleep of gotten over the two week before we met. So maybe a better psychologist will help too lol
Sorry, meant to say that executive dysfunction and depression are separate but can be intertwined. I think I was unclear.
It could be depression. It also sounds like the very common experience in ADHD I’ve heard of where your brain just doesn’t have enough dopamine to do anything. So you might try to get yourself to do stuff, but you literally can’t get yourself to do what you’d like (even though you feel like you should be able to). You might even just stare at a wall and get mad at yourself for not moving. Maybe this video might have some tips?
But I mean, it’s also possible to have comorbid depression with ADHD. There are a lot of places they can overlap (low motivation, low energy). Outside of medication, you might just need to find ways that work for you and help you to feel motivated or even just happy and accepting of where you’re at. It’s okay to have off days too, I hope you know. People with ADHD have a lot of shame so it’s important to make sure that you aren’t struggling with that on top of the lack of motivation. To learn to be easier on yourself. And to learn about ways that the rest of society may have not properly taught you how to handle the unique struggles you deal with (so you can stop pressuring yourself to accomplish or act to neurotypical standards).
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hungry but nothing sounds good when i think about the steps it takes to get it
This is my brain every day at noon.
Executive dysfunction and depression can present similarly but they are for inherently different reasons. Depression is mood-based while executive dysfunction is cognitive-based. Using your language, depression would include the “sads” while executive dysfunction doesn’t. Hope this helps.
