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So this was originally a comment on a post about depression and so forth, but it actually occurred to me that it might be more helpful in a tag somewhere where someone might see it, rather than buried in 68k notes.  So here’s the thing: I’m not great at explaining what executive functioning problems ARE, but I tried to explain what they feel like.

Looking at a dirty litterbox and a sink full of dishes and going “fuck this noise” and going back on tumblr feels a lot like laziness, even if you are feeling kind of like crying just looking at them. But it can also be your brain being currently incapable of putting together the steps you need to take in order to DO those things, you can’t quite put together that cleaning the litterbox is:

Get a trash bag

Get the litter scoop

Get clean litter

Open trash bag

Move litterbox to accessible position

Crouch down by the litterbox

Scoop out poop and clumps

Tie off trash bag

Add some clean litter to box

Put litterbox back in its original position

Put litter scoop away

Put clean litter away

Throw away trash bag

When you’re having executive functioning issues, you look at the dirty litterbox and even if you don’t realize it, you can’t work out those steps, you just see the dirty litterbox and know that it needs to be clean and all those steps are mushing together into one big ball of overwhelming stress and you can’t quite figure out where to start, and it takes a LOT of mental and emotional momentum to start, and when you’re depressed or overwhelmed or whatever it can be next to impossible to GET that mental and emotional momentum.

This isn’t the best explanation of executive dysfunction, probably, but it’s the best I’ve got, and it can be awful, and it can make you feel like a lazy useless person when you’re nothing of the sort, and it’s so insidious, because when you’re NOT having these issues it’s the easiest thing in the world to subconsciously put all those steps together and get from “dirty litterbox” to “clean litterbox” without any conscious thought.

This can happen when you’re depressed, if you have ADHD or autism, if you have anxiety… there are a lot of reasons you might run into problems with your executive functioning.  It can be simple things like cleaning the litterbox, it can be things you do (or try to do) regularly like your math homework, it can be something like going to the gym or cooking dinner or getting out of bed in the morning.

But the most important thing to take away from this is that there is a huge difference between “I could do this but I really don’t want to” and “I cannot do this”, and when you learn to recognize the difference, you can begin to stop calling yourself “lazy” and “useless” and “worthless” during those times when you CAN’T do this even if you want to.  

worries about everything: cancer, gemini, virgo

worries about a lot but lets some shit slide: taurus, libra, leo

mainly doesn’t give a shit but worries a little: aries, aquarius, scorpio

Disorder | Rating

Paranoid | High

Schizoid | Low

Schizotypal | Moderate

Antisocial | Moderate

Borderline | Very High

Histrionic | High

Narcissistic | High

Avoidant | Low

Dependent | High

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Rank - Tropes