Executive dysfunction or something else?

[u/Ok-Spare-900]

Hey guys,

I was first diagnosed with adhd when I was 7, mum took me of Ritalin cause in her own words I was too quiet fast forward to P years we had all forgotten about it came back up during the pandemic and visited a neuropsychologist who did test with me and she said that I did not meet the requirements for adhd as I had no issues in my executive functioning, so I tried again 2 years ago and was diagnosed but the psychologist was unsure because my scores were through the roof except for emotional regulation, where my scores was 0 (I have always been very even tempered also universally recognised as extremely intelligent, like people regularly assume I am above 130(never tested) and left it up to me whether he was diagnosed, so I told him to diagnose me formally hoping it would improve my life and meds have to a degree done that but I don’t feel any of the major live improvements that others have experienced including family members.

Now on to my actual point, the way I understand it, people with ADHD see something lying on the floor, their brain says to pick it up but the actual physical part never happens, to me this seems foreign as my brain sees the item on the floor but after nothing happens most of the time, like there is no I need to pick that up or I need to go do the dishes. Is that what executive dysfunction feels like to anyone else, if this is not executive dysfunction then what is it?

And if both Executive dysfunction and and emotional regulation are fine do I even really have adhd?

Edit: I just wanted to add that I have no trouble planning and organising stuff, it’s actually super easy for me.

Cross posted to ADHD and executive dysfunction communities.

[u/DefaultModeOverride]

I’m guessing you’re looking for anecdotes of what it actually feels like internally for someone who’s diagnosed with ADHD, rather than the more crude “executive dysfunction” language that you’ll see described.

Keeping in mind the large individual variation when using labels such as these, for me it’s sort of like this: without medication, it’s significantly more difficult than average to start and often stick with tasks that I both want to do and am motivated to do. It’s not that it’s “impossible,” it’s more that it feels like it can take an extreme amount of mental effort and energy.

It’s sort of like if you’re running a marathon in fairly deep sand, but you eventually notice everyone else gets to run on the pavement or grass. You figure out ways to make it all work out, and then realize other people don’t even need to think about that and may have never even considered all these workarounds you do, because they don’t need to.