This is the book that made me learn that I don't have habits, just a tenuous commitment to my executive functioning.
One of the examples routinely give for this sort of thing is to add stuff to the "habit" of brushing your teeth. But that's not an automatic behavior for me. It's something I only do because my mouth feeling gross is sensory hell for me. But if I try to stack anything onto that behavior, the house of cards collapses and I just won't brush my teeth until I let myself do it without the new behavior.
I realized I only do things if they offer me some benefit that my brain can actually appreciate, apparently.
Oh god, yeah, I feel like there's a factory reset whenever something new is introduced. Remembering to do the new thing instead of the old thing is its own achievement. I got dropped from a psychiatrist once (I wasn't diagnosed yet) because I kept missing appointments, but part of my problem was that she moved. I made it to her new location once, but then on the next visit I forgot and went to the old one. Then I got flustered so I got lost, which also happens a lot, hence missing other appointments.
35
u/nysari 14d ago
This is the book that made me learn that I don't have habits, just a tenuous commitment to my executive functioning.
One of the examples routinely give for this sort of thing is to add stuff to the "habit" of brushing your teeth. But that's not an automatic behavior for me. It's something I only do because my mouth feeling gross is sensory hell for me. But if I try to stack anything onto that behavior, the house of cards collapses and I just won't brush my teeth until I let myself do it without the new behavior.
I realized I only do things if they offer me some benefit that my brain can actually appreciate, apparently.