Thesicus - The

Philippe Petit’s incredible (and illegal) high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, 1974

Every Vegan Recipe

Creamy Lemon Garlic Pasta 🍋

⁣Rigatoni tossed in a creamy lemon garlic sauce with fresh basil, topped off with lemon zest. It's simple, fresh and flavorful.

Rigatoni tossed in a creamy lemon garlic sauce with fresh basil, topped off with lemon zest. It's simple, fresh and flavorful.

Hi!

I've read your post on the science of ADHD and was wondering if you could help me? (Feel free to say no!)

I'm trying to find articles on that symptom where you're unable to do anything even when you want to. Tumblr seems to refer to it as Executive Dysfunction, but since that term is very broad I have been unable to find anything specifically on the above symptom. Do you have any tips? Do you have any idea whether it has a more defined "name"?

Again, don't feel any pressure to answer!

Kind regards,

Hello!

Well, I can try to help 😅

Ah, yes. I'm afraid that executive dysfunction is in fact the official scientific / medical term for this, and there isn't a more defined name for this – at least not an official medical or scientific one. But I see how that might be a bit frustrating when looking for resources to deal with a specific issue or situation.

Just to clarify, what kinds of "articles" are you looking for? Scientific articles, or popular media articles / lay literature?

What you could try to look for are specific presentations of ex. dys., specific ways in which it manifests; there are a number of lay terms that describe more specific aspects of it. For example some people talk about "decision paralysis", or "ADHD waiting mode" – obviously neither of those are official terms, but it may help you find more resources on them, especially in popular/non-scientific media.

If you're going for scientific literature itself (which I personally do recommend), consider looking for executive function instead. Executive function is a fundamental cognitive ability and plays a role in many many things, and thus has a lot of research to back it up. Try searching it in connection to ADHD, and that should lead you to some beginning at least.

Now, you say that you couldn't find anything for "that specific symptom" – a lot of the time, it is a matter of recognising how the same concept leads to different outcomes. So even if you don't find articles that describe your exact situation, the concept discussed in the article might still be helpful to understand your specific symptoms. Furthermore, while it is true that this "inability to do the thing" is often based in executive dysfunction, there are also motivational aspects that have to be considered in ADHD. By motivational aspects I do not mean that you do not want to do the thing, or that you are not trying enough to do the thing. Rather, the motivational circuits in ADHD brains are different from those in neurotypical brains, which can thus lead to some difficulties.

I am guessing part of what you are looking for are ways to deal with this kind of issue. In my experience, understanding it helps to work around most symptoms to a certain degree already, so I do thing that learning about the mechanisms of it is beneficial in any case. Still, there are hacks that help with ADHD paralysis – I'll list a few and how they might help. [All of these are based on urgency, novelty, or personal importance, which are generally the factors that determine how well ADHD vibes with a task or activity.]

The three second rule; sounds stupid, but try it out! If you're trying to start doing something that requires you to move (e.g. take a shower, make food, do the dishes – whatever) and you find yourself stuck on the couch/at your desk/in bed/on the floor, take a deep breath, count down from three, and when you reach 0 you have to move. It can be any movement, but since you're not giving your brain a lot of time to think, the easiest movement is usually to get up – which gets you started at the very least. Try to ride that momentum.

Pomodoros; time your tasks for mini-deadline pressure. Pick a thing to do, e.g. you want to draw because you like drawing, then set a timer to around 20-30 minutes (at least that's the norm, but hey you can also do 16 and a-half minutes!). Start the timer, and while it runs you focus only on the previously specified task. When it's done, take a break of 5-10 minutes (again, you do you), then the next timer starts. I use this a lot for studying and writing, because it creates little focus windows that are easier to handle.

Increase or decrease stimulation; music, fidgets, anything that vibes for you. Maybe the hurdle is that you're simply over- or understimulated – play around with your activity-environment to see if it makes a difference!

Body doubling; personal favourite, simply hang out with your friends! The presence of another being/person often helps to stay on task, and it can be energising (at least to extraverts like me)

External incentives or accountability; aka threats and bribes 😏 my favourite variant of this is a concept I introduced on several of my Discord servers – Drabbles for Dopamine, where people literally bribe each other with little drabbles so they do the thing. But this works with anything! Tell your friend that you want to be out of bed in 30 minutes and ask them to check in on you; the pressure of having someone else know often already is enough. If the "threat" of them checking is not enough, add a "bribe" to it, for example a picture of their pet – whatever is at hand and motivates you.

There is more of course, but those are the few that come to mind off the top of my head. Feel free to message me if you have questions about any of them.

Besides that, here are a few links that might be of interest:

Popular / non-scientific sources (sorted by how useful I think they'll be for you)

What is executive function and why do we need it? – How to ADHD (video)

ADHD and Motivation – How to ADHD (video)

Motivation | How to ADHD (YT playlist)

Executive Dysfunction & ADHD - when you can't 'do the thing' (article)

What is executive function? (ADDitude mag article)

Scientific articles / research (no particular order!)

Validity of the executive function theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a meta-analytic review

Executive functions and adaptive functioning in young adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

Are There Executive Dysfunction Subtypes Within ADHD?

Disturbance of the emotion and motivation in the adhd: a dopaminergic dysfunction

Executive dysfunction in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: cognitive and neuroimaging findings

Hi everyone,

For the last day of ADHD Awareness Month, I thought I’d share the difference and similarities between ADHD and OCD. I hope many of you find this helpful. The link to the source will be below.

ADHD

OCD

ADHD Awareness Month

I want to love and be loved. I want to find a way where I don’t hurt myself. I want to live a life where I say things are good more than things are bad. I want to keep failing and discovering new and better directions. I want to enjoy the tides of feeling in me as the rhythms of life. I want to be the kind of person who can walk inside the vast darkness and find the one fragment of sunlight I can linger in for a long time. Some day, I will.

Baek Sehee, tr. by Anton Hur, from I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki

Me: “I’m so touch starved”, and then someone actually attempts to touch me and all of a sudden I’m more like “BE GONE DEMON, THY SHALL NOT TOUCH ME AND SULLY MY PURE SOUL”

show, don't tell:

anticipation - bouncing legs - darting eyes - breathing deeply - useless / mindless tasks - eyes on the clock - checking and re-checking

frustration - grumbling - heavy footsteps - hot flush - narrowed eyes - pointing fingers - pacing / stomping

sadness - eyes filling up with tears - blinking quickly - hiccuped breaths - face turned away - red / burning cheeks - short sentences with gulps

happiness - smiling / cheeks hurting - animated - chest hurts from laughing - rapid movements - eye contact - quick speaking

boredom - complaining - sighing - grumbling - pacing - leg bouncing - picking at nails

fear - quick heartbeat - shaking / clammy hands - pinching self - tuck away - closing eyes - clenched hands

disappointment - no eye contact - hard swallow - clenched hands - tears, occasionally - mhm-hmm

tiredness - spacing out - eyes closing - nodding head absently - long sighs - no eye contact - grim smile

confidence - prolonged eye contact - appreciates instead of apologizing - active listening - shoulders back - micro reactions

“Girls gays and theys” <- uninclusive while trying to be inclusive. Bad. Makes me uncomfortable.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and other distinguished guests” <- inclusive but far, far too formal

“Alrighty gamers” <- Incisive of everyone, informal, and fun to say.

one thing I learned recently - that seems obvious in retrospect - is that 'being able to recognise intervals and chords by ear' is not necessarily something that you need to just hope will happen automatically if you music hard enough.

if you go to music school there's a specific exercise they do called 'ear training' where they sit you down and make you practice recognising stuff (chords and intervals and so on) - either the teacher will play it or you can get software that plays a thing and asks you to identify it. sorta like the musical equivalent of using a spaced repetition system to memorise vocab in language learning.

there's actually an ear training program in the GNU suite. you can get it here. it's just a python program that hooks into your computer's MIDI.