Suffering from overwhelming executive dysfunction along with a lot of other shit has drastically slowed my learning and operational capability. Have tried a ton of antidepressants and vyvanse, nothing's worked.
Looking for some success stories of people who overcame something like this.
Perhaps it's not a success story, but I have a definite improvement story.
I find accepting and making peace with my problems (paradoxically) helps improve the problem.
I am going through a particularly low dip right now. I haven't done any work in the last 4 days. I tried a 4 minute pomodoro timer yesterday and 2 minutes in I was already completely off task.
In the past I would panic, worry, think "Why me and my terrible executive function?" or "What if I can never do anything again ever". Instead I am accepting that this is the issue I have and keeping a curious, open mind to possible solutions. I'm trying out taking longer breaks, changing up my workspace, body doubling, nutrition, timers, not trying to do anything etc.
I'm sure it will swing back the other way in its own time.
Of course I would love to be able to be consistently able to work, but that is not a reality for me. In the same way I would love to be able to run 100m in 9.6 seconds but that is also just not realistic.
Other comments here are good too: eat well, sleep enough, exercise regularly. This is a good baseline to have but these things alone never fixed my issues.
Get your blood work done, just to be sure there isn't some physiological issue, like chronic inflammation.
Don't expect any miracles from meds.
Diet, exercise, sleep.
Find things to look forward to.
Take it one day at a time.
Unfortunately, it will likely require hard work on your part rather than relying on pills. One thing that's worked for me is therapy focusing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Essentially, you identify your goals and values, and then reframe your thinking to question whether what you're doing aligns with those goals and values.
Depending on what you struggle with, try batching tasks. I used to have a long list of things to remember to do regularly (wash up, clear the bench, put the kids' toys away, etc.), and I would often ignore it because it became annoying. All I did was change it to a plain note that I can look at and see if the task was completed, and eventually those tasks became a habit.
No advice, I just hope you find your way, whatever that may be, to make life work for you. I am sorry you are struggling.
Yeah I’ve had that in various forms through my life. I’m now in probably my best state. One thing that helped was switching from vyvanse to concerta. I don’t know why but vyvanse didn’t really help. It just made me hyper focus on anything but work.
Another is starting a new job. I don’t think I realized how bored or burnt out I was until I left and joined a new company.
Other than that all the basics: sleep, food, and exercise.
But it’s hard when it gets bad. The only other advice is have a good therapist and psychiatrist that you trust.
Been there many times on different consulting gigs.
I presume you are not part of the executive suite. If so -- get out!
When in the trenches, I have found the best approach is to recognize that you can't change "them". It is not personal and you certainly need to look upon it all as absurdist theatre. Read some Albert Camus or Jean Paul Sartre to realize that your experience if far from unique.
You don't need medication; just shift your viewpoint.
Work is stupid. You have to realize that. Everyone that is working is just stupid, along with me, along with you. It's a stupid thing society came up with. Every time you see someone working on something, just go "my god, what a moron".
Given that, you have to realize your soul is telling you "I'm kind of tired of being stupid, and you and your brain seem to have stupid ideas for me - the soul".
It's a fight between your heart and your mind, and your mind is a slave to whatever reality demands. Now, your soul may be so depressed that it wants to sit and do nothing, but that's not going to work (no pun intended). So you have to have your mind and soul find a compromise, whatever that is.
The soul cannot lie, and it will stop you in your tracks. You better start talking to it. One thing my soul eventually conceded is that my body needs food and shelter at the bare minimum, so it capitulated a bit and worked together with my mind to get things done, but nothing more. Do not fuck with the soul dude, it's nothing to play with.
“ Have tried a ton of antidepressants and vyvanse, nothing's worked.”
Could just as easily make it worse. I had gone on a lower dose of an antidepressant and had exactly this problem. I had to go on medical leave until I could get back on my previous dose and stabilize.
Sleep and exercise, especially cardio, are all that worked. The drugs interrupt sleep. They can easily hurt more than help.
I find it much easier to do work for money if I can get excited about why that thing I do is a worthwhile and exciting endeavor. Sometimes you have to look for it, but it's usually there (if you're lucky).
Try starting the day thinking what you are going to work on, and why that is a Good Thing (TM).
The gruesome twosome are very helpful, if controversial:
- get enough sleep
- get regular exercise (most days of the week)
I think Andreas Kling behind Serenity OS, and now the Ladybird Browser, has broadly the right ideas, and Serenity OS is actually named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer .
You might be burned out, especially if you're experimenting with substances to try and maintain previous momentum. Some people can seemingly do that for years, but for most people it's going to end in a crash at some point.
No. Getting worse with time as well.
I recently decided to double up on my Vyvanse dose (without telling my doctor), and that was effective. For a day.
See a psychologist or counselor. If you an underlying diagnosis, you could be suffering more than necessary.
Had these sorts of issues all my life, I'm pretty sure most people do to a greater or lesser extent.
Life asks a fuck of a lot of us. More as we age, but more as the world changes.
On a good day, I naturally don't think about it. On a bad day, it's all I can think about. On an average day I've come to accept peaks and troughs.
I can't be running on all cylinders all the time, most people can't.
Mood for me is key. Others have mentioned sleep, exercise and diet, the holy trinity.
Alcohol is guaranteed to mess me up and I generally avoid it these days. Time outside without the phone is also magnificent, I might do that now.
Don't beat yourself up.
I did about 10 years ago but unless my underlying cause was the same as yours I'm not sure it will help.
Anti depressants and vyvanse? Do you have adhd or are you depressed or both? I don't have adhd and mine was caused by depression and life circumstance at the time.
Reframe and reset your viewpoint. Look at the past five years; What value have you created? What mistakes have you made? What have you learned? Then turn that into a new reason Why you are doing what you’re doing.
1) diagnose, are you burned out or depressed, or adhd etc? Then 2) treat accordingly, concerta and sleep does wonders for me
Consistent exercise, exposure to nature, forced good/consistent sleep patterns, and air quality.
Executive dysfunction here, bordering overwhelming but never actually overwhelming. So I probably have it easier than you. Here's what's working for me.
1. Healthy food: I tend to freezer prep the healthiest meals for like a month. Think like an industrialist here, cook for scale.
2. Running: two or three 3 mile runs a week helps a lot
3. Sleep: without it, I'm fucked. With it, I might not be. But without it, there's no chance to do anything.
4. Love: my wife is my life (in a sense). I'd do anything for her, even overcome my executive dysfunction. If it's for her, I will fight and if she needs a functioning me, I will fight for it.
5. Therapy: it turns out I had trauma. We were able to cleanly heal half of that. The other half is more messy but it helped with everything.
6. Meditation: I don't do it a lot unless I'm at a retreat. Each retreat I go to helps, eventhough I hate going, haha. It really helps (checkout dhamma.org).
7. Combine training discipline with meaning and hope. I want to learn more math as I want to understand the secrets of the universe and I think it's in math and coding and AI. Well, it's one avenue, it's in more of that but those 3 topics are already huge. I'm learning math now because I want to know the secrets of the universe (I'm a playful whimsical romantic person like that). Learning math requires me to utilize more discipline than I'm used to. I will fight for it. For if I can't even have a shot at this, I don't see much of a point other than living for my wife. So yea, I have to do this, I have to understand more about the nature of reality. Because it's awesome. It just so happens that it helps me to stay focused at work.
8. Pick a job that plays to your strenghts and is below your level. I'm currently a data analyst and I'm overqualified to do that job. I could've started as a junior data scientist 7 years ago (if anyone would've had me back then). Doing data analyst stuff right now is easy peasy. Linear regression? Done. Some coding? I'll tackle it as a software engineer (I was one before this). Creating dashboards with Tableau? I did frontend with React before this. Doing some SQL? Sure. Doing some presenting? I love presenting! I could do this job even when I'm sleep deprived as it doesn't tax me cognitively, being a software engineer does.
9. Train discipline. Related to 7 but just the advice to do your best to train discipline.
10. Love yourself, foregive yourself, go easy on yourself. You're trying, you're doing your best. That's all you can do. Beating yourself up about it will only mean you have to do more damage control.
11. Look for role models. I only found partial ones, but I've seen similar neurodiverse people tackling life's challenges better than I did. I emulated them a bit and it helps.
12. Attack this problem from the angle that you'll tackle it from a 1000 different perspectives.
13. Journal and reflect. I'm not great at this. I write a lot in my Apple Notes, that's great. I almost never read it though. I do tend to read my journals when I have to write a how to guide to myself. I write guides like "how to sleep" or "how to be good at dating" (thank god I'm married now!), basic life stuff. It really helps.
14. Play to your strengths. One of mine is that I'm incredibly curious. Half the time reframing something as an experiment as opposed to a task I have to do will make me do it. But that's because I'm incredibly curious and need to know the outcome of that experiment.
15. I tried some ADHD medication. It supresses my feelings and fixes my focus at a particular "zoom level". So if I need to mix convergent and divergent thinging - like with math - I can't. Basically, I've noticed that with programming taking ADHD medication helped. But in retrospect, it helped because agile culture kind of sucks. I know this now because ever since I'm working as a data analyst, programming is more fun. I program as much as a software engineer but it's more fun. Why? Because no one tells me that I need to write perfect code, I get to decide that. No one tells me when or what to code, I get to decide that. No one tells me what business problems to solve with code, I get to decide that.
I've learned so much being a data analyst about what's good and bad with agile culture, it's insane. I am now much more firmly in the camp of that software engineers aren't programmers, they're consultants that are capable of solving business problems either manually or through automation (i.e. programming). Consultants in this sense are problem solvers, not people with slide decks that then leave.
I hope some of this helps.
My technique is to go for guaranteed wins no matter how small. Open one email without demanding I do anything else. Hit the heavy bag once instead of planning for 15 minutes. Give my son a sandwich for dinner instead of the ideal four course meal.