as the neurotypical whisperer, do you have any advice on explaining executive dysfunction to people that have never experienced it and want to chalk it up to laziness?

roachpatrol:

you know how when you drive your car into mud, you can rev the engine and switch gears and jam the pedals all you like, but the car won’t go anywhere because there’s no traction? the wheels just go around and around in the mud no matter how hard you push the gas pedal. you have to pile rocks and sticks under the wheels to get the car some traction to get going. if you don’t change the conditions the wheels are turning in, you’ll just be sitting in your car all damn day, wasting your gas. 

in this case executive dysfunction is having mud under your wheels and the rocks are medication or therapy. you don’t need to ‘try harder’ or spin the wheels faster, you need actual legit help to fix the road conditions. 

for people with a chronic condition, life is one long washed-out mud lane to drive across. so being told ‘just go faster!’ or ‘switch gears!’ by people driving paved streets is not helpful. executive dysfunction isn’t the laziness of not wanting to put in the effort, it’s having no traction for that effort to get you anywhere.