Autism and Executive Function (My Executive Functioning Fail!)

Ah man! When I have several priorities of the same importance, that's when my stress levels go up and I will sometimes shut down; because in my mind all of these things need to be done right now. But since I can't do everything at once, I get overwhelmed, my anxiety goes up, and I become paralyzed as I sit there and do nothing; not wanting time to pass (because I feel like there is never enough).

ASD, ADHD and NVLD are really connected and have a lot of overlap. We need one big neurodiverse community because there is a lot we can learn from each other.

I was reading about executive function and couldn't totally grasp what it meant or if it applied to me, until one day in very classic fashion I was wondering around my room just stuck between doing my dishes, making my bed, doing some organizing work on my PC, going to pick up some stuff from the supermarket and some odd errands, eating breakfast/lunch - none of which was particularly time sensitive or important. I did this for almost an hour, just vaguely wandering around my room not doing anything but thinking about all of it, constantly. The not being able to prioritize thing you said really resonated. As I was doing this I realized; oh, this is executive dysfunction, it's me. Then I just started making lists on my phone and having it organized by priority, even if there is no reason for something to be above another thing, doesn't matter the list order is now my priority order, and this helps me stay flexible, if I want to prioritize something else I drag it up the list, boom, now I am autistically adaptable. Another time I was back from a weekend tournament, we're talking back to back 14 hour days of being on my feet running and sprinting around. I didn't need my phone, I could even articulate that to my friend but couldn't find it and I literally needed to be told to just go to bed, I was too tired to be able to make such a simple decision. It might be the thing that makes me feel most stupid about being autistic, I know I'm nto but that is how it makes me feel. That and really simple communication mishaps. Ugh.

I used to be absolutely horrible at executive function. Though, I didn't know what it was called back then. I was diagnosed with ADHD at around 25 and sought out a psychologist experienced in that to help me learn to function better. She was tremendously helpful to me! One of the things I learned is to accept that I won't remember things on my own. If I have an appointment, write it down. I use an online callender for everything now, including having alarms set within the calendar. And she said, if I needed to remember to bring something with me someplace, place it where I couldn't possibly avoid it - like right in front of the door. Or if I had to stop somewhere on my way to somewhere else, place an item on the dashboard to iritate me and remind me to stop. That was a long time ago. I'm 47 now. And am recently self-diagnosed with autism as well. And I have been using techniques like that for so long now that it is almost second nature to now. It makes life so much easier for me. That being said, I almost missed a very important appointment this week. An appointment to see a primary care physician for the first time in roughly 15 years. It was a BIG deal to me. I had it in my calendar. I had an additional alarm set. I went to bed thinking of it. And in the morning I woke up past the time that the alarm should have gone off. I looked at the alarm and realized that I had set it for the wrong day. It wasn't actually set for that morning at all! So, had I not woken up, by chance, on my own, at a time that I was not usually up, I would have missed this appointment completely. Which I almost did! I did make it to the appointment. But only by skipping taking care of my dog and my cats that morning. They didn't get breakfast until after I got back. (Which was fine, because it was earlier than we were usually up anyway.) But, still. If it had been an appointment that would have taken more time, I wouldn't have been able to get there by skiping feeding my pets first. (I still feel bad about making them wait.) This tells me that I am still very capable of messing up important things like that. This kind of mistake used to be very common for me. And I have actually missed many important things and been late to almost everything throughout my life. No matter how hard I tried. I was well known for that. I think I mostly don't notice much anymore because I do set so many reminders now. And because I've arranged my life so that I very rarely have anything to miss anymore. I know. That was long. But hey, that's how we on the autistic spectrum write. Detailed and long. So, at least I am at home here.

I have a version of that - I keep everything in a calendar just like you do, but I also have the further problem sometimes of knowing what I need to do, but being unable to make myself do it. It's like a giant boulder suddenly appears in my path and I just can't find a way over or around it or face tackling it at all. I think that's related to the Task Initiation aspect of Executive Functioning (or sometimes Task Switching). One strategy is to break down the first step into even smaller ones to find the very first tiny step I can make myself do -- grabbing a bit of momentum can get things back on track.

I don't have a diagnosis, but I've suspected that I may be on the spectrum for a couple of years. Executive functioning is the area I struggle with the most. Before I started researching and found out about executive disfunction I would describe it as my brain felt like it was "buffering." I get stuck between simple tasks and it feels like my brain is spinning -and then I end up feeling overwhelmed and I don't get anything done. Right now I need a marker board calendar, a pocket calendar, and a more general notebook to keep track of day to day stuff.

Using Google Calendar has really saved me. I have had ao many "fails" like the ones you shared, and using the electronic calendar, with lots of reminders, has helped. However, even with this tool, I have had important things slip. It's always a source of anxiety that I will forget something.

Some of The most stressful things for me would be having someone for dinner (what to make, what time to eat, do they like it, is it what would be expected etc etc) Same for pot-lucks. My mind goes blank and I get anxious when people ask what I can bring. Not sure why

Incredible. Until I started my journey down this rabbit hole, I was sure that everyone functioned like that, e.g. not getting appointments right without calenders. I remember, a few years ago, I was at a doctors office in the waiting room, which is right next to the reception, and a woman was asking for an appointment. She was offered a date (around three months waiting) and she just nodded. They asked her, if they should write it down for her...nope. I was completely awestruck. How could she remember, if she had free time that day? She surely would have at least forgetten the exact time when she got home, wouldn't she? Since then I've met so many other people who can do that. But how do they do that? HOW??? I can't even remember the time of the bus I need to take the next day, when it's new to me. And my memory is not that bad. I wrote several exams without extra studying at home (which might tell me something about how well I prioritize). Also, if there are too many tasks and I didn't take time to put them in order, I sometimes get kind of petrified. Like my cat, when my parents lifted a tarpaulin and several mice had made their home underneath it. The poor cat was so confused and before he could react... the mice had run away. :D

I was diagnosed just last Summer at the age of 29. Asperger's, ADD, Dysthymia (Persistent Depressive Disorder), Generalized Anxiety, and Executive Function Defecits. It's really helped me learn a lot more about myself and how my brain works. A good example of my defecits in executive function is when gift shopping for my wife. She does a great job. Very creative and thoughtful gift ideas. For me, I just get paralyzed by the options and am unable to make a decision. She tells me "You've known me for 10 years, you should know what I like by now!" But when it comes to Fashion for example, there are so many hundreds of different brands, styles, colors. I wouldn't want to pick the wrong thing! If I walked into a Macy's, I wouldn't even know where to start. Clothes? Do I get her a shirt? pants? dress? Summer outfit or something for work? Maybe shoes? Does she want flats? sandals? heels? boots? moccasins? Jewelry is tough. I know she likes diamonds (what girl doesn't?), but do I get a bracelet? ring? earrings? Necklace? You get the idea. I do much better when she gives me a wishlist of a bunch of things that she might want, then I just grab from that list.

This basically just explained everything I’ve been struggling with my entire life, especially the past three years which is when life has gotten very chaotic.. what to do about it…

I have ASD and ADHD, so for me what I find to be worse about EDys is my very rigid, routine driven, logical ASD side getting so upset when my ADHD gremlin rears it's head and blows up any kind of routine or organisation 🤷🏼‍♀️

This came at the perfect time for me; I've been thinking about this exact problem and your explanation helped so much. I recently made a really simple but big mistake planning a trip even though I was going through every single detail and part of the issue was that once I think something is settled I turn it off so that I don't keep going over it. Most of the time it's great but it can lead to some big misses. In terms of strategies, I also use my calendar—if it's not in there it doesn't exist. Day-to-day I use so many timers and alarms. I'm constantly telling Siri to remind me about things later so that I can turn it off in my brain. This is also a big part of why going out without planning stresses me out; it means I have to recheck a bunch of things that I've already assigned a time and space to. Thank you so much for this insight.

This is literally the reason why my therapist came to the conclusion I have autism. Executive function is the worst struggle in my life atm. My working memory can be as low as 1s. That's why calendars are mostly useless to me, because it takes more than one second to make an entry. If I have more than one task with the same priority I return to default mode and do none of them. Makes it look like I'm lazy. This got worse at work, when my teamleader got promoted to groupleader and I didn't have a direct contact telling me what to do next. For programmers: I'm a while loop kinda guy, less a foreach one. I just want to say "next" instead of knowing everything in advance. Although I prefer foreach when writing code^^ In terms of organizing, my whole life is a mess. My whole (private) desk is a big junkyard. The flat too, but a gf with adhd doesn't help there either. I need really strong incentives or triggers to start doing something around the house. Making decisions is also immensly stressful. Most of my current clothes are almost a decade old, because shopping is a nightmare. I often need several hours, sometimes days to recover from just shopping. Online shopping isn't much better either. I don't think I possess a single t-shirt that's bought by myself. It's all just presents from other people. And most of them have moth holes... Same with food. I don't have a dishwasher, so I only cook one-pot meals and eat from that same pot to not have any dishes to clean. On the bright side, I have started taking ADHD meds. They've reduced anxiety, increased motivation and help me to do, what I want to do. It was eye opening to finally be able to just execute a function I intended. It's like I've been given back controls to my character again.

I use my phone calendar, but then write a wall calendar for my husband and a dry erase calendar for my daughter. Pretty sure we all have ASD but my daughter is the only one diagnosed. Calendars always work great for us until they don't 😅 Usually it takes something emotional, a family emergency, a meltdown, etc. and the calendar gets erased for a day or 2. We can only do what we can do!

I can definitely relate. A lot of times, Aspergers will present as things like OCD, with the triple-checking stuff. I can also relate to the fact that if I don't constantly check my calendar, I'm prone to forgetting to do things, going to appts, etc.

I am naturally very bad with executive functioning. This is what I do that helps. For work, I use my phone calendar and check it the night before. For other areas of my life such as health/fitness, errands, relationships, projects, etc, I use a different notebook for each and put it in a different part of the house. I use only felt tip black pens to write (using different types of pens changes my mental focus too much). In the bedroom I have a dream journal.(remembering my dreams somehow helps me keep track of what's meaningful; which helps with prioritizing), When I clean the house, different things I want to do pop into my mind. I write them down on a paper that I've divided into 6 sections. Each section represents a different category. Besides work, I use my feelings to determine when it's time to do something. I decide based on balancing out how I feel. I also imagine different life categories as cups that are full, half full or empty. Then I picture different categories and feel where they are. This helps me prioritize as well. I love to zone out and go into creative modes. I use a timer for that.

I go through phases of being really good at executive function. I constantly know when an appointment is coming up, I can keep track of what day it is, I am aware of all the projects that are currently in progress and I don't need to write down one single thing. I don't even need shopping lists during those times. But then I start to spiral into autistic burnout and executive function is the first to go. That shit just takes way to much energy. And I can't seem to figure out a way to make it less energy intensive, because a calender just means one more project to maintain and when my executive function is crumbling I don't manage to check and, what's even worse, fill in the calendar anymore. The best calendar with the best notification system can't help you if it dosn't know when you need the reminders.

I set alarms in my mobile phone: one 24hrs earlier, another half an hour previously and another ten minutes earlier, for birthdays (even mine!), dates and any compromise. I make lists of everything. I thought that a fail on executive function makes you lazy.

Prior to watching this video, based on the title, I thought it wouldn't apply to me in any way, but after watching it I found it completely relates to me. In my work as a courier I am very logically organized and my time is something I've mapped out throughout the day. The result is productive and efficient. At home I keep three calendars updated daily to remember important events because without them I would be lost and end up disappointing myself and others. I also use family group chat to organize get togethers where everyone can contribute, then there is a written record we can use to go back on, who's bringing what as an example. It works very well. Thank you for making these videos!