The Essays

The Wonders of the Executive Dysfunction

Executive dysfunction is real.

And it's a beast.

Nothing is more frustrating than having some alarm going off in your head 24 hours a day and completely ignoring it for no apparent reason. And it's not like you don't have the means or intentions to turn it off. No, you are very capable and very willing. In fact, you'd give anything to turn it off, desperate, even, sometimes.

You just... Don't?

You sit there across the room, glancing at the big red button that will make it all, the blaring horns, the flashing red lights, the thoughts in your head that are screaming at you to do SOMETHING, go away.

But you sit. You sip your coffee and turn a page on your People magazine and act like it doesn't exist.

You sit there, knowing that this growing anxiety inside you will never go away and no matter how much you distract it, it's still gonna be there when you get off TikTok. It's still gonna be there when you finish that third bowl of stress ice-cream. It's still gonna be there when you get home from a friend's house. It's still gonna be there when you wake up and realize you wasted an entire day ignoring the one action that could fix everything.

But no matter how much you try and force yourself, you don't do it.

You have no idea why, but you don't.

You have a key to a door, and on the other side of the door is a million dollars, but your feet are rooted to the ground and your arms aren't long enough to get to the knob.

This is what executive dysfunction feels like.

I struggle with it everyday.

Right now, I'm writing this because of executive dysfunction. My anxiety because of executive dysfunction is so massive right now, that I had the choice between writing or having a breakdown.

I chose this.

Because somewhere inside of me, I'm hoping that this fixes it. I'm hoping that if I sit here and write long enough, something will click in my head and my feet will suddenly come unglued from the floor, I'll run across the distance to the door, unlock it and become a millionaire.

Of course, I guess this is just another distraction. People would assume that being productive couldn't count as a distraction because it's being proactive or whatever.

When it comes to executive dysfunction, that's not the case. Anything can be a distraction. Anything can be a problem. This essay will join the long line of items on the list, along with TikTok and Ice-cream.

If you aren't doing the thing that you know you should be doing, then it's a distraction.

It's currently 12:54am on a Sunday morning in December, 2020. I have been avoiding this for about a month now. My anxiety grows everyday, my guilt is like a constant state.

I know what I need to do.

I've been a Christian for as long as I've been able to crawl. I've been raised to bring God all of my problems and to accept his forgiveness and love that he has for me. This should be no different, yet I feel helpless to even start walking in that direction.

I want to badly to push that button. I want to stop this nonsense and bring God all of this. I want the alarms to stop ringing in my head, I grow tired of the red flashing lights, and I'm almost bonkers from the thoughts that never go away, telling me 'GET UP!'

So yes, to those of you who've never experienced it and think it's not real: Sucks. I've had a great system for dealing with these anxieties and problems before, yet executive dysfunction throws all of that out the window and basically says, "ok, now let's see how you do if you can't do any of that anymore."

It's very real. It hurts and it's frustrating.

It's not just "Well, why don't you just go do it?"

You think we haven't thought of that yet???

It's a deeper issue. It's a harder issue.

It goes down into the deepest parts of ourselves and sometimes our arms aren't long enough to reach.

But there's always hope right? I still hope that every morning, I'll wake up and be fixed, even though everyday so far has proven me wrong, I still hope that today will be the day. I'm gonna wake up and I'll have that motivation to do all of these things that I know will make me happier. That first step I need to take will finally happen and It'll all just be uphill from there.

I hope that it happens one day.

It's got to, right?

Until then, you can find me here,

sipping my coffee,

scrolling on TikTok,

and glaring at that stupid button that just won't seem to shut up.