Executive Dysfunction

"You need to do the thing."

"I know."

"Then get up to do the thing."

"I can't."

"You want to do the thing though?"

"I know."

"Then just do the thing."

"I can't."

My body is a carefully crafted prison all my own. My brain is a traitor, my jailor, keeping me carefully trapped with no escape. My very skin is a cage customized to keep me inside, everything just out of reach, so tantalizingly out of reach.

The thing about executive dysfunction, everything happens out of the eyes of those around you. Internally I am screaming, fighting, begging myself to move. Internally I am beating against the cage that takes the shape of my own body, created by my own brain. My mind is a revolving door of pleading, begging, and cursing so loud it’s probably best no one else can hear it happening.

All my family sees at home is my prone body glued to the couch, mindlessly scrolling through different apps. They see me relaxing, and lazing about, like I have not a care in the world. They see me wasting time, and assume I am purposefully avoiding my responsibilities, when that could not be further from the truth.

What they do not see, what they do not understand, is that inside I am screaming, I am fighting with everything that I have. There is nothing relaxing about sitting on that couch. They move around me oblivious to the battleground that is my head, so loud I’m surprised they can’t hear it.

I want to do the things I have to do, I really do, but sometimes I simply cannot.

It’s never that I don’t want to, because more often than not I want to so bad it almost hurts, but it’s that my brain and body will not let me.

When I am on that couch, my bones are made of lead, my body weighing so much I’m surprised it can hold the weight. When I am on that couch, I am quite literally immobilized. That couch is not my friend, that couch is an extension of the prison that I find myself trapped in all too often.

Do people not understand that no one in this world is more annoyed and disappointed with me than myself?

If you’re angry, I guarantee I am angrier. If you are frustrated, I guarantee it is nothing compared to what I am feeling. If you are feeling let down, it does not hold a candle to the way that I feel. I am being betrayed by my own body, time and again. Every task takes everything out of me most days, no matter how big or small.

Imagine wanting to do something so badly, so much so it physically hurts, and someone keeps you right in front of the thing that would alleviate all of your pain, but they don’t let you near it. You can see it, you can almost touch it, but they keep you restrained just far enough away. Now imagine people yelling at you for not being able to get to it, imagine them calling you a disappointment, and lazy, and unmotivated when it’s not your fault.

There’s someone retraining you! How can they say all these things, can’t they see someone is keeping you from getting to it? Well, no, they can’t. The restraints are invisible, so even though you are trying your very hardest, all they see is you not moving. They see you standing in front of the thing you want, they see you talk about how much you want it, but they see that you are making no effort to get to it. They assume that you just don’t want it badly enough, when in reality you feel like you can’t breathe without it.

That’s what it’s like to live with executive dysfunction. Executive dysfunction has stolen so much from me, why in the world would I be doing it on purpose?