Can we talk about executive dysfunction?

I feel like this absence of function is everywhere!

On reels about Adult ADHD to menopause to thyroid conditions, to depression, anxiety – the list goes on.

The proliferation of social media content sharing symptoms with clickbait titles like, “Sure signs you have trauma-informed . . . insert syndrome here”, clarify some things for us, giving us those, oh that’s why I do that moments. But they also can make us (me, we’re talking about me – maybe you, too) paranoid, thinking we have every flipping struggle under the sun.

While the A-ha moments can make our lives easier, especially if we take our new questions and epiphanies to our therapist to work through them and integrate tactics into behaviors and routines, most of these posts offer no solutions – just a new title to add to our tally of neuroses.

I read an interesting article this week positing that while such posts have helped decrease the stigma surrounding mental health via awareness and exposure, mental health practitioners aren’t 100% appreciative. The phenomenon of ‘therapy-speak’, this widespread use of therapy vernacular, has assigned mental health diagnoses to non-clinical behaviors by untrained people.

“Mental health professionals urge, you should embrace nuance and avoid pathologizing normal – albeit annoying or painful – behavior.”

Allie Volpe, “The Limits of Therapy-Speak” in Vox

Enter my paranoia (and my comment about bringing such concerns to a trained therapist).

I’m not walking around diagnosing my friends or strangers on the street, but more than one of those reels has given me pause with my own concerns.

Which brings us back to Executive Dysfunction (and yes, I see the irony in my sidebar).

When a Gen Xer such as myself was raised in a people-pleasing, perfectionistic-inducing atmosphere, it may have been easy to mask symptoms of ADHD. And just like my depression didn’t fully manifest – or become a real f*$%ing problem – until my third postpartum go round, I’ve been able to function and keep all.the.plates.spinning – until now. A friend, helping to manage her own child’s ADHD and discovering her own possible similarities, found in her research that women approaching and going through menopause is the largest group of new diagnoses for the disorder.

Now, my people-pleasing, perfectionist tendencies (see above) doth protest. I’m not having a problem functioning, says the woman with unfinished tasks all over the house. I don’t have a problem managing, says the woman who is running late to every single event she attends.

And those freaking reels do not help, with their peppy, easily digestible, eye-candy way of pointing things out.

But how much is a lack of executive dysfunction and how much is the untenable expectations put on modern mothers? How much is the lingering effects of a global pandemic? How much is my lack of sleep? My wonky thyroid? My anxious tendency to flee from the overwhelming? How much is the reality of four freaking kids and their often inattentive attitude to my pleas for help? The very people-pleasing, perfectionist feeling I have to, promising to, do all. the. things?

The answer likely lies right in the middle.

But that’s not something I can suss out all by myself. And I suppose that’s the point.

Not only would my executive dysfunction likely not let me (insert self-deprecating laugh here), I am not the professional trained for that job.