extraordinary-arbiter-bluebird:
Laziness: I’d rather sit here than pick up those clothes
Executive Dysfunction: I need to pick up those clothes I need to pick up those clothes why am I still watching this thing on Netflix while sitting down c’mon stand up I need to pick up those clothes I need to pick up those clothes I need to-
The Kind Of Actual Pathology-of-Motivation Associated With Major Depressive Disorder*: I know I need to pick up those clothes, and if I don’t pick up those clothes my quality of life will continue to decline, and theoretically the consequences of picking up those clothes are ones I don’t want, and if I don’t pick up those clothes they will get wrinkled and dirty again and I won’t have clean clothes to wear, but my life is an undifferentiated mass of grey and despite knowing all of these things I cannot actually make myself fucking care I will just stay here and stare at the clothes while Netflix plays until it stops. And tell myself how fucking lazy, stupid and useless I am because if I weren’t I would realize that I need to pick up those clothes and make myself do it. This is totally fine.
[yes, this is actually separate from executive dysfunction; it’s also a symptom of illness, a potentially really serious one, and tends to spring from complications due to anhedonia, or lack of the ability to experience positive stimuli] [it is also often COMORBID – that is, happening at the same time – with executive dysfunction]
Can you expand on how “i just can’t care” is different from “lazy”? Is it the internal ability to care, that it’s just lacking, whereas with laziness you have the capacity to do the thing, you just choose not to. I’m having trouble with cementing the actual explanation. Laziness is a values thing and the rest is a base-functionality thing?
In terms of what I meant, the crux there is cannot make myself.
Say I’m being lazy with my afternoon, and someone I know comes in and says, “You need to stop being lazy and do the thing, or Bad Consequence will happen.” And the consequence is genuinely bad.
For instance, say I’m Not Cleaning the Kitchen and someone comes to me and says, “You need to clean the kitchen or you’re going to get ants”. And they’re even right.
If I’m being lazy, and I agree that now that I think about it, ants aren’t good, I don’t want ants, I kick my own ass, get up and clean the kitchen. This is based on the ability of my brain to literally experience a Reward, a Positive State, from having a cleaner kitchen and not having ants.
If I’m having catastrophic anhedonic motivation failure? That doesn’t work. It’s not that I want to stay on the couch more than I don’t want to have ants. It’s that I can’t make myself care about EITHER state because it’s all fucking horrible. Nothing gets better. I might as well fucking have ants. I deserve ants. Look at me I can’t even fucking keep my kitchen clean I don’t even WANT my kitchen clean obviously since I’m still lying here so fuck it, I’ll just lie here and have ants. Oh look now I have ants. Isn’t that fantastic proof of how fucking awful I am.
Of course the entire thing is usually not that articulated in the brain, you know? This whole thing is an example. Usually it’s more like:
Laziness: … meh put away clothes later.
Executive Dysfunction: *want to put away clothes* *constantly stall on the initial cognitive step of How To Put Away Clothes* *get more and more distressed/stressed about not putting away clothes* *keep stalling* *cry*
Anhedonic Lack of Motivation: *lie there. stare at clothes. know clothes should probably go away. can even think of whole set of steps to put away clothes.* *cannot fucking feel anything about putting away clothes* *stalls out forever in pit of ‘why do i even fucking bother i should lie here and rot’* *uses fact that clothes have not been put away as evidence*But the original form is pithier and has better rhythm.
So, it looks the same to a third party, but it feels/behaves differently on the inside
Well yes. They ALL look the same to a third party, at least casually – that’s the point.
If you know the person it’s pretty easy to see the difference (the general aura of misery and disinterest in anything else in the universe is a big hint).
This is something I wish was more widely understood. Executive dysfunction has become known about in my irl circles and while there’s definitely one or two for which this a problem most of the rest seem to use it as an explanation for the symptoms of unmanaged depression. As a society we are really bad at recognising the flat, empty, grey gaping maw that eats time and quietly lets us ruin our lives through neglectful apathy. Because that’s laziness, right? So I can understand wanting an explanation that doesn’t relegate blame. The problem is the most easily accessible, without further stigma (eg. depression as a moral failing) is an incorrect one, and genuinely unhelpful. Not the same strategies to address, plus depression can use more brain broken to feed to ifs narrative of I Hate You.
I mean: executive dysfunction is also a symptom of depression, and like I noted they’re often very much comorbid. I have had whole periods where what made my life fall apart was the total demise of my executive function.
But yes, executive dysfunction and anhedonic lack of motivation are actually different things, and they also require different things to fix.
And gods yeah, I think that the way that anhedonia – the actual impairment or destruction of your ability to experience positive emotions and stimulus – is something that needs way, way more attention, w/r/t how it works and how it affects your ability to function.
i wonder if theres such a thing as a disconnect between the action and the reward–as in you do feel a reward from doing something, it’s just that while you’re not doing it you sort of can’t believe in or don’t care about the reward? and so it doesn’t seem worth doing, but then if you do somehow get forced or just do it in a random fit of motivation the reward does happen, it’s not gone.
Fuck yeah! The brain reward system is a major problem in most disorders of motivation and executive function. Sciency links:
The brain reward circuitry in mood disorders
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