#functionally dysfunctional

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

yay water

time to drink water woo hoo yay

[reasonsforhope]

Workbooks to improve executive functioning

Since the post I made last night about improving executive functioning was so popular, I figured I should pull these out of my comments and give them their own post, in case it's helpful for people.

I have worked with the publishers of all of the books linked below and can vouch for their psychology books. The publisher of most of them, New Harbinger, is an extremely credible evidence-based psychology publisher.

Obvious disclaimer that everyone's brain is different and what works for someone else may not work for you.

Is there evidence that executive functioning can be improved? Yes. This book appears to be a very thorough overview of the field, and contains both advocates and detractors of cognitive training, for a balanced perspective. From the table of contents, I would really recommend jumping straight to Part 3: Developmental Perspectives for executive functioning (EF) writ large.

Certain therapy modalities are specifically designed for skill-building in areas like impulsivity, decision-making, emotional regulation, and cognitive flexibility, all of which are EF skills or very dependent on EF skills. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is probably the best field to look at for these - skill-building in those areas is its core goal.

Some DBT workbooks:

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Teens

There are also a lot of workbooks for ADHD that are sometimes more broad but also can help with executive functioning:

The Adult ADHD and Anxiety Workbook: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Skills to Manage Stress, Find Focus, and Reclaim Your Life

The CBT Workbook for Adult ADHD: Evidence-Based Exercises to Improve Your Focus, Productivity, and Wellbeing

The Neurodivergence Skills Workbook for Autism and ADHD

General executive functioning workbooks:

The Executive Functioning Workbook for Teens

Executive Functioning Workbook for Adults: Exercises to Help You Get Organized, Stay Focused, and Achieve Your Goals

Hope these are helpful to someone!!

[chaoswiththeprettyspine]

The fact of why all the batkids are like that can be easily explained by their sibling status. Most of them were only children for a big chunk of their lives, and then got turned into middle kids in the span of roughly 4 years.

Dick is obviously an exception but hes the eldest so that carries its own issues. My guy was an only child til 19 and then in the span of 8 (ish?) years he had like 5 to 8 younger siblings. No wonder he's a moment away from losing it at all times.

Jason was an only child til 12, then a younger sibling (barely, Dick was never home and didn't really talk to him, I'm counting that as only child time too) and then when he came back, he had like 3 new younger siblings and a suddenly very involved older brother. The whole under the red hood business? Middle child behaviour.

Tim was an independent only child til 13, a younger brother for like 3 years max (time is wonky here cus dc won't let him age) and then a chaotic middle child with a vendetta at 17. Of course he just does what he wants, no one ever fucking stopped him BEFORE.

Duke had the unfortunate luck to go from 15 years of only child treatment to immediately being a middle. I would cry.

Same with Cass. Only till 17, then immediately middle.

The other exception is Damian who was treated as a prince and the only heir to the demon throne for 10 years and then suddenly he was sent off to bumfuck New Jersey, to a house of disfunction. I personally love the hc that Jason was like a brother to him back at the league, so he's either like that cus he was an only child and then a youngest OR he was always the youngest. Both options explain A LOT.

I'm including Steph even if she's not strictly in the family. Imagine you're an only child for 16 years, you start dating a guy with the most dysfunctional family you have ever seen, they try to indoctrinate you, you resist, but now you kinda have 8 siblings against your will.

Also Barbara. Girly dated a guy, and depending on the comic she either stayed in the family business permanently or broke up w the guy and STILL stayed permanently. Icon. I do think she is more like a cousin who knows too much about the family drama to not be part of it, but still.

[saltywinteradult]

i don't know who needs to hear this but do not listen to the voice in your head telling you you don't need to prepare tomorrow's breakfast or pick out tomorrow's outfit tonight. don't listen when it tells you you'll have time to do that tomorrow morning. that is the voice of the devil talking. do not listen.

[stiffyck]

shoutout to agent stone for being the prettiest man alive

[autism-affirmations]

[aardvaark]

all i want from the next episode of leverage redemption is for parker and astrid’s conflict to be played as though it’s a ridiculously intense sibling rivalry. not the whole episode, clearly it’s gonna get a lot more dramatic, but just a couple of comedic moments where parker is seething at having to share her mother figure with her kind-of-ex-nemesis. parker has gotten a little used to being mom’s (sophie’s) favorite child through the years and she does NOT want a new interpol agent sister.

[ironwoman359]

I had this video idea and felt like tumblr would appreciated a lot more than tiktok, so here you go. Do things the easy way.

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

I’ve never met context. Seems like a fun guy

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

You Are Not Lazy

Executive dysfunction often looks like laziness from the outside. There's so much more to the story.

What It Looks Like: What It Really Is:

Lazy — Overstimulated

Distracted — Understimulated

Inconsiderate — Exhausted

Unmotivated. — Burntout

Irresponsible — Depressed

Stubborn — Anxious

Disorganized — Overwhelmed

Careless — Lacking Support

Impatient — Fear of Failure

Indifferent — Afraid to Ask Questions

Uncaring — Questions

Stupid — Trouble Getting Started

Rude — Uninterested

Thoughtless — Time Blindness

Inconsistent — Time Blindness

Unobservant — Uninterested

Absent Minded — Difficulty Switching Tasks

Self Love Rainbow

[3liza]

I didn't want to reblog this actual thread because my sidetracking doesn't need to be on a good and helpful mental health post. BUT. I wanted to ask anyone who has noticed the same thing I have about this topic: why do you think this kind of therapy does not work on the very large percentage of autistic people that it does not work on, including myself. many professionals and laymen have tried this tried-and-true method of subverting depression on me and I will just argue back, and I will have more reasoned arguments than they will. and I will engage with their question ("why do you feel that way") and the proceeding argument in good faith, but the therapist will not be prepared to advance past the professional Jedi mind trick of just telling me my extremely studied reasons for thinking a certain way aren't rational and should simply be abandoned. they don't have any more rabbits in the hat after that. so what the fuck

[morganbritton132]

Me, laying in bed at seven o’clock: In the grand scheme of things, does spending $100 on yarn really matter?

[stiltonbasket]

“familial affection, guilt, and extreme possessiveness” - that RULES. Shen jiu is such a shaken bag of cats, anything he feels will be expressed in a new and disastrous way. I have to say, i missed the extreme possessiveness given him giving up her body so easily—how does this possessiveness end up manifesting in him? And the other feelings? Loving this au, thanks so much for letting us pick your brain!

Shen Jiu's possessiveness takes different forms with different people. With QHT!Shen Yuan, he acknowledges the fact that "she" doesn't want to belong to him; and when she chooses Luo Binghe in death, Shen Jiu accepts her decision and decides not to recover her body from him. While she was alive, his possessiveness generally manifested as aggression towards fellow disciples who showed interest in her--he knew that Shen Yuan never returned their interest, so he took immense pleasure in "punishing" their unwanted advances until they backed off. (Shen Yuan was never aware of this, though Yue Qingyuan was.)

The guilt usually comes out as acquiescence to her wishes, and the familial affection as a desire for company and conversation (which he no longer receives, unless he and Shen Yuan are fighting about something).

Conversely, some part of Shen Jiu believes that he owns Yue Qingyuan, regardless of the latter's wishes. This is why he keeps Shen Yuan after Yue Qingyuan's death in my fic Phoenix Chick in the Cuckoo's Nest--he was functionally banned from visiting YQY's grave, so he takes Shen Yuan (Yue Qingyuan's son) in place of a piece of Yue Qingyuan's physical body; he would gladly have kept one of YQY's bones if he had the chance to do so.

[mohntilyet]

the meet the family epilogue drawings continue ft. the laidirs

[sch-com]

my executive function model

I've heard the term "executive dysfunction" thrown quite a lot online, but I couldn't really pinpoint what exactly it means. I decided I first need to understand what executive function is first in order to make sense of it.

After some research (not a lot so take it with a big grain of salt) and self-reflection I developed an executive function model to better understand where I struggle and where I excel.

I identified 8 executive functions, split into primary and secondary, and defined how they interact with each other.

I created a diagram that illustrates and summarizes this model, kind of a tldr. The information from the diagram is described in the text in this post though. At the end of the post is an example of how this model applies to me specificaly.

core executive functions

Those I kept the same as in the research I did, as they seem to be more widely agreed upon.

Inhibitory control - suppressing inappropriate behavior, resisting distractions and urges, emotional control

Working memory - holding, recalling, and manipulating information, mental juggling

Cognitive flexibility - switching tasks, shifting attention, tolerating change, letting go of stuck thoughts

secondary executive functions

Those are more adjusted to fit my personal experience, and are in the sequence it which I personaly engage in activities.

Strategic analysis - understanding the problem, reasoning, generating solutions, predicting outcomes; you need to analyze the problem and generate what can be done about it

Decision-making - balancing risk, reward, and long-term outcomes, deciding on course of action; you need to then compare and decide on one of the courses of action from the generated ones

Planning and organization - planning, organizing, breaking tasks into steps, time estimation, prioritizing; once you know what you want to do, you have to plan the actual actionable steps of it, place when you will do them, in what sequence

Action initiation - getting started on tasks, overcoming inertia, avoiding procrastination; you actually need to follow through the plan, go and do the thing you planned

Self-monitoring - monitoring progress, noticing when you're off-task or overwhelmed, error detection, adjusting behavior, self-assessment; once doing the thing, you need to monitor yourself on how you're doing on the task but also notice if something else hasn't become more important

how they interact

The primary executive functions support the secondary, they are like building blocks of them:

1. Inhibitory control

Strategic analysis: prevents rushing to conclusions; allows pause and reflection before jumping to solutions

Decision-making: suppresses impulsive or emotionally-driven choices; supports delay of gratification

Planning and organization: helps avoid distractions when building plans and ignore irrelevant details

Action initiation: inhibits avoidance behaviors or urges to delay ("I’ll do it later")

Self-monitoring: suppresses defensive reactions to noticing errors; allows recalibration

2. Working memory

Strategic analysis: holds problem details, relevant knowledge, and potential solutions in mental space

Decision-making: maintains multiple options, their pros/cons, and predicted outcomes to compare

Planning and organization: tracks task steps, sequences, and dependencies during mental planning.

Action initiation: remembers what the task is and how to begin — even after delays or distractions

Self-monitoring: holds the original goal or plan in mind while checking current performance against it.

3. Cognitive flexibility

Strategic analysis: allows consideration of alternative problem framings or novel solutions

Decision-making: enables reevaluation of options and openness to changing course

Planning and organization: helps adjust plans dynamically if priorities shift or obstacles arise

Action initiation: Supports shifting mental state from rest to task-engaged mode

Self-monitoring: helps switch strategies mid-task, revise expectations, or tolerate outcomes that don’t go as expected

my personal application

Firstly, out of the three core executive functions my weakest one is working memory. I am quite good at the other two though.

Going off that profile of my primary executive functions, I perform as below in the secondary executive functions:

Strategic analysis - I excel at it. My high cognitive flexibility allows me to see a lot of options, and inhibition allows me to focus on analysing a problem for a long time. I compensate for my low working memory by writing things down, visualizing them etc.

Decision-making - I am rather bad at it. After I analyse the problem to its smallest components and generate lots of ideas in the first step, there are a lot of details to keep in mind when comparing them, and this is where my poor working memory struggles. I also have problems with confidence in my decisions, since I can so clearly see so many options possible and their consequences after my analysis.

Planning and organization - another area I am good at, because I can write things down or draw them out thus compensating for my bad working memory. Inhibition allows me to be realistic with my plan, and cognitive flexibility allows me to adapt it to the actual needs.

Action initiation - a real bottleneck in my process. At this stage I usually have so many details I can be easily overwhelmend with my poor working memory. Also it involves deciding to do the thing, and we already know I struggle with decisions. My high inhibition may also cause a lot of hesitation here.

Self-monitoring - I am moderately good at it. I can struggle with keeping the original goal of the task in mind because of poor working memory, but can manage if it's cleary defined and written down. High congnitive flexibility allows me to adjust my actions according to the performance, and inhibition allows me to avoid distractions and reflect without becoming emotional.

As you can see from this picture, I clearly can benefit the most from using various visual aids and allowing myself to "think on paper" rather than forcing myself to hold everything in my brain. I just seem to have small RAM, but my processor is quite strong.

[butchoscar]

It’s almost like severely shaming people who struggle with self hygiene because of mental illness or sensory issues isn’t going to make it easier for them to do those things. Fuckssake.