Comment by derektank

I do need to push back because I think what you're describing here is an emotional dysfunction, not an executive dysfunction, and I think the former really is a nearly universal experience to some degree or another. Maybe not all the time but certainly some of the time.

I had never experienced this exact scenario before my thirties but I ran into an exceptionally busy period in my life where I found myself overwhelmed with tasks and accidentally ignored my credit cards for a couple months. I eventually realized this, but I put it off for at least another month, even though every other day I was thinking about it and I wanted to solve the problem, knowing it was an easy problem to fix and that I had the time to solve it despite being busy. The reason I didn't was because of fear, the dread of the unknown (how bad were the overage charges going to be?) but also a fear of being faced with such an obvious failure, even though objectively I knew the loss would be trivial.

I think this drives most forms of procrastination, certainly everyone I've talked to about it (parents, friends, coworkers) describe it in similar words, comparing it to the anticipation of touching a hot stove, etc.