I can tell the difference between laziness and avolition. Laziness is predominant in my behavior with avolition coming in a distant second. But I CAN say the laziness has its roots in my earlier long term treatment—Sitting around smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee all day with many trips to the bathroom and an occasional trip to the psychoanalyst. For thirteen years, nothing to do all day but that. A television was on all day in the dayroom which nobody watched. I call that a time of character erosion. I get lazy after a meal. Avolition is difficult to deal with. You’re turning away from things. How do you explain your behavior to other people? Avolition might also be caused by medication.
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Perhaps it could be extended as will vs motivation.
They are pretty close. Perhaps laziness is choosing not to do something and avolition is when you simply can’t
Good post. I hadn’t really looked closely at this before.
Luckily I don’t feel to much of either.
For me the laziness is symptom and the lack of motivation is from depression. Its difficult sometimes to decipher between the too.
on my old med it was very restrictive,
i didnt want to sit on my butt but i was tranqued up to the eye balls
the meds are a depressant which means they dull you down, slow your breathing, relax you
off meds idk what i would do, probably have more energy that i couldnt cope with
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After I read your post,I think I had more avolition
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Yeah there’s a difference between laziness and avolition.
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I don’t believe that there is such thing as “Laziness”. I think people don’t take action because of a number of reasons - but there are good rasons… The reasons may be negative symptoms, or depression, or a belief that if you do make effort that it won’t make any difference… or it won’t work out, etc.
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For me it is hard to tell the difference . I do know I am more likely to do something if I don’t feel overwhelmed by the process of doing it. It can be hard for me to motivate myself to do certain things because of the difficulty with organising/planning and getting the sequence of actions right.
Ask me to arrange a party and I would flounder but sit me with a knife and ask me to butter bread for the party and I’ll manage that fine. I would back away from the former as it would overwhelm me but willingly help with the latter.
On my own housework over faces me but if given a small part to concentrate on whilst being helped with the overall process then I am better able to cope.
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What szadmin was saying I think is right on.
It’s just that at the exact time that we have to make these decisions the chemical make up in our brains just isn’t there so we make the wrong decision or more likely we don’t decide at all.
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I want to believe I can still be lazy… don’t want to see all my (lack of) behaviour in terms of symtpoms really, but it is hard to tell the difference for me. I’m just worried that if I settle for avolition as a symptom I give up on even trying.
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agreed.
theres times where i just dont give a sh!t, ill still get things done not because i want to but cos i feel i have to. think thought process is also a major factor as well
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Just like any symptoms - they can be minimized through focused effort. For some people it might be a medications change, for others maybe something simple like getting an activity partner to go out with daily for a walk, for others it might be a nutritional supplement like sarcosine, which seems to help with this type of thing:
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