What to Do When ADHD Sends Your Day Off the Rails

October is ADHD awareness month.

In the 20+ years since I was first diagnosed with ADHD, I’ve developed several strategies to hone my attention and get things done.

Sometimes, those strategies don’t work. For whatever reason, my brain is highly distractable. Those days often feel like they are off the rails.

I completely lose track of time during my transition time between activities. I’ll sit in the car for an extra hour, on my phone, searching for something online.

I become highly indecisive about the most mundane things.

I need new charging cables. It becomes a research project.

What to eat for dinner becomes a decision that takes so long that sometimes I don’t even eat.

My attention is so scattered that I even struggle to maintain a distraction for very long.

Get lost in a black hole of YouTube? Not in this state. I can hardly focus on a 2-minute video.

On days like these, putting words together coherently to make sentences is hard, whether I’m writing or just having conversation with someone.

It can feel like everything is getting derailed.

So what can you do when this happens?

Here’s what I’ve learned works best for me:

I surrender to it.

Yup. Surrender.

I try my best not to berate myself or judge myself for it.

I don’t try to “get back on track.”

I don’t try to “fix the problem.”

I accept that this is how it is right now. This is what my brain needs.

I’ve noticed that the more time my brain spends trying to fit into the cult of traditional “productivity” norms, the more I experience these “derailments.”

I’ve learned that when my brain sends me off the rails, it’s fatigued.

The brain is a muscle. Trying to keep it focused for too long is like walking around for hours with your arm in a permanent bicep curl.

Nobody would do this with any other muscle.

So I let it be. I don’t try to force it to do anything.

Surrender is one of the hardest lessons to integrate.

It’s taken me a long time to get to this place of not trying to fix it or make it wrong.

Instead of trying to force myself to be “productive” or attentive, and instead of devolving into self-blame and self-criticism, I medicate with a heavy dose of self-compassion.

I do my best to rest my brain and give it what it needs.

Some days, that’s all you can do.

Always, that’s enough.

Surrender.

Self-compassion.

And start again tomorrow.