This Is What It Is

t’s not that you don’t know what you need to do. You do. You’ve replayed the steps in your head a hundred times. The tasks are familiar, and the path is clear — at least in theory. But something inside you hesitates at the exact moment when thinking should become doing. And you can’t explain it, not even to yourself, why such simple steps feel like climbing a mountain in fog.

This is not laziness, but a breakdown between intention and execution. A short-circuit that turns pressure into paralysis. Your body stalls, your brain stalls. And shame, which knows this routine all too well, walks in uninvited and settles in before breakfast.

You end up doing something that doesn’t matter, just to feel like you’re doing something. You scroll, you snack, clean the edge of a shelf while avoiding the work that truly needs to be done. It is self-sabotage. But it’s also a desperate form of self-preservation, a way to get through the hour without collapsing entirely. And it works. Until it doesn’t.

This is how people disappear from their own lives without ever meaning to. How a life gets filled with tasks that were never the point, how weeks pass in a blur of trying to feel okay without ever getting to what actually matters.

And the worst part is: you do care. You care more than people think. You want to show up. You want to do better. And in many ways, you already are. Because the truth is, no matter how much chaos there is in your head, you’re still here. Still fighting. Still trying to do the right thing with a brain that makes everything feel like uphill.

And let’s not forget: people with ADHD know how to survive. We know how to fight. We’ve had to. Not because we wanted to be warriors, but because life doesn’t slow down for brains like ours. So we fall, and we fail, and we freeze, and then we drag ourselves up again. Often silently, often without applause. It’s not fair that life feels like more of a fight for us. But it is the fight we’ve got. And we are not incapable.

We are just wired differently. And we need a different kind of discipline. One that includes responsibility without shame. Compassion without excuses. Forgiveness that still calls for action. And yes, sometimes, a kick in the ass from someone who sees what we can be , or from ourselves, when it’s time to stop hiding.

We also need to stay sharp. Because people with ADHD are more vulnerable to addiction. To screens, to sugar, to distraction, to numbing. When we escape the discomfort instead of moving through it, it doesn’t go away — it mutates. And if we’re not careful, it becomes a whole second problem layered on top of the first. That’s the nature of the wiring.

So what’s the way out?

Not pretending it’s not hard. Not romanticizing our struggles. But getting honest about where we lose ourselves, and where we can catch ourselves, too. Bringing order to the chaos, even if it’s messy order. Letting go of the fantasy that one day it will all click, and instead working with what we have. This brain. This day. This hour.

We are not always in control of what happens inside us. But we are responsible for what we do with it.

And that’s where the power is.