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Navigating Everyday Change with ADHD
How I turned from a constant anxious mess to an occasional anxious mess in daily situations
The biggest discovery I have made to date about how my ADHD brain works has been my inability to deal with change and transitions. Of course, change is a big deal for most people. But I’m not talking about dramatic change, like a new job or buying a house. I’m talking about transitioning from being comfy in bed to being up and active, from work mode to rest mode, from awake to asleep.
There are so many daily circumstances where this applies and it wasn’t until recently, that I started observing them closely, how they make me feel, where the barriers are, and what I can do to improve my habits in order to deal with change better.
Studies have shown the main reason why people with ADHD struggle with transitions is their inability to break focus when already in a state of flow. Usually, breaking focus rewinds our brains to where we started before achieving flow — in a place of executive dysfunction, so back to the inability to initiate tasks.
For example, if I need to go from writing an article to answering an unexpected call, my first reaction will be to freeze. If I answer the call, it often ends up being a haze, where I’m unable to take in information or…
