For years, I lived my life burning candles at both ends. The patriachal, capitalist society norms of ‘busy, busy, busy’ is so ingrained in us that we’re shamed when we slow and relax; or heaven forbid, sit down with nothing to do.

Don’t believe me? What about the gadgets available to buy to simply keep your Teams status active and your icon green? What is that if not being shamed into action; perceived or otherwise.

There are any number of things we do during the working day that mean we’re not always going to be touching a computer for 20 minutes. What does it matter if we “appear away?” When we are in the office, we’re also supposed to lock our screens when we step away from our desk. What does Teams say we’re doing then?

There is another rant post about the value of working from home without a commute into the office and how it drains you, but this is not that post.

That we’re so fried by the evening, we’re not actually engaging with anything. Instead we’re all doom-scrolling while watching streaming services, trying to calm our overstimulated nervous systems. That is another blog post, which will be here later this week.

I hate the phrase ‘guilty pleasure’. 

If you enjoy something, why on earth should you feel remotely guilty about it? Some days I run a boiling hot bath and read Judith Krantz or Danielle Steel. Other days, I run a boiling hot bath and read Zadie Smith, Salman Rushdie or Charles Dickens. Both are identical actions, but guess at what post people ‘tsk-d’ at when I’d post a reading update? Yes, I’ve stopped doing them now. That is why, I got fed up with keyboard warriors telling me off for reading “beneath me”.

My brain knows exactly what I need to read. What is wrong with me finding a novel in one of the many little exchange libraries, running a bath and inhaling it because it doesn’t cost me any bandwidth in concentrating vs. me reading a more literary tome when I want to fully engage my brain? Either way, both give me a mini holiday from where I am.

We all feel better when we’re on holiday. Living in the liminal time of no agendas, sleeping in, buffet breakfasts, reading books until the pages fray from sunscreen. Going on excursions to interesting places – just for fun.

Here’s the thing, that is how we’re supposed to live. The expansion of time we experience on holidays by dipping in and out of action is how we evolved. No-one worked for 8 hours a day; trying to fit all our appointments in 9-5, and being made to feel guilty because we need to run to the dentist and have to take a longer lunch. Instead, we hunted for food, told stories and worked collaboratively for the collective.

The first traces of art appeared over 64,000 years ago; while agriculture dates back to a mere 23,000 years. It took years for us to try to make our lives easier by planting food, only after we’d begun evolving away from neanderthals to homo sapiens. But we’d been creating decorative pottery, or making trinkets, or drawing, or storytelling – again just for fun, thousands of years before that.

I spent years of my life feeling constantly behind. I felt both “too much” and “not enough” as whatever I did – it was wrong.

On the outside, it would appear that I was (mostly) holding it all together, while falling apart inside. Masking my as yet undiagnosed ADHD symptoms, berating myself when I’d forget things. Dissolving into tears when I’d feel overwhelmed at the smallest thing, particularly when I had all of these big things over “there” that I was coping with.

Reader, I was not coping.

Working women are raising families, juggling work expectations, and our endless mental to-do list. We “hold up half the sky” and then wonder why we collapse under the heaviness of it.

Society still does not value what it is we do, because when labour and time began to be exchanged for money, crucially away from the collective good – women stayed home and did the work required there. That work was hard, relentless but because it was at home, unpaid. Work in exchange for time was also heavily class and gender-biased, with society relying and reinforcing expectations on people knowing “their place”. See families being driven off the land because animal husbandry cost less and made more money for landholders.

The past few decades have seen many families with both parents working outside the home. This is no longer to top-up the household coffers to take a family holiday, or to pay for extra-curricular activities, but to survive. It’s hard enough meeting expecations when you’re neurotypical, then layer over executive functionality going off-line when you’re tired?

But here’s the thing: life isn’t meant to be endured. It’s meant to be lived.

Unless we all join hands together, we are seriously running the risk of the balance toppling over completely. We’re currently stymied into inaction; because of the pressures on us, coupled with the awful things we’re watching on the news.

We have to find the resources within us to push back on ordering things from our phones, for food and goods to be delivered by people on zero-hour contracts. We have to stop commenting on whether someone read a Jackie Collins book in the bath, and instead interact with our local community so the ripples of action and support spread across people – not screens. The more we lift each other, the more energy they will have to lift someone we don’t know. Pay it forward.

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Step One: Stop Escaping, Start Listening
When you catch yourself fantasising about running away to go on holiday, it’s a signal. Not that you’re lazy or ungrateful, but that your current life isn’t aligned with your needs.

Ask: What part of my life feels unsustainable? What part feels like it drains me more than it fills me?

From today, we’re stopping working hours we’re not paid for.

From today, we’re reengaging with our hobbies, ideally those from our childhood. Be that dragging out Legos, or our colouring books, or we’re pulling our shoes on to walk around the block for 10 minutes. Then we’re doing it again tomorrow.

Step Two: (Re)Claim Your Space and Calm
ADHD means our nervous systems are already working overtime. A never-ending list, while shopping for groceries and meal planning day in day out. A noisy open office, a chaotic household (there’s three of us in our house alone that are neurospicy), can tip us over the edge. Remember, ADHD is more genetically prevalent than what our height or eye shape will be. ADHD is also one of the most polygenic disorders with symptoms being found on between 25-45 of our genes.

We deserve, without guilt, to ask for time, space, and calm. And if those requests are ignored, it doesn’t mean our needs aren’t valid. It means the environment isn’t yet built for us, and that’s where change begins.

Ask: Where can I find a corner of home that is mine, that when I sit in it I can be left alone? Create a reading nook, you need a chair, a blanket and a book. Run a bath at least once a week. Tell your family for 10 minutes, “If I’m sitting here, you’re on your own”. For family time, watch a movie on a DVD with all your phone in a basket by the door.

From today, we’re aiming to do one thing at a time. It will be hard, it will feel odd. We will feel like our teeth are itching, but the more times we do it, the easier it will be to do just one thing. The more times we engage with physical media, the less opportunity we have to get sucked into adverts and other apps on our devices. Come back to where you are today.

Step Three: Redefine Success on Your Terms
For too long, women with ADHD have measured success by neurotypical standards: neat desks, color-coded schedules, perfectly balanced lives. What if success means creating a system that works for you? Flexible routines, radical rest, asking for help, and focusing on our strengths instead of our deficits.

Ask: If I fall over each Thursday night because the week is drawing to an end, is that the day we get something out the freezer instead of trying to cook from scratch?

How can we divide up the chores across everyone who lives at home? Decide as a family what penalties are appropriate if the chores don’t get done. But tell them, you’re not back-filling the gaps. As an example, it took me trying to dry myself on the corner of one wet, fusty towel after swimming training once for me to remember to empty and repack my bag.

From today, we’re being open with our families. Which can sound like, “If you choose to not pick up your clothes and put them into the laundry; you may run out of clothes – as I’m no longer washing anything that is on your floor/gym bag.”

Step Four: Build, Don’t Burn Out
Escapism often comes from burnout. ADHD exhaustion is cumulative, you have to manage your energy daily, otherwise you fall over. Instead of waiting until you’re depleted to rest and repeat the boom/bust cycle, introduce and enforce daily micro-adjustments.

Ask: Do we need to do an extra-curricular activity every week night? Do I need to volunteer to be on committees so I look good? What adds value to our life? Proper value to you, not what is perceived from the outside.

From today, work out what you love and like doing. Say yes to them more.

From today, work out what you hate doing, say no to them until they are out of your life. Some things will need to be rotated out slowly. For example, if you’ve just signed your child(ren) up for a term of sport, let it run its course, but don’t sign up again next term.

From today, for every hour you work, you need six minutes of down time. Yes, 10% of every hour. If you use outlook, start your meetings 5 minutes later than the hour or half-past. Make sure you’re drinking lots of water, (we’re all for hydration), as a TMI bonus? You will need the bathroom more, so you will walk away from your desk more.

From today, for all chores done at home, use a variation of the Pomodoro method with you and your family.

• Set a timer for 25 minutes, focus on one thing to conclusion, only change the task if the timer has not rang.
• Then rest for 5 minutes, by having a dance party to shake off and change your energy. 
• Set the timer for 25 minutes, either focus on what you didn’t finish or start another chore.
• Rest for 5 minutes, make a cup of tea to celebrate an hour well done.

That hour can be you all working together, or all of you doing separate things. You can listen to a podcast while you’re working but you must stop, break, rest and get going again.

Building a life you don’t want to escape by chasing dopamine doesn’t happen overnight. But slowly, brick by brick, boundary by boundary, you will create a life and an environment (particularly at home) that holds you, rather than a life that exhausts you.

You don’t need to escape your life. You need a life that fits you.