This is a sort-of-follow-up, either that or companion piece, to my post from earlier this week, Building A Life You Don’t Want To Escape From. We were talking about our general weariness:

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.

One of the reasons for this tiredness is that we often commute to work outside of our home. We have to get up earlier, travel to our work location, to then get on with the days’ work. Then reverse it to get back home again. Every damn time.

For me and The Husband, we spent four years tag-teaming from Ballarat to Melbourne through the week. Barring train works, (when buses replace the trains and it is simply not worth doing battle), one or other of us was on the 6:00am train Monday to Thursday. One of other of us were then collected (hopefully) when the 6:05pm train gets into our local station. I say hopefully because this is reliant on circumstances beyond our control; trains not breaking, level crossings not breaking, trespassers not trespassing – that list is endless.

Twelve hours on, twelve hours off. In the off, we sleep. Whoever is working from home runs Mr A to allied health appointments to manage his AuDHD and liaises with the school to ensure he’s on track with his other learning difficulties. We also have to wrestle with NDIS and Centrelink, which is not what I’m talking about today. 

Us moving to Ballarat was manageable until Mr A ruptured his ACL and needed surgery, for a modified knee-replacement when he was in Year 7. The good thing about being near Melbourne? There is a full-on ACL Protocol for rehab, there are so many people that have had their ACLs go phut (technical term) whilst playing AFLM or AFLW. 

As an aside, just s0dding call it AFL.

Adding in physio and orthopaedic surgical appointments meant our life; that already teetered on a knife edge, tipped over into proper insanity. Both of us had to ask to work from home for three days a week, not two. Both of us had to sign an agreement that yes, we needed this, no we weren’t pulling a fast one.

Our son is almost 15 years now; while he copes well with his learning needs at school, he cannot leave the house without supervision. We’re working on it and he’s doing better, but Mr A still managed to leave the house without his phone; going back to get it, then left his bag behind in his room the other day. 

Navigating any neurodivergence in a world that is not set up to accept how you move through the world is bluddy hard work. We met with the Department of Education in 2024, that meeting took 18 months to arrange. In the interim, it took hours of preparation by us, his speech pathologist, occupational therapist, psychologist and his primary school, plus an additional 2 sessions of testing by a specialised educational psychologist. Yet all they’re interested in is where Mr A needs interventions and adjustments, not what he can do independently.

All the way along his school career, it was focussed on where he’s behind. His Grade 2 teacher didn’t believe in ADHD, the damage that man did is still felt by Mr A now. When he’s overwhelmed, Mr A freezes. That teacher decided that response was ‘defiance’. Which meant his teacher would send him out repeatedly for litter picking over break-times. His only way of managing children that didn’t meet his expectations, was punitive.  

When you live with ADHD, whenever you get diagnosed, you will have a lifetime of being told where you lack. Not what you’re good at, now how you see the world differently, not how you see around the corners and angles of a problem to the solution. Just what you don’t do “correctly”. This is also called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, we’ve been berated for so long, it’s visceral.

Our brains are physically different. Our brains work differently. Yet we’re expected to fit into the square peg that the Victorian era education set up and is still in force today, solely set up to train children to sit down for as long as possible. So that children grew into compliant adults who would sit at desks, or work in factories for as long as possible. 

We do not need to learn by rote to regurgitate on exams. We do need critical, lateral, blue-sky thinking. But children who have critical, lateral, blue-sky thinking often find it hard work to sit at their desks focussing on things that either make no sense. Or, if they have little to no interest in what they’re being force-fed, these children will tend to fidget looking for something, anything to do to engage their brains. Is it any wonder we move through the world constantly wondering what we’ve done wrong?

The perception of ADHD is still primarily of boys (those who were Assigned Male At Birth, AMAB) that don’t behave in classrooms. Who are unruly, who need to run around to burn off excess energy.

But, for people Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB), we were not allowed to run around to burn off energy. It has been ingrained in us from day dot to sit down, to be quiet, not to raise our voices, not to voice our needs, to be a ‘good girl’. If our needs don’t get met, that doesn’t matter.

Consequently, our excess energy goes upwards into a wide, varied and wonderful imagination. We can sit down, our legs or feet jiggling, or sitting on a leg as a self-soothing method; but can be living a completely separate life, full of nuances, entirely in our minds.

(I’m currently typing this while listening to the 4:50 from Paddington, as it gives part of my brain something to do “over here”, while I’m roaming around in my head “over there” to get this post written).

Which brings me to why we’re so tired. We are often doing one thing on the outside, but on the inside we’re also running our todo list every which way. We’re trying to remember what we thought about, but forgot to write down as we were in traffic. We can forget what we’re doing, while we’re doing it. 

I’m going to make some sweeping assumptions over the next couple of paragraphs. But, they’re true.

We also know there are 101 things we need to get done before Sunday; but when we ask for help, we’re nagging. If we try to work out a routine, it may work for 2 days, but life happens, and it falls over. The society we live in still has it ingrained in us that the men in a relationship are prioritised; that they need to have time to sit down and relax after work. 

What about us? When do we get to sit down? If we sat down, who’d do dinner? Who’d empty, re-do the school bags? Who’d run a load of washing, fold it, put it away? Remember, if we ask for help – we’re shrewish. If we try to set expectations, we’re complaining. We’re fighting against a rising tide of men with microphones podcasting about how hard their lives are, because their wives aren’t at home to pander to their every need. 

We all end up going to bed hours after we’re tired – just to get back up again at sparrows fart, because none of us work within an easy distance to where we live. This is partly because we now need to earn as much money as humanly possible, while reducing our costs as much as humanly possible – we’ve had to move further away from where we work. Yes, we love living in Ballarat, but if we could afford to stay in Melbourne, we’d still be living there.

For so many of us living with ADHD, the American / Australian / United Kingdom dream *delete as applicable isn’t about running away to a tropical island or quitting life altogether. It’s about finding and building a daily rhythm that feels sustainable. A life that doesn’t leave us collapsed in a heap at the end of the day, wondering where our energy went.

The biggest drain on that rhythm? Our commute.

The Brain-Drain of Commuting

Commuting isn’t just about the minutes (more likely hours) spent stuck in traffic, on a bus, or crammed into a train. It’s about the mental load that comes with it.

• Remembering the right time to leave.
• Checking traffic updates or timetables.
• Managing the sensory overwhelm of crowded spaces – PSA yes, you need to wash and wear deodorant, but you don’t need a bucket of perfume or cologne, or hairspray.
• Burning through dopamine just to stay alert and on schedule.
• Remembering to take everything we need – Mr A and his school bag as an example.
• Remembering to pack as much as we can the night before so we can leave on time – includes emptying bags and washing lunchboxes.
• Making sure we’ve got clothes clean and ready to go.

By the time anyone of us have walked into our workplace, an ADHD brain has already run a mini-marathon. We’re not “starting fresh”, a big chunk of our limited energy has gone, just on logistics.

Time Wasted, Energy Spent

For neurotypical people, a commute can sometimes be reframed as “me-time”. Listening to a podcast, reading a book, or even zoning out. But for ADHD brains, it’s rarely that simple. The overstimulation, the unpredictability day-in-day-out all piles up. Our dopamine levels deplete quicker than we can replenish them. If we have to “hot desk”, that’s another angst. Yet, far too many workplaces do not see that having a set desk to work from sets everyone up for the day, let alone us neurospicy people that need object permanence to feel a sense of control and also a sense of place.

Aside from the travel time eating into your energy, it’s also time we could have used for:

• Creating something meaningful.
• Having a slow, regulated start to your morning.
• Moving your body in ways that energise instead of exhaust.
• Actually connecting with family, friends, or yourself.

Commuting isn’t just about lost time, it’s about the loss of quality of time. The quality of life.

Building a Life You Don’t Want to Escape From Redux

So, what does it look like to step out of that cycle?

It doesn’t always mean quitting your job or moving to a cabin in the woods – although that is very tempting. I’d love a tiny house. It’s about re-designing your days so that they work with your ADHD, not against it. Which could look like:

• Upping your remote or hybrid work: Even shaving off one commute day a week can give your brain a bit more of the space it needs. Request that you only come into the office two days a week with a flexible working agreement. 
• Energy accounting: If you have to commute, balance it with lighter tasks, slower evenings, or time-outs where you can recharge. Block out the mornings with slower tasks so you don’t have to run around straight away.
• Micro-joys: Build in small rituals (music, coffee, walking a quieter route) that soothe instead of drain. Pair up the days you need to be in the office with meeting someone for lunch or dinner, but balance these out with your other energy needs.
• Boundaries: Stop equating “being in the office” with being more productive. Your worth isn’t measured by a chair in a cubicle. One of the reasons we’re being called back is because rent is so hideously expensive. Having empty desks costs the landlords, which impacts pension funds, as the world has gone mad and shareholders need to have profits over anything else. Seriously, we’re living in a Dickensian novel, just with wi-fi.

The truth is, living with ADHD often means our “fuel tank” looks different from our colleagues. We don’t have the luxury of pouring hours of our day into a commute and expecting the rest of the day to run smoothly.

The Bigger Picture

When we start removing (or reshaping) the parts of life that drain us, like commuting, we slowly make space for the things that matter. The things that give life meaning. The things we don’t want to run away from.

It’s not about escaping. It’s about creating. Draw a line down a page, write down all the things you love doing. Make a note on the other side of the page of how many times you get to do them. Slowly, slowly, shift the things you love doing from the wish-list to the done-list.

Stop saying yes to things that drain you, please start saying yes to things that lift you.