After, finally get used to having a brain that processes things extremely fast, I suddenly get the dreaded mental burnout. Burnout is where your brain is basically suffering from extreme tiredness and just wants rest from thinking. It’s very common with ADHD, because when your brain processes things so quickly, it gets tired more quickly.
Unfortunately, getting burnout while having ADHD is also ten times more frustrating, because ADHD basically means your brain wants to constantly be on the go. It thrives off having so many different ideas, so when it is left with nothing, then usually it can cause feelings of depression or anxiety.
“I hate the feeling of not being productive or constantly on the go.”
ADHD Girl
Sadly, this is the part of ADHD, that makes me my own worst enemy. I love being productive in a variety of ways, especially when doing things I enjoy and am passionate about. For example; I love writing a story because it’s like therapy, but I also enjoy volunteering/ helping a wide variety of people through my church outreach teams.
To cut a long story short; if I’m not doing something, keeping my brain busy then I get restless and feel useless. My brain starts massively overthinking all the things I could be doing. Should be doing and how rubbish I am for not doing them. Now usually I have the choice; to keep myself busy and stop myself for massively overthinking, but burnout takes that choice away.
“Getting brain burnout is one of the worst aspects of ADHD in my opinion, because it means I can’t do what I want to do.”
ADHD Girl
With burnout my brain forces me into a state where I just can’t do anything that requires any mental energy and that leads to a lot of stress. As I write this I’m experiencing one such burnout, I can feel negative thoughts spiralling of all the things I want to do, should do and need to do all nipping at me like a rabid dog who won’t calm down.
Right now I am the worst version of myself (at least in my head) and this is the part that sucks about having ADHD. I could be honest with you and say that it gets easier to manage the burnout, but each time is just as bad as the other. Luckily it only happens once every two months, depending on what I’ve been doing, So, I just hang on tight, and remind myself that eventually my brain will start working normally again….well normal for me with ADHD anyway.
2 thoughts on “Burn Brain Burn!”
I’m going through this right now and cannot bear it. I want to do things but just don’t have the motivation. I love it when my brain is working, filled with ideas and being creative but right now I feel brain dead, exhausted and restless. I’m pinning my hopes on when my daughter goes back to school and I have time to myself that my normal brain thats full of ideas kicks in and the creativity flows!
Sorry to hear this Lynne. I know exactly how you feel. My kids go back on Monday and right now my brain is just on total burnout. Sadly, all we can do at the moment is giving our brains the important time they need to rest and reboot then we can come back better and stronger, perhaps with even more creative ideas. Thanks for your comment.