Storm Days and Bad Weeks: How I Get Through Them With ADHD

From one ADHDer to another, let's make our lives better.

I call them storm days. The days when my brain feels loud, heavy and scattered all at once. Sometimes it is one day. Sometimes it rolls on into a whole bad week.

I have had them for as long as I can remember. Being diagnosed with ADHD at 45 did not make them stop, but it did help me understand them. This post is about what storm days are like for me, and the small things that help me get through.

What a storm day feels like

On a storm day, everything feels like too much. My to do list looks like a wall. Small jobs feel enormous. Noise bothers me more than usual. I can sit down to do one thing and find an hour has gone and I have done nothing at all.

My emotions run hotter too. I get frustrated quickly, then I feel guilty about being frustrated, and the guilt makes everything heavier. It is a loop I know very well.

When it becomes a bad week

One storm day I can usually ride out. A bad week is harder. The dishes pile up. Messages go unanswered. Little bits of admin start to stack. And the bigger the pile gets, the harder it is to start.

For years I thought this meant I was failing at life. Now I see it more like weather. It comes in, it stays for a while, and it passes. That shift in how I think about it has made a real difference to me.

Starting with one thing, not twenty

The biggest thing that helps me on a storm day is picking ONE thing. Not the whole list. Just one thing that would make today count, even a tiny bit.

Sometimes that one thing is a proper job. Sometimes it is having a shower, or replying to a single message, or putting a wash on. If I get that one thing done, the day has a win in it, and very often the next thing feels a little easier.

That is exactly why my Storm Day Daily Planner starts with one thing at the top of the page. I made it for these days.

Getting the noise out of my head

When my head is full, I do a brain dump. I write down everything that is swirling around, big or small, in no order at all. It does not need to be neat. It just needs to be out of my head and onto paper.

Once it is on the page, I can look at it more calmly. Most of it can wait. Some of it does not matter at all. And one or two things usually stand out as the ones worth doing first.

Lowering the bar on purpose

On a good day I might have big plans. On a storm day I lower the bar on purpose. Simple food. Comfy clothes. Fewer decisions. I try to protect the basics and let the extras go.

I used to see this as giving up. Now I see it as looking after myself so the storm does not get bigger.

Keeping a done list

At the end of a hard day, I write down what I did manage, however small. Got up. Drank water. Answered one email. Went outside for five minutes.

My ADHD brain is very good at remembering everything I did not do. A done list reminds me of what I did. On bad weeks, reading it back helps more than I can say.

Starting again without guilt

The part I struggled with most was starting again. After a bad week, my planner would be full of empty pages and I would feel too behind to pick it up.

So I made my planners undated. My Weekly Reset Planner can start on any day of the week, so after a rough patch I can open it on a Wednesday and just begin. Nothing is wasted, and there is no row of blank dates telling me off.

Being gentle with myself

The truth is, storm days still come. I have not found a way to make them stop, and I am not sure I ever will. What I have found is a gentler way to be with them.

I remind myself that it will pass, that one small thing is enough, and that I am not lazy or broken. My brain is just having a stormy day. I wrote more about the really big moments in my post on ADHD meltdowns.

We are not broken. We are built for storms.

My lived story. Not advice, not therapy, not medical guidance.

FAQ