Forgive yourself if you had a bad day

Reaching another unproductive day because of ADHD is always devastating

Nothing that I wanted to do today I actually did. I had a lot of things that I needed to do, things that have been urging to be done for a long time, things that I've already mapped out to follow up extensively—some of them already months ago. But I'm reaching the end of the day having finished, I think, less than 5% of everything I needed to do.

I went to the computer and had everything well-written. I have three different methods to engage myself, comprised of two schedules and a time tracker. I've already defined several methods to keep myself operational, like keeping strict control of everything related to social media. I control everything I do by time on my watch, so if I surpass the time I determined for an activity, I'm at fault with myself. It works sometimes, surprisingly more often than I thought, but there are days when it doesn't work.

At all. Like today.

And I'm reaching the end of the day having done 5%, one part of twenty. I fulfilled one and left nineteen parts of my proposed network of tasks simply empty. I simply went over that.

And I came to the computer early. I spent the whole day here, but I just escaped from my important things. I navigated for hours on Google Street View, I lost at least another hour searching for random facts about the countries in the Olympics, another hour and something about photography, and many more random things.

Now I'm exhausted because I covered at least 10 hours in sequence at the computer. My eyes are sore, my head is aching. I didn't manage even to take 5 minutes off every 30 minutes of work concentration, a measure that was bringing an extra boost to me and making me more rested, productive, and confident.

The guiltier I felt as the day went by, the more I was unable to stand up from the chair and breathe fresh air, walk around the house, cuddle my cats, talk to my wife. Instead, I was immersed in the computer, with headphones on, playing focusing white noise sounds while focusing on the least necessary things for me.

And now, more than 10 PM, I cannot control the sadness I'm feeling inside for another lost day in my life. How long will I let myself go into it? ADHD is so evil, but so powerful at the same time. Even managing it for almost 3 years and making it the essence of my life, trying to find methods to improve my life operation and helping people like me find ways to get a better life too... Even with that, I still fall into that devastating feeling.

And it only projects more expectation for tomorrow because I put an extra weight that I will solve every single task I didn't today and even add more. Which will only lead to more frustration, as I'll need to deal with the burden of an extra inflated day before it even starts.

This is a vent, my friends. I'm sure many of you, millions of people with ADHD all over the world, are having the same sensations like me at this very time. I'm also sure that some are living even harder circumstances. But I’m sharing this only to remind you to forgive yourselves if you had a day like mine today, like I'm trying to do with myself right now.

I'm trying to forgive myself because there's no other way to prepare for another day. A day that will start in a few hours, and I need to go to bed without the ADHD guilt of feeling a failure in order to get a fair sleep and get up well tomorrow.

A day that has already ended is already part of our history. Nothing less, nothing more. It serves as a lesson, a reminder, but it will never serve as a definition of our lives and our future.

Forgive yourself for the day you didn't perform as you wished, and start a fresh day tomorrow or whenever you need.

I'm forgiving myself for this unproductive day. I'm not proposing to myself to do things differently tomorrow. That is something I've tried to do hundreds of next-days of my life. What I'll try to do is to avoid this bitter sensation of sadness and desperation I'm feeling now.

And let's start fresh, remembering what hurt us, but forgiving ourselves to let it hurt, and so start fresh and clean.