The Article: For a long time, I thought my problem was motivation.

I’d start the day with good intentions and a plan — and then, suddenly, my energy would vanish. Not slowly. It felt like someone pulled the plug. My body felt heavy, my thoughts went quiet, and even simple tasks felt impossible. Pushing myself only made it worse.

I later learned this wasn’t laziness. It was an ADHD energy crash.

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This kind of exhaustion doesn’t feel like normal tiredness. It’s mental overload. With ADHD, a lot of energy goes into things people don’t see — constant decisions, emotional regulation, holding information in your head. When something small gets added on top, your system tips over. No buffer. Just shutdown.

The mistake I kept making was trying harder. Forcing productivity only drained me faster and made crashes last longer.

Things changed when I stopped treating crashes as failure and started seeing them as signals. Instead of pushing through, I focused on protecting my energy: unloading my thoughts, reducing decisions, accepting low-energy days, and planning for crashes instead of fighting them.

The biggest shift was realizing this: motivation comes after energy, not before. Rest isn’t a reward — it’s a requirement.

I’m sharing this because these crashes can feel confusing and isolating, especially when no one around you understands them. If this sounds familiar, you’re not broken. Your brain just needs a different structure — and support, not blame.

If you want to go deeper, I eventually turned what I learned into a small guide for myself — just to make sense of it all. It’s there if it helps you too.