The ADHD Survival Loop That Keeps Me Going

A personal guide to building the small loops that bring you back when your brain won’t cooperate.

Every few months, I start to lose the thread.

I forget to eat at real times. My desk becomes a geological timeline of half-finished ideas. I start using caffeine like courage.

And every single time, the same truth hits me again. My life doesn’t fall apart all at once.

It unravels quietly.

There’s no big crash. Just tiny signs. The mug pile. The skipped shower. The browser tabs breeding overnight.

The world gets louder and I get smaller.

What stitches it back together isn’t discipline.

It’s ritual.

Not the self-care kind that lives on Pinterest.

The kind that looks ordinary, maybe even stupid, but somehow keeps me tethered to reality.

A specific mug.

A certain song on repeat.

Turning the lights off in a certain order before bed.

These are the little anchors that pull me back from the drift.

Today, I want to show you the small, ridiculous, and sometimes sacred rituals that quietly keep me functional.

The ones that don’t look impressive on Instagram but somehow keep me human.

→ Keep reading for the rituals I actually use, why they work, and how you can build your own version.

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