12.09.2026 Diary XII The tide between burnout and excitement

12.09.2026 Diary Page XII

When the sea pulls back, the beach does not die. It only waits.

This week I lived like two different people.

On Monday morning there were ten ideas in my head. A new project, a new series of articles, a section to add to the site, a completely different strategy for a job. I wanted to start all of them at once. My heart was beating fast, I did not want to sleep, all the doors of the world seemed open.

On Wednesday morning I could not start anything. The same ideas stood in the same place but none of them called to me. I looked at the screen, closed it. I tried to read something, gave up. The me of Monday was very far away.

Both were me. There were only two days between them.

The wave

I live this like a tide.

When excitement comes, the wave rises. Everything looks possible. I make plans, I make lists, I start. Very fast, very intense, very passionate. I give from my sleep, from my food, from my time.

Then the wave pulls back. And a wet, empty beach is left behind. Tiredness, reluctance, and that familiar guilt: you started again, you could not finish again, you wanted everything at once again.

For years I took this tide for a personality trait. “This is how I am, all or nothing.” For a while I was even proud of it. Being passionate was a good thing, after all.

But passion came with a bill. After every rise, a collapse.

The fuel of excitement

Since the diagnosis I have begun to understand a little more about what is behind this tide.

An ADHD brain reacts very strongly to novelty, interest, urgency. A new idea gives the brain what it looks for most: stimulation. In that moment focusing is easy, starting is easy, hours flow by. This is exactly what we call hyperfocus.

But novelty is a fuel that runs out. By its second week the idea is no longer new. Ordinary tasks take the place of excitement: details, corrections, repeating steps. The brain can no longer find the same stimulation and the engine slows.

And there is this: when the wave is high I do not protect myself at all. I do not sleep, I skip meals, I do not take breaks. Because in that moment I do not feel tired. The bill for the tiredness comes all at once, when the wave pulls back.

Excitement does not let me feel tiredness. But it does not erase tiredness either. It only postpones it.

Burnout or the wave pulling back

I am trying to make this distinction and it is not easy.

A few days ago I wrote “I don't feel like waking up.” The tiredness in that entry was a different tiredness. A deep burnout, built up over months, from trying to keep up with everything.

The wave pulling back is shorter, sharper. It lasts a few days, then when something new comes it rises again.

But the bad side is this: frequent pullbacks of the wave can turn into burnout over time. At every rise you give a little more, at every pullback you recover a little less. One day the wave does not come. Only the sea, pulled back, is left.

I am afraid of this. That is why I wanted to write about this tide this week.

Standing on the shore

I do not want to stop the tide. My excitement is a part of me. Being able to get caught up in a new idea, to hold onto a job with passion, to lose myself in something for hours... I do not want to remove these from my life.

What I want is not to break away from the shore completely when the wave is high.

A few things come to mind for this. None of them is a definite solution, they are more reminders to myself.

Opening a single door when excited. Choosing one instead of starting all ten ideas at once. Writing the others on a piece of paper and letting them wait. Ideas do not disappear, they only wait in line.

Not forgetting the body when the wave is high. Food, sleep, water. Even at the most excited moment. Because the tiredness that excitement does not tell me, my body tells me later.

Not counting the pullback as a disaster. When I cannot start anything on Wednesday morning, instead of saying “it's over again, I couldn't do it again,” saying “the wave has pulled back, it will come back.” This sentence does not make the pullback easier but it does not add guilt on top of it.

Preparing for the second week. The hardest moment of a job is not the moment it starts, it is the moment it loses its newness. Putting a small reason, a partner, a deadline in place for that moment beforehand.

What the tide teaches

When the sea pulls back, the beach does not die. I said this to myself this week.

There is life on the shore of a pulled-back sea too. Crabs, shells, tracks on the wet sand. And that silence waiting for the return of the wave.

Maybe I can see my reluctant days this way too. Not empty, useless, lost days. Waiting days. Resting days. The silence the wave needs in order to be able to come back.

Of course, saying this is much easier than feeling it while living those days.

Today

Today is Saturday and the wave is neither very high nor very low. Somewhere in the middle.

Since I am able to write this entry, something is stirring.

I am not as excited as on Monday. I am not as empty as on Wednesday. And I noticed that I have never liked this middle place. I have got so used to being either very high or very low that standing in between felt boring to me.

Maybe what I need to learn is exactly this middle place.

Being able to get excited without going up too high. Being able to get tired without falling too low.

And whatever the wave is doing, being able to stand on my own feet on the shore.