Breaking News: You're Distracted

Notes on presence and neurodivergence

Let’s Take a Long Scroll.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of waking up at 4:30 a.m. and scrolling on TikTok. After dealing with social media addiction for several years, I know how jumping straight to the screen derails my day. What begins as a quick way to pass time leads to a series of rushed decisions and a distracted mind. Before I knew it, it was 7:00 a.m., and my mind was filled with Breaking News from

Aaron Parnas

and TikTok dances. My brain was busy solving the world's problems, which I had no control over, and I was exhausted. I had become disconnected from my body and focused on everybody else’s timeline while ignoring my own.

Around 10 am, I started my shame spiral, telling myself I’ll never finish, never do, or never be XYZ. I started feeling the existential dread and shame that many of us with ADHD deal with daily. After a few moments of blaming my ADHD and TikTok, I remembered that I could save this day if only I could bring myself out of my head and into the present moment.

Social media is easy to blame. Most of you found me on the app and spent much time scrolling the FYP, learning, and creating a community, so I can’t say it's all bad. What if I told you that it’s not the app that makes us reliant; it's our social conditioning?

The Power of the Present

The physical world is brutal. It’s full of disappointment, control, fear, bright lights, mushy food, and wet socks. We are taught to cope with the world by seeking comfort outside of ourselves, making us reliant on the very systems that oppress us for external validation. We are taught to seek comfort in our jobs, relationships, and even food (hello, DoorDash). We do this because it’s hard to accept the present moment, especially when the present moment frankly sucks.

So you protect yourself, you distract yourself.

Distraction is classified as anything that pulls you from the present moment. The present is the only thing you can control because it’s the only thing that is real. You can’t change the past or the future with thought alone. Thought only brings more thoughts. Thoughts that spiral into regret, anxiety, or even hope for a better tomorrow. Yet, these thoughts will never replace action; you can only take action NOW.

📚Currently Reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Before you ask, yes, you need thought to plan, reflect, and take care of the administrative duties required in the physical world, but outside of that, our brains can be our biggest distraction. When we stay in our heads, we create scenarios that lead us to take action out of time.

Consider This…

Have you ever been in a relationship with a person or a job that presently sucks, but you stay because of the hope things will get better in the future or the fear that there is no better based on the past— this is an example of taking action out of time, which ultimately leaves you powerless.

This shows up in our lives because staying in our heads leads us to react to our situation by planning, hoping, and wishing instead of accepting and responding. Thinking gives you the illusion that you are taking action when you may just be complaining or dreaming. You start thinking about what you're supposed to do instead of doing it, and then when it is time to do it, you’ve thought about it so much that you don’t know what direction to take and are paralyzed from taking action. In the ADHD community, we call this ADHD paralysis.

Everybody say it with me:

Planning without action is procrastination.

Planning without action is procrastination.

PLANNING WITHOUT ACTION IS PROCRASTINATION.

In case you are curious, I did get my day back on track by taking steps to get present. By the end of the day, I felt good about myself because, in the present moment, I was whole and at peace. That doesn’t mean that life is perfect, but instead of being sad and regretful, I made an actionable plan to address the things that made me nervous or unhappy.

The rest—I accepted and let go.

In the next post, I’ll share what I did to regain control over my mind and my day. I call it the Midday Routine. I want it to inspire you to create your own space to remove distractions, get present, and take action even on days when nothing seems to go right.

If you found this post helpful, please like, comment, and share, as it helps grow the community and support my work.

One More Thing Before You Go

A few of you have told me that you would love to support my work, but you can’t get down with the recurring payments, and I understand. Seriously, believe me when I say I get it. So, I created a way for you to show your support without a subscription by buying me tea or coffee to enjoy at my local coffee shop, which may also be my office space until I get one 🙂.

Until next time, be safe, be free, be YOU.

Love,

Dr. C