Why moving house is extra stressful when you have ADHD
I’ve moved house-just and I never want to have to do this again!
Moving house is often ranked as one of life’s most stressful events, right up there with changing jobs or going through a relationship breakup. For people with ADHD, however, moving can feel like a logistical and emotional marathon with no clear finish line. It’s not just about packing boxes and hiring a van, it’s about navigating a process that demands every executive function skill we find hardest to access when we’re under pressure.
If you’ve ever moved house while living with ADHD, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Here’s why it can be so overwhelming, and why your brain may feel like it’s running in twenty directions at once.
Executive functioning overload
ADHD affects our ability to plan, organise, prioritise, and make decisions, and moving requires all of these skills at the same time. It’s not just packing; it’s deciding what to pack, when to pack it, keeping track of timelines, and co-ordinating all the moving parts. Even with checklists and reminders, it can feel like you’re spinning plates while someone keeps adding more.
Decision fatigue
If there’s one thing moving house guarantees, it’s a relentless series of decisions. What to keep, donate, or throw away. Which room to start with. Which energy supplier to choose. Where to put the sofa. The sheer volume of decisions can quickly lead to mental exhaustion, leaving you paralysed and unable to move forward.
Difficulty with transitions and change
Many people with ADHD struggle with transitions, especially major life changes. Moving house means saying goodbye to routines, familiar surroundings, and your established sensory environment. The adjustment to new sights, sounds, lighting, and even the way your home smells can be disorienting, triggering discomfort or emotional dysregulation.
Time blindness
People with ADHD often underestimate how long tasks will take or lose track of time completely. This can lead to last-minute packing marathons, missed deadlines for booking removals, or leaving essential tasks until the eleventh hour. The result? More stress, less sleep, and a chaotic moving day.
Emotional dysregulation
Moving house is an emotional rollercoaster, there’s excitement, anxiety, frustration, and sometimes grief. With ADHD, regulating those emotions can be especially hard. You might swing from panic to overwhelm in minutes, or feel a wave of guilt about the state of your belongings. These emotional ups and downs can make the process even more draining.
Struggles with clutter and letting go
Decluttering before a move sounds logical, but for many with ADHD, it’s not that simple. There’s often an emotional attachment to belongings, or a “just in case” mindset that makes it hard to let go. Sorting can also trigger distraction, starting with the intention to pack a drawer, only to find yourself reminiscing over old photos or half-doing three different tasks at once.
Paperwork and admin
The admin side of moving is full of fine details and deadlines—change of address forms, bills, contracts, insurance policies. For someone with ADHD, this can feel like a minefield. Letters get misplaced, emails get ignored, and the to-do list keeps growing faster than it shrinks.
The packing and unpacking challenge
Packing can be hard to start (thanks to task initiation difficulties), but once you begin, staying on track is another challenge. You might find yourself jumping between rooms, forgetting what’s already been done, or leaving boxes half-packed. And unpacking? That can drag on for weeks, or even months or years, because the urgency is gone and decision-making becomes even harder.
Sensory overload
Moving is messy, noisy, and disruptive. There are boxes everywhere, unfamiliar sounds, odd smells, and disrupted routines. For those with ADHD, especially if you’re also sensitive to sensory input like me, this can feel physically uncomfortable and mentally exhausting.
The post-move crash
After the move, the adrenaline drops. For many people with ADHD, that means a “post-move crash” with exhaustion, low mood, and executive function shutdown. The weeks after moving can be as challenging as the lead-up, because now you’re dealing with both the unpacking and the emotional aftermath.
If moving house feels harder for you than it seems for other people, it’s not because you’re bad at it or lazy, it’s because the process is full of tasks that demand the exact skills ADHD makes harder to access. Being aware of these challenges can help you put support in place, whether that’s breaking tasks into smaller steps, getting help from friends and family, or hiring professional packers to take some of the load off (and finding ways to remind yourself to get this booked early)!
Moving with ADHD will probably never feel easy, but it can be made far less overwhelming with the right strategies, realistic expectations, and a healthy dose of self-compassion.