If you live with ADHD, you know how easy it is to feel like you’re always at war with yourself. The cycle of ADHD burnout and renewal can be challenging, but below are 5 lessons.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Princess Mononoke. When I was teaching high school English, I’d find any excuse to slip it into my curriculum. Shakespeare unit? Perfect. Modern memoirs? Absolutely. Nonfiction essays? You bet. If there was a thread, or an angle I could spin to ensure my administration approved the film, I’d find it.
I know this might seem like a stretch, connecting an animated movie to ADHD struggles. But as someone who’s spent years trying to force herself into productivity systems that never quite fit, I’ve learned that wisdom shows up in the most unexpected places.
And that’s exactly what happened with Princess Mononoke. I think one of the reasons I love the movie so much, in addition to it being visually compelling, is that its themes are universal. Like a chameleon, they camouflage into any context.
I’m not particularly into Anime, but I stumbled across Princess Mononoke during a unit on nature and fell completely in love.
If you’ve ever read The Fault In Our Stars, there’s a line where the main character, Hazel, says she fell in love with Augustus the way people fall asleep, slowly at first, and then all at once.
That’s how I feel about this movie. Years later, I still return to it because the film speaks to me in ways that feel almost personal.
After rewatching the movie recently, and maybe because I now have this website, I see parallels between the film’s themes and my life, especially in how it mirrors the ADHD experience.
Here ‘s a quick summary if you’ve never seen the film, which I highly recommend you do.
Princess Mononoke, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, is set in a mythical version of 14th-century Japan. The story follows Ashitaka, a prince cursed by a raging boar god. He travels west seeking a cure and finds himself smack in the middle of a massive conflict between Iron Town led by Lady Eboshi, a complex character who serves as the film’s villain, but she’s so much more than that, and the ancient forest gods who stand in the way of that industrial expansion. The forest is defended by San, the fierce wolf girl. I’m sure I’m not doing the story justice with this summary.
What unfolds isn’t your typical good-versus-evil battle. It’s messier than that. More real. No side is perfectly right or wrong. It’s a story about balance, destruction, and renewal.
It mirrors my ADHD struggles of trying to “conquer” or “fix” myself versus finding balance and living with the person that I am. In part, I think it reflects Reset & Realign because I don’t want to focus on just one approach. ADHD needs multiple strategies, and there needs to be balance between accepting who we are and working toward growth.
1. It’s Not About Choosing Sides
Princess Mononoke could have been a simple story about humans destroying nature. But it’s not. Iron Town isn’t just about destruction. It’s a sanctuary for society’s outcasts, including former prostitutes and people with leprosy.
Lady Eboshi, our “villain”, genuinely cares for these marginalized people and she offers them what society has never offered them, respect and decency.
The forest isn’t just peaceful. It’s also destructive, unforgiving, and sometimes brutal. There are no good or bad guys in this film. You can make a case for both.
The real message here for those of us living with ADHD? Balance. Coexistence instead of domination. We do not need to choose between the messiness of our challenging, creative brain and being a functional adult.
There is no need to eliminate distraction, force perfect focus, and create a life with zero chaos. Because we know, there isn’t a “cure” for ADHD because it’s a neurological difference, not a disease to be cured. And in Mononoke, we see that the goal isn’t to conquer our ADHD; it’s to find balance.
2. Destruction as Part of the Cycle
The movie doesn’t shy away from devastation. There is conflict, a war between Iron Town and the forest. Forests burn to ash. Ancient gods become corrupted by hatred and pain. Ashitaka’s curse spreads like poison through his body.
But destruction isn’t where the story ends. The forest spirit dies and is immediately reborn, and new life begins to sprout from the scorched earth. Renewal follows chaos as naturally as spring follows winter.
Living with ADHD often means cycling through periods of intense productivity followed by complete burnout, overwhelming shame, and the desperate need to start over.
It’s easy to interpret these breakdowns as personal failures, as I have when I compare myself to my peers and others my age to see where I should be.
But Princess Mononoke shows us a different truth: turbulence is not permanent, and renewal is always possible. The reset button is always there, waiting for us to press it.
3. The Beauty of Human Complexity
One of the film’s most striking achievements is how it creates complex characters. Even though it’s an animation, we see them as fully human capable of complex human emotions. Lady Eboshi destroys ancient forests not because she is evil, but because she wants to build something sustainable for the people of Iron Town.
In the same way we use AI even though our use might have an impact on the environment.
Lady Eboshi also shows profound compassion and visionary leadership. San, our “protagonist”, loves the natural world, but she’s also consumed by anger and struggles with deep alienation. Ashitaka carries a literal curse, yet he maintains hope and seeks understanding rather than revenge.
There are no simple heroes or clear villains. Everyone carries contradictions, and that’s what makes them real.
How does this resonate with ADHD?
Living with ADHD often feels like existing in that messy middle ground. We can be incredibly capable, creative, and ambitious one moment, then wrestle with inconsistency, distraction, and overwhelm the next.
When I first conceived the idea of Reset & Realign, I wanted to call it Hot Mess Reset, because that’s how I felt.
Like a hot mess.
I felt like I was either pretending to have it all together or beating myself up for being inconsistent.
But we can be both things simultaneously. And Princess Mononoke clearly shows that doesn’t make us defective. It makes us human.
4. Finding Home in the In-Between
San, the wolf girl, is in a unique and often painful position: she belongs fully neither to the human world nor to the animal kingdom. She’s caught between two identities, always searching for where she truly fits, never quite finding a perfect answer.
This tension hits close to home. So many of us with ADHD live between two worlds daily.
Externally, we present as professional, capable, and put-together.
Internally, we’re constantly juggling the mess, managing unfinished projects, and channeling restless energy that never seems to settle.
That in-between space can feel profoundly isolating. But in San’s story, we see that belonging doesn’t always mean fitting neatly into predefined categories.
Sometimes it means owning the unique space you occupy between worlds.
5. Carrying Our Burdens with Grace
Throughout the film, Ashitaka carries a curse that’s visible, heavy, and marks him as dangerous. But he refuses to let it define the entirety of who he is. He’s actively looking for a way to heal. He is aware this curse could potentially kill him, but he learns to carry it with dignity while working toward transformation.
ADHD can feel like carrying something simultaneously invisible and weighty– a constant presence that shapes how we move through the world, often in ways others can’t see or understand.
Like Ashitaka, healing doesn’t mean erasing our differences. It means learning to live with them skillfully, transforming struggle into wisdom, and continuing to move forward not despite our challenges, but alongside them.
Why Share This?
Sometimes we find stories that give us the language we need to articulate something we’ve always felt but couldn’t express before. I have seen Princess Mononoke every year since 2013 because, as I mentioned, I always found a way to make it part of my English curriculum.
But it resonates deeper now as I am trying to build and define this space I call Reset & Realign. My whole purpose is to show that what feels like a personal failure is part of the natural cycle of growth and renewal.
ADHD isn’t an enemy to conquer. It’s a fundamental part of who we are that requires balance and understanding rather than warfare.
True productivity isn’t about implementing rigid systems that work against our nature. It’s about developing sustainable rituals that can hold our chaos while still moving us toward our goals.
There’s always another chance for renewal, always another opportunity to reset, realign, and begin again.
Our identity doesn’t need to be neat and simple to be valuable. We can be layered, complicated, and contradictory. And still be worthy of love, success, and belonging.
Like the forest in Princess Mononoke, we may face periods of imbalance, and turbulence. But the possibility of renewal lives within us always.
The reset button is always within reach, waiting for us to remember that new growth can emerge from even the most scorched ground.
