Overcoming the Wall of Awful

A groundbreaking, practical guide to accomplishing your goals and thriving in life, written for people with ADHD, autism, trauma and anxiety.

“Overcoming the Wall of Awful is not only endlessly validating, but epically empowering. This book needs to be in the hands of everyone who has ever failed at anything.” —Jessica McCabe, New York Times bestselling author of How to ADHD

We’re afraid to talk about it—that feeling we all get when we need to do something as simple as cleaning the kitchen or sending an email and we just … can’t. It’s not because we don’t want to, it’s because we feel paralyzed. We’re not aimless. We’re not lazy. Our brains are working against us! We have purpose, we just need guidance.

This is that guide. Just like bricks, negative emotions and experiences can build up until they feel like an impenetrable wall between us and our goals. Brendan Mahan, MEd., MS. calls this the Wall of Awful—and he’s lived it. Diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, Mahan has made it his life’s work to help people overcome their own Walls of Awful and accomplish their biggest, scariest ambitions.

Mahan draws on twenty years in teaching, counseling, and coaching people with anxiety, ADHD, autism, and trauma. He teams up with writer Alex Hughes Capell in Overcoming the Wall of Awful to present his comprehensive model. The book explores:

• How anxiety works and why it gets in the way
• Ways people try to get past the Wall that don’t work—and what does
• How to climb your Wall of Awful and take back control

Learn how to identify key emotions, the bricks in your Wall. Then, learn the tricks, systems, and habits you’ll need to not just climb one Wall—but to overcome your blocks throughout your life, one step at a time. The Wall is real, but you are stronger than you know.

• “Brendan Mahan gives language for something I see constantly within the neurodivergent community: how shame, dread, and old wounds pile up into emotional avoidance. Warm, science-grounded, practical, and unmistakably built for the ADHD brain.”
  Dr. Megan Anna Neff, AuDHD clinical psychologist, founder of Neurodivergent Insights, and author of Self-Care for Autistic People and The Autistic Burnout Workbook
• “Overcoming the Wall of Awful, is an awfully good and needed guide for living well for adults with ADHD and anyone else who sometimes finds many aspects of daily life insurmountable. In user-friendly ways Brendan Mahan distills a mix of professional and firsthand experiences and coping wisdom that empowers readers to take the next steps towards recognition, acceptance, and change that will improve lives, including yours.”
  J. Russell Ramsay, PhD, ABPP, psychologist, author of The Adult ADHD Tool Kit, The Adult ADHD & Anxiety Workbook, and Once I Get Started
• “Each chapter offers powerful insights about the bricks built into your Wall and innovative strategies for dealing with them. With helpful cheat sheets and appendices full of useful information, Overcoming the Wall of Awful, does more than what the title promises. It delivers the hope and solutions that neurodiverse people need.”
  Dr. Sharon Saline, author of What Your ADHD Child Wishes You Knew
• “Getting things done is rarely about the task itself. It’s everything wrapped around it: past failures, self-doubt, and the quiet pressure that builds over time. With The Wall of Awful, Brendan Mahan names the invisible barriers that make it difficult to begin and shows readers how to get unstuck with practical strategies that work with the brain rather than against it.”
  Tamara Rosier, PhD, author of Your Brain's Not Broken and You, Me, and Our ADHD Family
• “Brendan is our guide to find both a way to climb our own personal Wall of Awful, and a path to move from stuck to thriving.”
  Caroline Maguire, MEd, author of Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults
• “If you’ve tried all the strategies that should work but don’t, then Overcoming the Wall of Awful is the book for you. Brendan Mahan not only helps you identify why you’re getting stuck, he offers the strategies, support, and compassion to get you going. As he says, this book will get you to the good things in life.”
  Ari Tuckman, PsyD, MBA, author of The ADHD Productivity Manual
• “WHERE HAS THIS BOOK BEEN?! If you are a neurodivergent human, the term ‘The Wall of Awful’ doesn’t need much explanation, even if this is your first time encountering the phrase. We’ve all experienced it—that struggle to get started and do what we need to do. Now we have the instruction manual we have all been waiting for. Concise, compassionate, neurodivergent-friendly, and totally accessible.”
  Dr. Carolyn Lentzsch-Parcells, the ADHD MD
• “This book brilliantly and compassionately breaks down how every one of us can develop our own Walls of Awful, irrespective of any one diagnosis. Even more, it offers practical tips to nonjudgmentally analyze our personal walls so we might create toolboxes to put a door in it, climb it, or smash it (only if we absolutely must)!”
  Raffael Boccamazzo, PsyD, clinical psychologist, Save Point Behavioral Health
• “I’ve read plenty of books that explain why your brain won’t cooperate; this one really helps you get unstuck. The Wall of Awful finally gave me language for something I have been struggling with for years, and it gave me a way to finally deal with it.”
  Laura Klein, author of Build Better Products
• “They call it ‘writer’s block’ for a reason… almost every writer I know has experienced it, and has struggled with finding a way to address it. The Wall of Awful® is a perfect metaphor and a simple, clear, even fun solution for addressing it. I’d share this with all my clients.” 
  Cathy Yardley, writing coach of RockYourWriting.com