ADHD can take a terrible toll on our relationships and our ability to accomplish our goals. But some of its most painful effects are on our self-esteem and identity: what we come to believe about who we are and what we are capable of.
You may have spent years being told to try harder, pay attention, or finish what you started. You may have been trying very hard already. When your effort keeps falling short of what people expect, it can become difficult to feel good about yourself.
It is not fair
So much of school, work, and everyday life is organized around expectations that may be difficult for you to meet consistently. Remember every detail. Manage competing demands. Know how long something will take. Keep doing the same task long after it has lost your attention.
Trying to perform in a system built around a different way of functioning can be exhausting. And then being judged for struggling adds another layer of pain.
It is not fair. We need to be able to acknowledge that without turning it into another thing you are supposed to overcome through effort.
You can change your relationship to both
You cannot make yourself stop having ADHD, and you cannot personally remake every system you have to live in. But you can change your relationship to both.
You can reconsider how you evaluate yourself and other people. Does difficulty with paperwork mean you are incapable? Does forgetting something mean you do not care? How much of your sense of worth has become tied to being productive, organized, or easy for other people to live with?
You can also begin to curate a life that suits you better. That might mean looking for work that makes use of your interests and strengths, building relationships where you can talk openly about what you need, or simplifying the life admin that keeps overwhelming you. Some changes will require support, money, or flexibility you may not have right now. We can start with the choices available to you.
Kindness gives us somewhere to start
Being hard on yourself will not make ADHD go away. Being kind to yourself can help you respond to it more effectively.
When you can acknowledge a difficulty without attacking yourself, there is more room to understand what happened, ask for help, and try something different.
In therapy, we’ll work with the shame and the experiences that shaped it. We’ll also look at how you want to live and what would help make that possible. The aim is for you to have more freedom to build a life you enjoy being part of.
Sources and further reading
More support: ADHD therapy in California →