They Taught us to Fear Ourselves

I can’t trust myself. I’ll never get anything done.

I frequently hear this sentiment from ADHD folks. In coaching sessions, online or hidden between the lines of ADHD literature. We figure out hacks to create fear so we can “get stuff done”. We ask the people around us to create artificial deadlines to scare us into action. We deliberately make ourselves miserable - because the only thing worse than being sad, is being unproductive.

And we really are miserable. Adults with ADHD are 3.5x more likely to have a mood disorder (like depression), 2.5x more likely to have an anxiety disorder and 2.5x more likely to have a substance use disorder. Most chillingly, we are 5x more likely to attempt suicide. Whatever it is we’re doing to ourselves, it isn’t helping us.

We need to find a better way. A way that doesn't involve hurting ourselves. A way that allows us to trust ourselves and our instincts. A way that helps us be productive without sacrificing our well-being and our lives.

How did we get here

A crucial factor shaping our emotional well-being is the constant criticism we have likely encountered from influential adults in our lives. Parents, teachers, or other authority figures' harsh words can have a profound impact on our self-perception and self-esteem. 

ADHDers receive a lot more criticism than most people, and so we tend to feel the effects strongly. “How do you keep losing your glasses?”, “This room’s a mess, how do you live like this?”, “You’re smart, but you just don’t try”. This criticism piles up and up, threatening to overwhelm us.

Over time, to cope with this relentless criticism, we may internalise it. Protecting ourselves by claiming it as our own. But in the process, we forget that this started with someone else’s opinions. It isn’t necessarily true. We start to believe that “I can’t trust myself. If I listen to my instincts I’ll never get anything done”. We learn to fear ourselves.

What can we do

To improve our well-being, we need to rediscover what we truly want to do in life, not what we fear not doing.

We should’ve spent our formative years learning how to do this. But instead we spent it learning to avoid failure and criticism; or at least survive it. We’re not going to learn how to do trust ourselves. It’s a journey, but one friends, families, therapists or coaches can help with.

But defining our own version of success is vital. We can’t become happy by avoiding reprimand. We can’t become happy by never disappointing anyone else. We have to say

To ever get anything meaningful done, I have to trust myself.