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You Are Not the Sum of Your ADHD Challenges

The ADHD brain gravitates toward black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking. The problem is that human beings are complicated and contradictory. As a result, many women with ADHD ping-pong between extreme perceptions of themselves — bad or good, dumb or smart, motivated or lazy. This reactive, extreme thinking leads to low self-esteem and should be replaced with inward thinking and a healthy dose of self-compassion. Here, learn how to reframe your view of yourself.

4 Comments: You Are Not the Sum of Your ADHD Challenges

  1. I’ve learned that every time there are distinctions between men and women with respect to ADHD I more closely align with the descriptions of women with ADHD, and yet I’m a guy. It’s kind of amusing but it’s just one more example of how I just don’t fit in.

    That said, I’ve been really trying to accept myself for who I am, to embrace both my benefits and challenges. This article is very good timing.

    One thing working for me is to spend time every day thinking about what I’m thankful for. There is a spiritual aspect to having ADHD (or maybe everyone has this) that has helped me. Namely, there is a spiritual reserve that is increased as I think good thoughts and is decreased as I struggle with the typical challenges of ADHD (losing things, time, memories, focus, ….) Further, the polarities of how I respond to challenges depends on how much spiritual reserve I have. It doesn’t prevent me from losing my keys or showing up late, but it sure makes it easier to deal with the repercussions. Yep, I lose stuff, but I also make some beautiful things that few others will even attempt. And yes, there are some goobers in those things, they aren’t perfect, but neither am I. Who wants perfect anyway? The really great characters in good books are far from perfect.

  2. “I don’t understand why it’s targeted towards women only when I think all genders could benefit from this thinking…..”,me too.

    WHY?

    …and another thing: I’m a man (hetero) and I’m very close my emotional needs…too much generalizations, stereotypes etc.

  3. This is a lovely and immensely helpful article, especially with the prompts it asks you to answer about yourself! However, I don’t understand why it’s targeted towards women only when I think all genders could benefit from this thinking. Men especially are socialized to distance themselves from their emotional needs, so they may benefit doubly so from an article on self-acceptance.

  4. Exceptional piece by two exceptional experts in the field. Thank you for this- I’ll be sharing it with my clients and followers.

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