My name is Andy Robinson, I am an ADHDer, and I have crippling low self-esteem.
There. I’ve said it out loud.
I seem to have spent most of my life coming out.
One of my recent TikTok videos on this subject has caused many ADHDers to reach out to me, all of them experiencing very similar emotions, and many of them feeling desperate as a result.
It’s something that has followed me my whole life, and it’s played a part in inspiring me to write my memoir, Meeting Myself at the Intersection, which I hope will be out next year.
In both my personal and professional life, I have met several ADHDers, and many other neurodivergent folk, and one of the things that connected us all was low self-worth. Low self-esteem is so chronic that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for the vast majority of us.
We know that ADHD is a hereditary neurodevelopmental phenomenon; it involves brain structure and function together with imbalances in dopamine and norepinephrine (among others). The net result of this, for me as an adult male, is that I struggle daily to focus, I’m forgetful, and my time management and prioritisation skills lag behind so-called neurotypicals. I am constantly restless; I hate queuing for anything; I act impulsively, often to my own detriment; and I deal poorly with frustration. Oh, and if I start something, it’s unlikely that I’ll complete it, and my impulsivity can lead to risky behaviour. I also struggle to manage stress effectively.
My low self-esteem has been shaped by years of negative experiences, though ADHD-related differences in emotion and reward processing can make those experiences land more heavily. The challenges that arise from navigating a neurotypical (and for me, heteronormative) world are such that I have lived with 62 years of continual negative feedback. In other words, my low self-esteem is shaped not by biology but by experience.
I think it’s pretty well known that ADHDers can hyperfocus. Some call it a superpower, which, at times, it can be. Some clinicians describe ADHD motivation patterns as an ‘interest-based nervous system’. This isn’t a formal medical term, but a helpful way to explain why interest or urgency drives us more than importance. So when we hyperfocus, it’s on an area of interest, and the ability to hyperfocus exists outside our control. If the interest isn’t there, no amount of cajoling will earn our compliance.
Now, imagine this in the school setting, where a teacher sees her student excel in one area but languish in another. My experience was one of constant beratement. I excelled in English language and literature, performing arts, biology, and religious studies, but utterly sank in most other subjects. I remember one teacher saying, “There’s no point in turning up for the exam as you aren’t going to pass it.” I was reading my school reports the other day, and almost every entry contained comments like, “Andrew is capable, but he doesn’t apply himself,” “If Andrew concentrated instead of staring out the window, he would achieve much more.” One entry even says, “Andrew fusses like an old woman.”
Hearing this over and over again made me feel like a failure. I even spent some time in what was known as the “remedial class,” further compounding my belief that I was in some way broken. My experience was that everything I turned my hand to failed to attain the required standard. Failure stared me in the face daily, which led to bullying, not just from my peers, but from teachers, too.
I am sure you can imagine how devastating and destructive such treatment would be for any child. No child could be exposed to this and their self-esteem remain intact, but let me explain one other thing. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is very commonly reported in ADHD communities and clinical settings, even though it isn’t a formal diagnostic category. RSD causes us to experience the slightest indication of rejection, or the perception of rejection, at a level and depth that can feel life-threatening. The mental and physical pain is immense and all-pervading. It crushes people.
And this carries on into the work setting, where ADHDers are criticised for not applying themselves, not performing as well as their peers. As such, ADHDers struggle to maintain purposeful employment.
Conversely, ADHDers may find employment in an arena that matches their interest. Many ADHDers work for themselves because it aligns their careers with their interests. I did precisely that for more than a decade.
There is, however, a risk that we become people-pleasers, hyperfocus, and become consumed by our job to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. Driven by perfectionism stemming from our negative lived experience, nothing we do feels good enough, and we end up struggling with internal self-worth. The slightest, even constructive criticism, will be perceived through the lens of RSD, leading us to externalise self-worth. We receive our sense of personal value not from an innate sense of our individual worth, but from the validation of others, as this compensates for our inner feelings of inadequacy and failure. And even when praise does come, we dismiss it as a fluke, or luck, and in my case, thoughts of “How did I manage to fool them?” because the comment doesn’t align with our self-perception. We live daily with Imposter Syndrome, and the net result is burnout, which can be devastating. Many adults receive a diagnosis after long periods of struggle, sometimes following burnout or a period of crisis.
Often we find ourselves working in social or caring environments, volunteering in our spare time, and going out of our way to support friends, family, and neighbours, very often to our own detriment. Add our struggles with emotional regulation and our frequently heightened states of empathy to the mix, and you will see how others can take advantage when we think we’re helping. We believe we are helping because we struggle to set boundaries, such is our need for affirmation. And this seeking and receiving of affirmation come not from arrogance, as we are often told, but because they release dopamine. We experience differences in dopamine and reward processing, which means external affirmation can feel particularly regulating and motivating.
The good news is, we can.
Coaching can help, but I would say that as I’m a Coach!
Developing your own “Inner Coach,” or your “own best friend,” can help. Growing in self-awareness and understanding your blocks, breaks, and triggers will help you pause before reacting or making decisions. You can use your self-awareness to understand your habit energy. In other words, recognising familiar feelings and impulses that arise in given situations, and by practising the pause, you can choose to respond rather than react.
This takes practice. It really is a practice, not an event.
You are worthy of love and kindness just because of who you are.
You are not broken, weird, or damaged. You are not a failure. You are a human being deserving of love and good things.
