If you grew up with ADHD, you’ve probably told yourself this at least a thousand times:“I could do better if I just tried harder.”

It sounds reasonable. It even sounds responsible.But for a lot of us, it’s the seed of something toxic — shame.

Because the unspoken ending to that sentence is:“…and the fact that I’m not doing better must mean something’s wrong with me.”

I know that sentence well.

It was planted in me as a kid and grew into a voice that followed me for decades — a voice that said:

“You’re lazy.”
“You never follow through.”
“You’re not good enough.”

It sounds like truth because you’ve heard it for so long.But here’s the thing: that voice isn’t truth — it’s shame.

And shame isn’t who you are.

Shame Is a Story, Not an Identity

Shame is the silent narrator in your head.It doesn’t scream.It doesn’t have to.

It just quietly rewrites your story until you believe it’s been true all along.

And because you have ADHD, you’re more vulnerable to letting shame take over. ADHD comes with two things that make it stick fast:

More moments where you fall short of expectations.
More correction from other people telling you to “do better.”

Individually, those moments might seem small — forgetting homework, missing a deadline, zoning out in a meeting. But they pile up.

And ADHD brains have a bad habit of turning “I messed up” into “I am a mess.”

My Story — When the Voice Moved In

For me, it started in junior high.My parents suddenly became laser-focused on grades. In their minds, pushing hard early was how you set a kid up for college.

I can’t fault their intentions — they wanted the best for me.

But, back then, ADHD wasn’t on anyone’s radar unless you were bouncing off walls or getting detention every week.

I was neither. So to them, my resistance to homework just looked like laziness.

I wasn’t lazy.

I just hated being forced to sit and do tedious work — I couldn’t “make” myself do it.

When my grades slipped, the comments started:

“You should be ashamed. You’re better than that.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t do your work.”

By 7th grade, a C+ could earn me a punishment.

I’d been raised to take full responsibility for my failures.Don’t make excuses.Don’t blame anyone else.

So I didn’t.

In fact, I agreed with them.They were “right” — I could do better, and I wasn’t.

The only explanation that made sense to me was that I was the problem.

That’s when the voice moved in.

The Voice That Outlives Its Source

By high school, my parents eased up. But it didn’t matter — I didn’t need them to criticize me anymore.

I’d learned to do it myself.

College was two and a half years of alternating between partying and dread before I dropped out.

Then came my first business — something I actually cared about.

I thought this would be the thing that finally made me proud of myself. But the moment I hit a setback, the voice was right there:

“You’re not doing enough.”
“You never follow through.”
“You always screw it up.”

That’s the thing about shame — once the voice takes over, it doesn’t go away just because you start something new. It just replays on a loop in your mind until you believe it’s "who you are."

Why Shame Hits ADHD Brains Harder

ADHD makes you more likely to be misunderstood, corrected, or made to feel “less than” — especially as a kid. And the more often that happens, the easier it is for shame to become the default lens you see life through.

That’s the main reason why people with ADHD always feel behind.

Because we couldn’t focus, our parents, teachers, coaches — even people we looked up to — unintentionally trained us to see ourselves that way.

From their point of view it was “redirection” or “tough love.” And I’m sure most of the time it came from love.

But love and encouragement are hard to feel when it’s drowned out by the constant drumbeat of “do better.”

Eventually, you stop hearing it as feedback about one moment and start hearing it as the definition of you.

The Truth: Shame Is Circumstance, Not Character

If you want the voice to go away, the answer isn’t to “try harder” until you finally do everything perfectly.

You can’t — and deep down you know this. You just keep trying because you don’t see an alternative.

But there is one: stop letting shame call the shots!

Shame makes us feel like we have to obey it — like if we don’t, some even worse fate is waiting.

It’s such a deep, primal emotion that we rarely stop to question its authority. But the truth is, it’s an impostor pretending it has more power than it really does.

Remember how, in the last lesson, we uncovered that so much of who you think you are was built by chance — random moments, offhand comments, awkward experiences that stuck?

Here’s the part we usually miss: Those random events didn’t shape us just because they happened.

They shaped us because shame stepped in, gave them meaning, and that "meaning" stuck.

Which means the events themselves aren’t what built your identity — it’s the feelings they triggered and the conclusions you drew that created "who you are."

If you walked out of the bathroom in 8th grade with toilet paper stuck to your shoe and kids laughed, the pain wasn’t caused by the toilet paper or the kids; it was born the second shame hit and you made a silent decision about yourself — "this always happens to me, I'm the kid people laugh at."

But that’s not truth; it’s just the story shame convinced you to believe. When you realize that, the power shifts. Those events stop being destiny. They’re just circumstances.

Different teacher. Different parenting style. Different tone in the heat of the moment. Any of those could have rewritten the story you tell yourself.

So why let shame keep defining you just because those things happened once?

Just because they hurt a long time ago?

Think about how flimsy that really is.

Something that "accidental" should not get to define who you are, how you feel about yourself, or how you live your life.

How to Start Dealing With It

In the next lesson we're going to dive a little deeper into this idea and learn how to stop letting shame steer who you think you are.

But for now, the key is simply to notice it. See when it shows up.

For me, it’s usually when something reminds me how far behind I feel.

Then I just try to "unpack" it by asking myself questions:

Where did it start?
What am I doing that keeps this feeling alive?
What am I avoiding because of it?

Notice I’m not trying to “solve” shame or force it away.

The goal is to shine a light on it — to understand it.

This skill will be crucial as we go deeper and start rebuilding identity from a place of truth rather than pain.

We won’t be fighting shame — we’ll be disarming it in a way you’d never expect.

Lesson 1 – “I Just Need to Try Harder”

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