Maybe It's Not Your Fault: ADHD & Gaslighting

Throughout my life, I've been called lazy, stupid, attention-seeking, dramatic, in need of 'toning up', emotional, and crazy. I was repeatedly told there was nothing wrong with me, until I was diagnosed with ADHD age 25.

My experience is the same as thousands of other women and girls with ADHD. The danger of missed diagnosis isn't just that we're unable to get support for our symptoms: it's that we are being conditioned to gaslight ourselves, which makes us extremely vulnerable to abuse in all areas of life.

When you're repeatedly told your fine when you're not, you start to doubt your own reality. You can't set boundaries because you don't have a stable sense of self: you're told by other people how you 'should' be. You can't trust yourself or your experiences.

From the teacher who accused me of cheating for getting good grades, to the stranger on the street who told me to lose 3 inches off my hips to save her job, to the man who physically assaulted me, to the doctors who said I was fine despite being suicidal, I felt like everything was my fault.

I wrote 'ADHD: an A to Z' to understand my own brain, which empowered me to understand that I am not powerless. It finally clicked that I didn't deserve to be bullied, and I started standing up for myself, instead of apologising for who I was.

This weekend I was told:

It is never your fault for being abused.

Being diagnosed with ADHD doesn't magically make you able to stand up for yourself or eradicate a lifetime of being denied the help you needed, but it does make you able to realise that maybe, just maybe, it's not your fault.

Some examples of gaslighting in relation to ADHD in personal relationships a person may experience could include:

• Being told ADHD isn't real, you don't have it, you're 'fine', 'normal', or that you don't 'look' or 'seem' like you have ADHD.
• Being advised not to take your medication, or not to see your doctor / therapist etc.
• Your emotions being ignored or minimized, with your experiences being invalidated (e.g 'just cheer up - it's not that bad!')
• Being told you're being overly sensitive, insecure, crazy, paranoid, dramatic etc.
• Feeling generally confused, overwhelmed at making simple decisions, with long arguments erupting at any time.
• Having your ADHD symptoms pitted against you, such as being made to question your experiences due to being 'forgetful', or told off for being 'messy'.
• Having your boundaries and needs repeatedly ignored, especially over seemingly small decisions you've made, like where to go for dinner.
• Being compared to somebody else, such as your partner saying, 'X doesn't think that!', or trying to deliberately upset you, or provoke you into becoming angry.
• Feeling isolated from your friends, family, and things you enjoy doing.

In the workplace, it could look like:

• Being denied support for your ADHD, especially when directly asking for it, or being ignored after disclosing it.
• Being assured that you will be provided with help, and that help never arriving, forcing you to have to ask for it repeatedly.
• Being put on a Performance Improvement Plan at work because of your ADHD, instead of being given adjustments.
• Being referred to Occupational Health when disclosing your ADHD & no follow up conversations ever happening after this.
• Being told about reasonable adjustments which are not implemented, and having no way to follow up on this.
• Being treated differently to your colleagues, or being denied support with no explanation.
• Having information withheld from you that you need to do your job properly.
• Having your ADHD symptoms deliberately pitted against you, such as by being given multiple conflicting verbal instructions, especially if you've raised this as something you struggle with.
• Being made to feel as though it is only your responsibility to mitigate your ADHD symptoms at work.
• Having your ADHD spoken about with others, without your knowledge or involvement.
• Being made to feel as though the goal posts are being constantly moved, and nothing you ever do will be good enough.

I strongly believe that workplaces should have a reasonable adjustments or disability policy in place, setting out exactly how a person can access support, what their rights are, and Equality law, which clearly states that it is the employer's responsibility to make accommodations. The benefit of workplaces is that there should be clear rules and boundaries, which don't always apply to our personal relationships.

If any of this has resonated with you, my advice is to:

1. Document everything. Keeping a journal whilst in abusive relationships allowed me to see that I wasn't going crazy: the same things were happening over and over again. If you're with a particularly vindictive person they might read your diary, so I'd recommend ensuring this is as safe and protected as possible.
2. Seek support. Other people are crucial to supporting us to understand what is and isn't 'normal' or acceptable, especially if we're used to questioning ourselves. Speak to your friends, family, charities, therapists, doctors, anybody you can.
3. Take action. If your boundaries are violated, enforce them with action - whether this is going to the police (2 or more incidents of unwanted contact can amount to harassment), copying someone else into an email asking for help, or making a complaint.
4. Get out. If you're being gaslighted, the environment is probably not the best one for you to be in long term. Your freedom is the most valuable thing you have, and although it might be hard to leave an abusive situation, it will always be worth it in the long run.
5. Remember that it is not your fault. We might blame ourselves for getting into situations, previously accepting certain behaviours, or having acted in certain ways before. The only thing that matters is how you feel right now. Please do not allow your past to determine your future.

If you want to contact me for support in any of this, including helping your employer to establish policies for reasonable adjustments, please drop me a message or schedule a chat here .