So, caveat here that I don’t have ADHD myself, but I have two friends who do.

One of my friends had a mother that was very shaming and critical when my friend with ADHD got distracted or forgot things. Like, “You’re so smart I don’t see why you can’t Do The Thing, it should be so simple!” and “Oh, she’ll forget her house keys and come crying to me to bring them to her!” (As if my friend was entitled or something–but she’s actually one of the most humble and sweet people I know, I have no idea why her mom has adopted this martyr persona where things she does on her own are somehow my friend’s fault. Her mother seems to struggle with anxiety, and projects it on everyone around her–she tries to deal with it by controlling everyone through passive aggressive remarks. Obviously since ADHD has rejection sensitivity sometimes, it hits my friend hard.)

For another person in another family, it might have been different, but for my friend, because her mom was always on the, “You’re so smart, why can’t you Do The Thing, it’s so simple!” train, the distractions and forgetfulness and stuff got rolled up with trauma because not only was her brain distracting her all the time, but when a task WAS remembered, there’s a bunch of shame and trauma getting into the mix on top of the ADHD symptoms. Like, she already had tons of trouble trying to Do The Thing, but her mom made it so there was also shame and anxiety pulling her attention away on top of the baseline ADHD.

So maybe “technically” it’s depression or anxiety or whatever–but it seems a fairly common experience for folks with neurodivergance who are surrounded by family who just “can’t understand” why they don’t “do the thing”.

I don’t have ADHD like I said, but I have C-PTSD and grew up with family that is schizophrenic (I mean this very literally–several family members formally diagnosed, etc.), so when my C-PTSD stuff goes off due to stress, my gut instinct isn’t to Do The Thing to fix it, because in my experience my family was so chaotic that it honestly didn’t matter if I did or didn’t Do The Thing. My status of “in trouble” or “not in trouble” would be in flux according to THEIR mood, not what I actually had done, so it doesn’t register on me when I’m upset that “doing the thing” might fix the bad feelings by appeasing the other person.

So I ran into a lot of issues were my stress response makes me flee stressful things (like school homework when I was young, or cleaning, or paperwork deadlines for dr or whatever), which has a negative feedback cycle of, “Why didn’t you do this, it’s so easy!” kicking up shame, which makes me flee, which makes more shame, on and on and on in a shit cycle.

My friend and I had very different home lives, but the thing we shared here was mental differences (her ADHD, my trauma from a shit home life) getting wound up with anxiety/depression that are intimately attached to the shaming others/society does if it perceives us to be “lazy” when we’re actually panicking/afraid/guilty/hurting inside.