ADHD & Shame
You’re not lazy
You try and try, but it feels like you’re not getting where you want to go. You create plans to get tasks done, but as soon as one thing goes wrong you get mad at yourself for once again not following through. Your report cards in school probably said things like “has potential but easily distracted” and as you’ve gotten older you’ve become all too familiar with the anxiety that comes from doing everything at the last minute. You might be able to laugh it off with friends when the topic of procrastination comes up, but to yourself you ask, “why am I the only one who can’t do this?”
Spoiler: It’s not you, its ADHD.
Brains are powerful and complicated things
Everything you’ve ever learned, experienced, and felt turns into a neural pathway. The more you hear that you’re “not living up to your potential” or “lazy” the more your brain understands that to be true and the more likely you are to believe it. Your brain wants to travel the path of least resistance. A neural pathway that has been used for years is way easier to follow than one that’s new. This is why you may have struggled with traditional reframing. Telling yourself something new is not as easy as telling yourself something you’ve believed since you were 8. Many of my clients tell me things like “I know I’m not a failure and I shouldn’t feel that way, but I do”.
Knowing VS Feeling
Knowing is your cognitive brain. You can objectively look at the facts and draw conclusions. Feeling is your emotional brain. It’s the part that goes “yeah but…”. You can cognitively know you’re a badass, but simultaneously feel like you’ll never be able to live up to your own standards. This is where I like to introduce EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy is based on the premise that your brain wants to heal itself but doesn’t know how to get there. Through reprocessing sessions, you will allow your brain the room to make connections in a new way and truly feel those positive thoughts. You may have heard of EMDR in combination with trauma therapy, which is what it was originally developed for. Even if you wouldn’t define your experiences as traumatic, reprocessing the difficult moments from our past can help us to move forward with a renewed sense of self and confidence in our abilities.
What Happens Next?
We’ll meet for your initial intake session to get a sense of what your needs are & where I can help. What we process in therapy is 100% confidential. You are in the drivers seat, I am here to help navigate. This means you choose the pace, the topics, and what feels right and reasonable for you. If we decide EMDR is the right fit for you, there will be plenty of time to get comfortable before I’ll ask you to dive into any difficult memories. My job is to facilitate an environment where you feel safe to look at some hard parts of your life and help you build both knowing and feeling your strengths.
If you're ready to lose the word lazy from your vocabulary, let's talk.