Embrace Your True Self - Cope With & Overcome ADHD Denial & Masking
In an often hostile neurotypical society, embracing your ADHD and learning to be vulnerable despite your differences can feel impossible.
Denial and resistance to your condition can persist long after you've been officially diagnosed. Even if you embrace your neurodivergence, you may struggle with masking and excessively regulating yourself in front of others
This article will cover the underlying reasons behind denial, doubt, and masking and offer strategies to gradually overcome them.
Why Doubt and Denial Persist Despite Diagnosis
Many people with ADHD struggle to fully accept their condition.
For some, the social conditioning of their parents, teachers, and the people around them is too strong and keeps pulling them in the opposite direction.
For example, very often, your parents are not likely to fully understand because they grew up in an age where ADHD wasn’t an official diagnosis or was associated with boys going on a frenzy and not with girls and adults struggling with inattention and impulsivity. Even if they care, there is a large empathy gap, making it easier for them to think of you as lazy, irresponsible, and stupid than to admit you have a valid excuse for your behavior.
It's a misguided perception, but you shouldn't blame yourself for having moments of fear, doubt, and insecurity about the legitimacy of your diagnosis. If a person was told a lie ten thousand times, it is very normal or expected for them to require some time to fight through this cognitive dissonance.
In other cases, social pressure and brainwashing are not necessary to cause doubt since the person has a fierce and ruthless inner critic who seeks to tear down their diagnosis. This skeptical critic whispers in their ear - “What if your diagnosis is false, and you are just using it as an excuse for your own incompetence, irresponsibility, laziness, and immaturity?”
In a very twisted way, thinking of your symptoms as a character deficit instead of ADHD is sometimes more comforting for people with low self-worth. Problematic behavior patterns coming from your character can be changed because you choose to be this way. However, ADHD is permanent and unchangeable; for better or worse, you are the way you are.
Taking The First Steps To Overcome Doubt and Denial With Radical Acceptance
Radical acceptance of ADHD is the antidote to denial.
It is absurd to deny accommodation to a physically disabled person and question their condition while they are in a wheelchair. Your situation is no different.
Radical acceptance encourages you to repeat, internalize, and always remember the facts, which will not change no matter how you feel or what others say.
The Facts: ADHD is an irreversible neurodevelopmental disorder. It can not be magically fixed. No matter if you think of it as a curse, blessing, or anything in between, you will always have ADHD. No amount of punishment, supervision, discipline, different systems, or anything else will change how your brain works.
I want you to think about this for a moment and remember all the times you’ve tried to make your ADHD go away.
Recall the countless times you got a new fancy app or tried a new system to stay organized, only to forget about it in a week. Remember how many bullet journals and notebooks you’ve bought in the hopes of writing down your to-do lists, only to stare at them with no desire to get started, followed by totally forgetting about them soon enough. Did reading books get easier? Probably not. How about doubting your career choice because you feel under-stimulated in your current job? That sounds very likely.
You can stop torturing yourself by thinking that you will eventually find a way to reset your settings “back to normal”.
The change in perception won’t happen at once. Admitting that you really have ADHD isn’t enough to instantly internalize the fact and truly believe it.
You may have some remaining resistance because thinking of your ADHD traits as character flaws gives you some control. Personalities can change, and you may hold onto the belief that you can get better if you are actually just lazy and irresponsible. Maybe you think it’s worth it to be commanded by your harsh and critical inner voice if it helps you function, even if it comes at the cost of chronic guilt, shame, and mental exhaustion.
You can overcome this belief in two ways.
First, you can recognize that radical acceptance of your condition explains, but not an excuse. You can still hold yourself to high standards and try to get better. No one expects you to wave the white flag and admit defeat once you accept your ADHD.
Rather, accepting yourself helps you to turn down the pressure a bit. You can still hold yourself on a leash, but stop squeezing so tightly because suffocating yourself is counter-productive. You shouldn't blame yourself for having ADHD and the behavior it has led towards until now, but you have an obligation to accept the circumstances, deal with the consequences of your actions, and make an effort to be better in the future.
Second, you can still get results at work, at home, and in your relationships without threatening yourself with shame whenever you fail to self-regulate. For example, instead of studying by yourself, you can look for and organize group study sessions so it’s easier to stay on track. Similarly, when you struggle to do the hardest thing in the morning, you can start with easier tasks to warm yourself up before diving into the day’s biggest challenges.
Just like a person can go from “chaotic” to “organized”, your ADHD symptoms can go from severe to manageable. I am sure you’ve seen this yourself in the rare moments when you slept well, weren’t under chronic stress, had time for 2-3 healthy meals a day, or kept a consistent workout routine. The diagnosis of ADHD is fixed and here to stay, but don’t be mistaken in thinking that your symptoms are always the same.
The end goal is to have a good life. Relying on the endless spiral of shame is one way to get results, but it’s not the only one. You can manage your symptoms by creating systems, designing your spaces, organizing your life around your condition, and partially relying on trusted people. I know it can seem frightening, but life will not collapse if you admit you have ADHD.
Changing The Internal Rhetoric In Your Mind
Reading what I’ve written will likely not be enough. By tomorrow, you will have probably forgotten about it, especially if you have ADHD. Due to disruptions in brain regions, like the prefrontal cortex, it may be hard to process information just by reading it once. To actively process a message, you need to hear it multiple times.
Repetition is necessary for a message to sink in fully, so you need to design an exercise where this repetition happens in a convenient way. One action step you can take today is to sit down for 20 minutes and write down everything you would like to think about if and when your condition is mentioned.
Like "ADHD is real no matter what others think and say”, "Accepting reality is hard, but it is the only way forward," and "It is better to manage my condition even if it is hard instead of pretending it doesn't exist," and others.
Then, go through them again and write a second script, more concise and to the point. Make it feel as though you are writing a 5-minute speech to yourself. It should have this style and structure because this is precisely what you are doing. You will then make a voice recording over the script and listen to it in the morning, evening, and whenever else you need it.
If you do this religiously for a year and it doesn't help, then you can make another recording full of curses and insults and send it to me as a thank-you note for wasting your time. However, that won't be needed because you will get some results.
The optimal way would be to listen to the recording and really let the words sink in. Don’t worry, you will get some results even if the voice fades into background noise some days. This is because, most of the time, you are passively absorbing information. Your brain is not always on guard, ready to intentionally and critically dissect information.
This article has been one repetition in the right direction, but you will need many more. So, by having what you prefer to think voiced out and ready to be heard again, you can easily increase how much you hear the right message. This will help to protect you from messages that are not accepting of your condition.
It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from family, co-workers, and friends or your inner voice that keeps creating doubt over your diagnosis. Unhealthy noise and claims denying the seriousness of ADHD are everywhere, and you need to shield yourself.Masking With ADHD - Learning To Stop Hiding
Masking happens when we hide certain aspects of our personality and who we are because we believe that showing our unfiltered selves would lead to various negative responses, like shaming, criticism, and mockery.
For example, you are afraid of saying something inappropriate on impulse during a conversation and shutting off altogether, waking up two hours earlier than needed, and showing up before anyone else to avoid being late or telling white lies to people because coming up with a fake excuse is easier than actually explaining your weird struggles to keep it together.
When zoning out is seen as not caring, forgetting is perceived as carelessness, and impulsive decisions seem highly irrational, the natural response for a person with ADHD is to mask. Over time, you grow hyper-aware of your behavior and constantly self-regulate to avoid shame and humiliation.
Masking is common to all of us, whether neurodivergent or not. We do it with acquaintances to appear nice, at family gatherings to avoid drama, and at work to network and get a promotion. However, the stigma against ADHD and other mental health disorders means masking is often much more demanding and mentally exhausting for neurodivergents.
So, how do you get started with unmasking?
Accept that it will be a slow process - Some people with ADHD, especially those who receive a late diagnosis, have been masking for so long that asking them to open up and be themselves doesn't work. If you pretend to be someone else for so long, you begin to lose sight of who you really are. The raw, authentic, and unfiltered you are still somewhere inside, but it will take some time to bring it forth. It takes time to come out of your shell and learn not to feel stressed, uncomfortable, and fearful of danger whenever you behave like yourself.
Journal and reflect - If you are deep down in the masking rabbit hole, it can be hard to separate masking from your authentic behavior. The best way to tell the difference is to spend time with yourself because the lack of social contact means you don’t have to pretend for anyone. Alongside temporary solitude, you may want to journal on the topic of masking. How you approach this sort of reflection depends on your style. Some people prefer a free-flow journaling method, which means simply writing down the topic and then pouring it onto the page, whatever comes to mind. If you need specific questions to get your thought process going, you can ask yourself - a) why do I choose to mask? b) in what situations do I feel masking is necessary? c) which people in my life do I fear will judge me the most? d) how do I behave differently around them? e) what behaviors would I not do if I were by myself all the time?
Take it one step at a time - Your current struggle with unmasking is the result that didn't happen at once. It results from thousands of tiny gestures, like researching what your high school friends enjoy doing to have better conversations, agreeing to do something just to please others, or not talking about what's interesting to you to avoid judgment and standing out. Learning to prioritize yourself is as simple as picking one thing you did in the past and consciously choosing to do the opposite despite the discomfort. So, try to disappoint someone by saying "no" without the need of over-explaining your reasons and apologizing ten times. Express disagreement and what you really think instead of staying silent for a day. Spend the weekend without trying to read people's emotions, thoughts, and upcoming responses and constantly micro-managing your body language. For a whole week, do what you want instead of second-guessing yourself or asking for approval from others. When you are by yourself, allow yourself to dance, sing, shout, and do whatever you want. You don't have to do any of this at once, just take it one tiny step at a time.
Try to be more accepting of positive affirmation - The more you believe there's something wrong with you, the more you are likely to mask and hide what you see as flaws. This makes you instinctively dismiss nice behavior, like getting compliments. You might want to double-check your social circles and daily interactions and see if you have recently dismissed and downplayed positive words about yourself or distanced yourself from people who were kind, loving, and compassionate toward you. It's perfectly normal to feel this way if a part of you believes you don't really deserve it or you are afraid of opening up and trusting people. However, unmasking requires you to allow people to accept you and show how much they like you alongside your own journey of embracing your true self.
Don’t be ashamed to modify your social environment - We camouflage our ADHD traits, mirror the behavior of other people, and mask who we are because we are afraid of how others will perceive us. It’s hard to begin the process of unmasking yourself if you constantly fear how others will react to your behavior. Learning to drop the mask is substantially easier if you work on surrounding yourself with non-judgemental people who accept you the way you are. Having people around you who care, respect, and love you the way you are can give you the strength and comfort to be vulnerable and behave without self-restraint. You can specifically seek out ADHD and neurodivergent groups in person and online since it’s always easier to bond, open up to, and connect with people who are going through experiences similar to yours.
Don’t be afraid to cut negativity out of your life - Unless you are financially dependent on someone, cutting them out of your life is always an option. You can do it in any way you feel comfortable with, ranging from instant ghosting to gradually reducing contact as you grow more comfortable not obeying their orders and commands. It’s often the most toxic, bigoted, and narrow-minded people in our lives that cause the most harm to our self-image and sense of identity. Cutting someone from your life becomes more challenging if they are family and close friends. It’s surprisingly easy to love someone, even if they are actively hurting you. If you are in such a situation, I highly advise you to seek support from other people, reach out to a therapist, or ask for help online as a measure of last resort. Isolation is preferable to being surrounded by toxic people, but loneliness can make you desperate to get back in touch with people who have poisoned your life for far too long.
Finally, you shouldn’t ever be ashamed of masking.
It helped you to survive, and adopting it as a coping mechanism must have felt necessary at the time. You also shouldn’t be ashamed if you still struggle to unmask or practice masking in specific circumstances. I know it may sound controversial, but masking is sometimes beneficial and necessary. This is especially true in professional settings because you shouldn't risk your employment, reputation, and financial security.
For instance, socializing with your managers whenever they show up in your office, even if you dread it, and pretending to be friendly in teambuilding meetings are all mentally exhausting but may be unavoidable if you really want to keep your current job and have no other options.
The problem comes when you mask so much that you can't drop the facade, even when alone or spending quality time with loved ones.
Key Takeaways
Getting an official ADHD diagnosis is just the first step in accepting your condition. Unfortunately, the piece of paper is not enough to shut down the skepticism and distrust from the people around you or the doubt you still have about ADHD. This is why accepting yourself and learning to un-mask are life-long battles that do not have instant solutions.
