October 14, 2025 • 23 mins
Imposter syndrome hits differently for ADHD women especially those diagnosed later in life. In this episode, Jess and Jeannine unpack how perfectionism, people-pleasing, and impossible standards leave us questioning our worth. They talk about masking, burnout, and what it means to finally believe: you’re not the imposter the system is.
Follow @angryontheinside for more candid ADHD conversations and unfiltered stories about late diagnosis, self-compassion, and neurodivergent life.
00:00 – Welcome & Disclaimer: ADHD, Imposter Feelings, and Real Talk Jess and Jeannine open the episode, define imposter feelings, and remind listeners that this is a real-life ADHD conversation, not therapy.
00:36 – What Is Imposter Syndrome in Women with ADHD? They unpack how self-doubt, fear of being “found out,” and difficulty accepting success often show up for ADHD women.
03:02 – Perfectionism, Negativity Bias, and ADHD Self-Doubt A discussion on how ADHD brains fixate on mistakes and confuse perfectionism with worthiness.
06:21 – Late ADHD Diagnosis and the Cycle of Self-Doubt Reflecting on the emotional mix of relief and doubt that comes with a late ADHD diagnosis.
08:27 – People-Pleasing, Overachievement, and ADHD Burnout How overworking and people-pleasing become survival tools that eventually lead to burnout.
11:03 – Letting Go of Coping Strategies and Finding Your Voice What happens when ADHD women stop people-pleasing and start speaking their truth aloud.
13:03 – Masking, Comparison, and Internalized Denial in ADHD How masking traits and comparing struggles feed denial and reinforce imposter feelings.
16:31 – That’s Not Normal: Calling Out ADHD Imposter Thoughts A lighthearted segment where Jess and Jeannine call out common ADHD imposter beliefs.
17:24 – Leaning Into ADHD: Diagnosis, Community & Acceptance Using diagnosis as a tool for self-understanding and finding connection in the ADHD community.
21:09 – Rewriting the Narrative: Self-Compassion & ADHD Women Closing reflections on journaling, acceptance, and reclaiming self-compassion for ADHD women.
23:32 – Kick Today in the Nuts: The Angry on the Inside Outro Jess and Jeannine wrap up with laughter, honesty, and that signature AOI reminder — you’re not alone, and you’ve got this (nuts and all).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Are you familiar with the term imposter syndrome?
if not, are you familiar with imposter feelings?
Do you know the feeling, the sense that you're a fake and at any moment you could bediscovered?
For women with ADHD, especially those diagnosed later in life, those feelings run deep andcan cast a shadow over all areas of their life.
(00:20):
Welcome back, I'm Jess.
and I'm Janine.
and this is angry on the inside.
done, done, done.
Quick disclaimer, we're not doctors or therapist.
we are certified ADHD coaches, but this podcast isn't coaching.
It's two late diagnosed women unpacking what we've lived.
Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and remember, you're not alone.
(00:42):
let's start out on the same page.
What is imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome is that nagging belief that you're a fraud, that you're somehow fooledeveryone into thinking you're competent, capable, successful.
even when the evidence says otherwise, the inner critic insists you've just been lucky.
any minute now, people will find out the truth.
(01:02):
we have to realize imposter feelings, they go beyond questioning your value, believing youdon't deserve your success and you ignore or can't internalize the positive feedback and
the achievements.
if you've heard yourself say, I can't take a compliment or find yourself telling someonelearn to take a compliment.
This is a good introduction to imposter syndrome.
(01:24):
It is very difficult to accept that we are at a level where we may be qualified andknowledgeable about any said topic or situation in our lives.
for women with ADHD, imposter syndrome can run deep.
questioning your own diagnosis And even if you have the right to seek support for yourADHD.
(01:45):
For late diagnosed women, this can be a serious double edged sword situation.
It's validation mixed with doubt.
If I've made it this far without knowing, is it really ADHD?
Or am I just making excuses
That self doubt this is something that's very, very common.
Even if you haven't experienced imposter syndrome up until that diagnosis where you havethat doubt, it can still develop and be very impactful.
(02:11):
this also is a reflection of how we like to self sabotage.
We talk about how everything touches everything else, how everything is linked.
imposter syndrome, is part of our self-sabotaging behavior.
We will not give ourselves the grace we don't even have to be an expert.
am knowledgeable in this topic.
We look out upon everybody else and we think they are accomplishing more than we are, orwe are setting ourselves up for impossible standards.
(02:37):
And those impossible standards reflect back at us as imposter syndrome.
We're looking into the mirror and we can't even talk to ourselves in a kind way because wedon't believe that we are worthy.
we've spent so much of our lives being taught to second guess our own intuition that weend up with this overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome.
(03:02):
I guess it's that inability to trust yourself, that for women with ADHD is really kind ofthat key and can make it hard when people like say, give you compliments because in your
mind so often you're thinking, if you only knew though, if you only knew how hard this wasfor me or how much self doubt I'm filled with
Can I trust myself to really know what I'm talking about?
(03:23):
Because who knows, maybe halfway through I'll forget what I was talking about or I'llforget what I've learned.
I'll lose my train of thought.
since that's always playing in the back of your mind, for me at least, it makes it thatmuch harder when somebody compliments me on, that was a great job of just thinking, but
you have no idea.
I was faking my way through the entire thing and any moment I thought it was all gonna,
(03:43):
implode.
And I love that you bring that up, Janine, the, you only knew and you have no idea, thoseare whispering voices in the back of most of our minds when we're doing almost anything,
if you only knew, because in our minds, we think that we are messing up constantly, Wethink that we aren't making the level of effort that needs to be made, even though
(04:07):
We are expending tons of energy, two, three times the energy that the average person iscompleting tasks But we also know that part of ADHD is
missing nuance and missing some of those little things, being able to see the big pictureand the small details, but missing the slightest silliest mistakes.
(04:29):
And when people come to tell us about those mistakes, those are all we hear.
It is so much easier to sit in a negative mindset.
it fights us it beats us down And we really have to retrain ourselves
about how it all is related this is perfectionism also I didn't do everything perfectly.
(04:49):
since it's not perfect, I don't deserve any credit or any compliments yeah, you mightthink I did 99 % of it right,
I'm looking at the 1 % and that negates everything for me.
I think I've read that too, of just the, mean, humans overall from an evolutionarystandpoint, we tend to be more negative in our mindsets, than positive.
(05:12):
We assume bad things are gonna happen.
with ADHD it's even, it's double that.
think for extra, extra wired,
to have a negative outlook We know it's there, we try really, really hard to find it too,because we know it's going to be there.
don't you want to find it where someone else does because you don't want to be surprisedby it.
they looked closer at you, they would see it, right?
They're just not looking close enough.
But if we're able to pull it to the forefront, that negativity and point out our ownproblems, essentially we are creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
(05:39):
we do have to fight to pull the positive up to the front, into that prefrontal cortexperiod.
It can be a struggle.
that's sort of
twofold.
because one, we want to have control over our environment and that's a really easy way todo it.
And two, we forget our working memory, We only hold things for a short amount of time, weinterrupt people when they're talking because we want to get that idea out before we
(06:02):
forget it.
you know, try to rush through things, or we try to take those notes down and stuff, or wesit there and pause and look straight ahead and we're like, I don't know what I was going
to say.
That working memory doesn't work the way we need it to, but that long-term memory is thereall of those sad feelings and that heaviness, we as a neurodivergent community in general,
if that's what we're processing and that's what's staying in our long-term memory, that'swhat we're going to grab.
(06:27):
We easily forget the happiness and the positivity that is in our lives.
where does that doubt come into play then?
m
(07:00):
No,
the most solid example of imposter syndrome for late diagnosed women with ADHD, I thinkwould be getting the uh
late diagnosis in and of itself.
it's part of the processing that you experience You start to think, that there's a reallygood chance that you've made it this far and you don't
maybe have it.
Maybe, you're just whining.
you're being too emotional.
you're being too much.
the diagnosis can feel like a relief and a reckoning, that reckoning is where we start toreally pick apart and understand who we are
it's so funny to do that when we get a diagnosis and we figure out we're not broken wehave ADHD
then we cling on to, maybe there wasn't anything wrong with us in the first place, whichmakes absolutely no sense.
(07:27):
I'm just going to say once again, it's all a mind fuck, is it not?
um Yes.
Well, I think too, if you kind of made it this far you've developed your own copingstrategies, how to compensate for it.
whether it's people pleasing or your perfectionism, overachievement, That masking of yoursymptoms.
that you've just tried so hard to hide that part of you that it's hard sometimes, I think,to accept that no, it is actually there.
(07:54):
too, the promise during that time is learning, that your worth is equal to yourperformance.
to be successful, you've just had to put in a constant effort.
if you
ever let up on that, that you would be found out.
in that way you've just convinced yourself like, no, There's not a reason for me beingthis way.
I just have to work harder.
I just have to do better than everybody else.
and I've gotten this far, so I can just keep on doing that instead of looking at it as,no, actually there's a reason for this.
(08:22):
There's a reason I am the way that I am and there are things that I can do about that.
we need to bring to the forefront these coping skills that we develop over time that endup burning us out and driving us to seek the ADHD diagnosis.
(08:42):
we need to realize this is extremely toxic behavior towards ourselves.
when I was younger and I was in the workplace to say that I was a people pleaser, I worethat like a badge of honor.
Like, I thought that was a good thing.
you're really just wearing out your own system and pushing yourself towards burnout.
(09:02):
It's these things that we don't recognize as being abnormal.
And we just, grab onto them.
It took a long time for me to understand that even though people pleasing isn't completelyselfish, it is very self-serving.
And it's a huge part of what led me to burnout.
It was my inability to not be liked by everybody in the room and my inability to not be atop performer.
(09:30):
Those types of things that lead you to that people pleasing perfectionism overachievement.
They're not healthy and we hold on to them like they are.
And I think that is also a really excellent point when it comes
to feeling like an imposter.
We have unrealistic expectations, but what are those unrealistic expectations?
(09:53):
What are they really?
How do they impact us?
What are we doing to ourselves?
Because we can all say, well, nobody figured it out when I was a kid and nobody figured itout in my twenties or thirties.
And I know that freaking sucks.
I know it sucks.
I have lived it.
Janine has lived it.
So many women are living it right now.
But the God's honest truth is, that once you are emotionally stable enough to recognizethat, and once you are capable of realizing that most of your life has been out of the
(10:26):
ordinary and you start seeking this diagnosis and trying to figure these things out, then
You have to take responsibility that this is happening to you and you can't wear it like abadge of honor.
You have to process it.
And we get angry on the inside about it.
We lose time.
We lose opportunities.
We don't get to know ourselves, We feel like we've been hiding forever and we hide and wepivot and we lie and we do all these things.
(10:51):
And it's because
We measure our self-worth in a different way than anybody else does.
And we've been taken advantage of over and over again.
But we still have to seek the tools to find a way to heal ourselves.
what happens if you start to let go of all those strategies, What if you stop being apeople pleaser?
I mean, I don't know, something that like scares me.
(11:12):
Well, who would I be if I wasn't that?
um Who cares if it's unhealthy?
It's like, yeah, that's who I am.
That's what people expect.
we will also say things like, If I stopped being a perfectionist, if I stopped workingthis hard, if I didn't work 70 hours a week and work through my lunch hour I would lose my
job.
You wouldn't.
You wouldn't.
(11:32):
Because not everything our brain tells us is the truth.
And I know it feels that way.
But
if you do feel like this, seek out and therapy, discuss it in groups, be open about it sothat you can hear it, say it out loud, saying things out loud will break the rumination
cycle in your brain.
Whether you're just saying it to the mirror or saying it to someone else, it will help.
(11:54):
that's a great point.
That is, to me, is the perfect example of when group therapy or group coaching is reallyimportant or really, really helpful because hearing other people in the room say the same
thing that you're saying and how come though when they say it, You just look at them andthink, how can you think that way?
but when you think it to yourself, it just seems like, it's the God's honest truth.
(12:16):
It's the way it is.
it's truly an excellent, excellent explanation that Janine gave.
That is a huge part of coaching and healing and access to others that you may not realizeis available.
we can get caught up in, we talk about being able to accept things of the, and you who amI if I let go of these coping behaviors, if I let go of this compensating strategies I've
(12:38):
had of we're surrounded by people who they're used to that's who we are.
And especially those people are those who might question is ADHD really a thing?
I think it makes it even harder for you
to let go of some of those behaviors and believe that yes, you are impacted by ADHD andyou just need to find ways to work with it.
(12:58):
all of that stuff keeps you from moving forward.
And I think it's worth noting that imposter syndrome in many ways is another form ofdenial.
It's self denial, but it is a form of denial.
When we ask ourselves, who are we?
The role of masking.
Masking consciously or unconsciously, you're pretending to be neurotypical.
(13:22):
You put on a socially acceptable face even when it doesn't match what's happening inside
on top of all of this, the other thing that really starts to happen, you start to compareyourself with others.
you start, doing all the research, I remember reading stories of, people who'd lost theirjobs, lost their homes.
been arrested, And it made me look at my struggles My job's not been threatened before.
(13:46):
I've not gone bankrupt
You feel like ADHD has impacted someone's life so much more than yours that therefore youreally should just be able to do it on your own, You just need to toughen up.
You just need to work harder because it could be so much worse for you.
You're not struggling enough.
Which is such a weird thing to say, no, I'm struggling, but not enough.
(14:07):
so I don't need, I should be able to handle it on my own.
uh
what is enough?
Where is that bar for enough?
we enter this comparison trap.
That is one of the most devastating things I think to our community as a whole, How manyof you have grown up being told it's not that bad?
I cut my hand, it's not that bad.
I got sunburned, it's not that bad.
(14:29):
It could be worse.
It could always be worse.
you should be grateful even though we are grateful for the things that we have again weare comparing ourselves to others we cannot do that my experience is not less than
Janine's experience is not less than we are on a spectrum it is impactful spectrums areabout extremes
(14:49):
extremes that we all experience in different ways.
We are all our own walking statistics.
Just because you haven't filed bankruptcy, That was one of the things Janine said, Well, Ihave, I've filed it twice.
And I've gotten totally fucked.
part of that is based on things that I ended up experiencing because of the way my ADHDworked and me being a people pleaser and me
(15:12):
missing out on opportunities and not setting boundaries that work and for my earnings andthings like that.
Those things have impacted me.
I may not look like they have, but they definitely have.
Janine's experience is not less than mine because she has not filed bankruptcy.
She has experienced things that I have not, but we have both experienced extremes in waysthat we may not recognize.
(15:35):
There is no getting around that, but it does not make it less than.
And that is something that we have to teach ourselves.
We have to stop minimizing ourselves.
We do not have to make ourselves small to be loved, to be accepted, to be heard.
We do not.
No, and we don't have to be martyrs, We do not have to do those things.
(15:58):
And we think that we do.
We tell ourselves there is no other way.
because we get into that singular line of thinking.
We become black and white thinkers.
We get upset and we grab onto those things because we don't have anything else to grabonto.
and we let them impact us and we end up in these awful cycles, but we can break thesecycles and we can be together and we can do better in our community by recognizing some of
(16:22):
these things.
And one of the big impacts is imposter syndrome because if we didn't think we wereimposters, we would think we were good enough.
now for our reoccurring segment, that's not normal.
Believing you don't deserve that promotion because you haven't been there long enough.
Not normal.
Screw that.
(16:42):
Go put your resume in.
Convincing yourself you're a failure because you're not perfect.
That's not normal either.
You're amazing.
Believing you should know everything about a subject or a job.
Not normal.
Dude, if you have ADHD, more than likely, you already know everything about the subjectanyway.
(17:03):
Trying to excel in multiple roles to prove your worth.
How do you measure your worth?
Because you, you are priceless.
Believing your success is a result of luck.
It's not luck.
It's you.
It's you busting your ass.
get shit done that nobody else will.
you deserve to have that success.
(17:24):
Masking doesn't erase ADHD, it hides it.
It is a survival strategy,
It's not proof that you are neurotypical.
I think two is, how do you look at your diagnosis?
You've got your diagnosis.
It gives you more information to help you better understand yourself.
It's not a verdict on your life.
(17:44):
It's not a pass fail.
It's just something that you can use as a tool to better understand.
yourself and also to communicate what your needs are.
Possibly up until you reach that diagnosis,
You weren't open to realizing how your brain works.
These are the things that we talk about when we say lean into your ADHD.
Is that diagnosis a tool that will help you or allow you to lean into your ADHD to allowit to help you rather than to continue to hinder yourself with these unrealistic
(18:16):
expectations with these imposter feelings that are weighing you down?
how do you coexist with it instead of How do you work with your ADHD?
It's not gonna go away.
That is beautiful, Janine.
I hadn't thought of it in that light.
the community.
there are so many other people, other women who are in the same boat as you are, the latediagnosis.
(18:39):
there are women who maybe late diagnosis came for them when they were 30, there are womenout there came with when they were 70.
And so to spend time with others,
who have this life experience, who have this unique thing come to them that tells them,after so much of their life has passed, like, by the way, you want to know why life's been
difficult for you It's because you have ADHD.
(19:02):
being able to share your stories, to hear other people's stories is so healing.
And I know for me, Jess and I have talked about this,
finally meeting other people who are like us or had such similar experiences.
it's very validating having a group of people who can help you kind of take those nextsteps of, okay, so how do I start removing the mask?
How do I start accepting that this is who I am and how do I work with that?
And we are still a community that can be completely alone in a room full of people.
(19:30):
hearing that there is someone else, knowing that we are not alone, it's something we'vekind of worked into our monologue, but it's true.
You're not alone.
There are people out there.
You don't have to show up.
every single day.
You don't have to put a huge amount of energy in to be able to find each other.
and to support each other.
Yes.
(19:50):
and I didn't use the word earlier, I was, I was cautious to use the word, but challengingyour internalized ableism.
That is what we're talking about when we say, that person has it worse, or, oh, at leastI'm not like this, at least I'm not like that, at least I haven't had to experience this,
That is
Ableism a lot of people don't realize that's what it is It's a word that gets kind ofthrown around that people don't really fully understand but Being able to unlearn this is
(20:19):
a radical act of self-compassion Let go of believing that work is tied to yourproductivity or that we must struggle quietly to be strong You don't have to be quiet.
You don't have to make yourself small
us being told to be small, us being told to be quiet, us being told that we are too muchand wrangling ourselves in and tying ourselves down with all of these expectations.
(20:44):
we make ourselves so small.
and it doesn't have to be like that.
what you said about self-compassion.
It's one of the nicest things that you can do for yourself is to let go of that entireself from being that martyr that, I just haven't suffered enough or I don't have it as bad
as somebody else.
So therefore, I need to suffer in silence or I need to just get over myself or just dealwith it.
(21:06):
find that community that can help you do that.
can't say that enough.
that means if we're going to take our own advice, it's time to rewrite the narrative.
how do we do that?
I think first Become aware of that negative internal dialogue
We learn to acknowledge it by owning our own story.
Imposter feelings thrive in silence.
(21:27):
They also thrive in shame.
Sharing your story does break a cycle.
And when we say sharing your story, it doesn't have to be a case that you're shouting itfrom the rooftops.
Sometimes speaking with your therapist.
finding a support group.
These types of things can help even journaling, but yeah, right.
But finding your own self, finding your own story.
(21:50):
learning to love yourself and who you actually are.
and not really giving too much of a shit about anybody else liking or loving who you are.
it's funny that whole thing about loving yourself.
I honestly feel it's only been like in the last year that I really understood that aboutaccepting yourself for who you are is really the key to everything because you truly can't
(22:11):
be there for someone else if you don't accept who you are.
if you're masking because you don't like who you are, you're trying to cover that part ofyourself up.
How are you truly available to somebody?
you've automatically put something between the two of you.
And it takes a lot of energy to keep that mask up.
how available are you to somebody truly if you're continuing to mask, if you're continuingto hide who you are, if you're continuing not to accept yourself.
(22:36):
I've just really, how old am I?
And I'm finally realizing that lesson of you just can't be.
You just cannot be there fully for the other people in your life if you can't be there foryourself.
I love that Jeanine, how available are you to yourself?
It makes me think of like realizing that you're starting to love yourself is one of thosethings like the first time that someone actually holds space for you and you learn what
(22:58):
that's like because you've never experienced that feeling before, And it's almost likeshocking.
It's very positive, but it's, it's like a shock to the system.
It is.
It is.
It's weird how love and compassion can bring fear to those with ADHD.
we have to learn that there's space for us in this world.
(23:20):
I think a real important thing is to know for women like us later diagnosed in life iswe're not the imposters.
The outdated system that missed our diagnosis decades ago.
Those are the imposters.
That's how you kick today in the nuts, Janine.
There you go.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
We hope you enjoyed the, nope, we hope you enjoyed the show.
(23:40):
We forgot to do even our funny trying to figure out outro, outro.
So we'll finish up with this.
we're still working on ourselves because we're all still a work in progress.
And remember, you're not alone and we'll see you next time.
Are you familiar with the term imposter syndrome?
if not, are you familiar with imposter feelings?
Do you know the feeling, the sense that you're a fake and at any moment you could bediscovered?
For women with ADHD, especially those diagnosed later in life, those feelings run deep andcan cast a shadow over all areas of their life.
(00:20):
Welcome back, I'm Jess.
and I'm Janine.
and this is angry on the inside.
done, done, done.
Quick disclaimer, we're not doctors or therapist.
we are certified ADHD coaches, but this podcast isn't coaching.
It's two late diagnosed women unpacking what we've lived.
Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and remember, you're not alone.
(00:42):
let's start out on the same page.
What is imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome is that nagging belief that you're a fraud, that you're somehow fooledeveryone into thinking you're competent, capable, successful.
even when the evidence says otherwise, the inner critic insists you've just been lucky.
any minute now, people will find out the truth.
(01:02):
we have to realize imposter feelings, they go beyond questioning your value, believing youdon't deserve your success and you ignore or can't internalize the positive feedback and
the achievements.
if you've heard yourself say, I can't take a compliment or find yourself telling someonelearn to take a compliment.
This is a good introduction to imposter syndrome.
(01:24):
It is very difficult to accept that we are at a level where we may be qualified andknowledgeable about any said topic or situation in our lives.
for women with ADHD, imposter syndrome can run deep.
questioning your own diagnosis And even if you have the right to seek support for yourADHD.
(01:45):
For late diagnosed women, this can be a serious double edged sword situation.
It's validation mixed with doubt.
If I've made it this far without knowing, is it really ADHD?
Or am I just making excuses
That self doubt this is something that's very, very common.
Even if you haven't experienced imposter syndrome up until that diagnosis where you havethat doubt, it can still develop and be very impactful.
(02:11):
this also is a reflection of how we like to self sabotage.
We talk about how everything touches everything else, how everything is linked.
imposter syndrome, is part of our self-sabotaging behavior.
We will not give ourselves the grace we don't even have to be an expert.
am knowledgeable in this topic.
We look out upon everybody else and we think they are accomplishing more than we are, orwe are setting ourselves up for impossible standards.
(02:37):
And those impossible standards reflect back at us as imposter syndrome.
We're looking into the mirror and we can't even talk to ourselves in a kind way because wedon't believe that we are worthy.
we've spent so much of our lives being taught to second guess our own intuition that weend up with this overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome.
(03:02):
I guess it's that inability to trust yourself, that for women with ADHD is really kind ofthat key and can make it hard when people like say, give you compliments because in your
mind so often you're thinking, if you only knew though, if you only knew how hard this wasfor me or how much self doubt I'm filled with
Can I trust myself to really know what I'm talking about?
(03:23):
Because who knows, maybe halfway through I'll forget what I was talking about or I'llforget what I've learned.
I'll lose my train of thought.
since that's always playing in the back of your mind, for me at least, it makes it thatmuch harder when somebody compliments me on, that was a great job of just thinking, but
you have no idea.
I was faking my way through the entire thing and any moment I thought it was all gonna,
(03:43):
implode.
And I love that you bring that up, Janine, the, you only knew and you have no idea, thoseare whispering voices in the back of most of our minds when we're doing almost anything,
if you only knew, because in our minds, we think that we are messing up constantly, Wethink that we aren't making the level of effort that needs to be made, even though
(04:07):
We are expending tons of energy, two, three times the energy that the average person iscompleting tasks But we also know that part of ADHD is
missing nuance and missing some of those little things, being able to see the big pictureand the small details, but missing the slightest silliest mistakes.
(04:29):
And when people come to tell us about those mistakes, those are all we hear.
It is so much easier to sit in a negative mindset.
it fights us it beats us down And we really have to retrain ourselves
about how it all is related this is perfectionism also I didn't do everything perfectly.
(04:49):
since it's not perfect, I don't deserve any credit or any compliments yeah, you mightthink I did 99 % of it right,
I'm looking at the 1 % and that negates everything for me.
I think I've read that too, of just the, mean, humans overall from an evolutionarystandpoint, we tend to be more negative in our mindsets, than positive.
(05:12):
We assume bad things are gonna happen.
with ADHD it's even, it's double that.
think for extra, extra wired,
to have a negative outlook We know it's there, we try really, really hard to find it too,because we know it's going to be there.
don't you want to find it where someone else does because you don't want to be surprisedby it.
they looked closer at you, they would see it, right?
They're just not looking close enough.
But if we're able to pull it to the forefront, that negativity and point out our ownproblems, essentially we are creating self-fulfilling prophecies.
(05:39):
we do have to fight to pull the positive up to the front, into that prefrontal cortexperiod.
It can be a struggle.
that's sort of
twofold.
because one, we want to have control over our environment and that's a really easy way todo it.
And two, we forget our working memory, We only hold things for a short amount of time, weinterrupt people when they're talking because we want to get that idea out before we
(06:02):
forget it.
you know, try to rush through things, or we try to take those notes down and stuff, or wesit there and pause and look straight ahead and we're like, I don't know what I was going
to say.
That working memory doesn't work the way we need it to, but that long-term memory is thereall of those sad feelings and that heaviness, we as a neurodivergent community in general,
if that's what we're processing and that's what's staying in our long-term memory, that'swhat we're going to grab.
(06:27):
We easily forget the happiness and the positivity that is in our lives.
where does that doubt come into play then?
m
(07:00):
No,
the most solid example of imposter syndrome for late diagnosed women with ADHD, I thinkwould be getting the uh
late diagnosis in and of itself.
it's part of the processing that you experience You start to think, that there's a reallygood chance that you've made it this far and you don't
maybe have it.
Maybe, you're just whining.
you're being too emotional.
you're being too much.
the diagnosis can feel like a relief and a reckoning, that reckoning is where we start toreally pick apart and understand who we are
it's so funny to do that when we get a diagnosis and we figure out we're not broken wehave ADHD
then we cling on to, maybe there wasn't anything wrong with us in the first place, whichmakes absolutely no sense.
(07:27):
I'm just going to say once again, it's all a mind fuck, is it not?
um Yes.
Well, I think too, if you kind of made it this far you've developed your own copingstrategies, how to compensate for it.
whether it's people pleasing or your perfectionism, overachievement, That masking of yoursymptoms.
that you've just tried so hard to hide that part of you that it's hard sometimes, I think,to accept that no, it is actually there.
(07:54):
too, the promise during that time is learning, that your worth is equal to yourperformance.
to be successful, you've just had to put in a constant effort.
if you
ever let up on that, that you would be found out.
in that way you've just convinced yourself like, no, There's not a reason for me beingthis way.
I just have to work harder.
I just have to do better than everybody else.
and I've gotten this far, so I can just keep on doing that instead of looking at it as,no, actually there's a reason for this.
(08:22):
There's a reason I am the way that I am and there are things that I can do about that.
we need to bring to the forefront these coping skills that we develop over time that endup burning us out and driving us to seek the ADHD diagnosis.
(08:42):
we need to realize this is extremely toxic behavior towards ourselves.
when I was younger and I was in the workplace to say that I was a people pleaser, I worethat like a badge of honor.
Like, I thought that was a good thing.
you're really just wearing out your own system and pushing yourself towards burnout.
(09:02):
It's these things that we don't recognize as being abnormal.
And we just, grab onto them.
It took a long time for me to understand that even though people pleasing isn't completelyselfish, it is very self-serving.
And it's a huge part of what led me to burnout.
It was my inability to not be liked by everybody in the room and my inability to not be atop performer.
(09:30):
Those types of things that lead you to that people pleasing perfectionism overachievement.
They're not healthy and we hold on to them like they are.
And I think that is also a really excellent point when it comes
to feeling like an imposter.
We have unrealistic expectations, but what are those unrealistic expectations?
(09:53):
What are they really?
How do they impact us?
What are we doing to ourselves?
Because we can all say, well, nobody figured it out when I was a kid and nobody figured itout in my twenties or thirties.
And I know that freaking sucks.
I know it sucks.
I have lived it.
Janine has lived it.
So many women are living it right now.
But the God's honest truth is, that once you are emotionally stable enough to recognizethat, and once you are capable of realizing that most of your life has been out of the
(10:26):
ordinary and you start seeking this diagnosis and trying to figure these things out, then
You have to take responsibility that this is happening to you and you can't wear it like abadge of honor.
You have to process it.
And we get angry on the inside about it.
We lose time.
We lose opportunities.
We don't get to know ourselves, We feel like we've been hiding forever and we hide and wepivot and we lie and we do all these things.
(10:51):
And it's because
We measure our self-worth in a different way than anybody else does.
And we've been taken advantage of over and over again.
But we still have to seek the tools to find a way to heal ourselves.
what happens if you start to let go of all those strategies, What if you stop being apeople pleaser?
I mean, I don't know, something that like scares me.
(11:12):
Well, who would I be if I wasn't that?
um Who cares if it's unhealthy?
It's like, yeah, that's who I am.
That's what people expect.
we will also say things like, If I stopped being a perfectionist, if I stopped workingthis hard, if I didn't work 70 hours a week and work through my lunch hour I would lose my
job.
You wouldn't.
You wouldn't.
(11:32):
Because not everything our brain tells us is the truth.
And I know it feels that way.
But
if you do feel like this, seek out and therapy, discuss it in groups, be open about it sothat you can hear it, say it out loud, saying things out loud will break the rumination
cycle in your brain.
Whether you're just saying it to the mirror or saying it to someone else, it will help.
(11:54):
that's a great point.
That is, to me, is the perfect example of when group therapy or group coaching is reallyimportant or really, really helpful because hearing other people in the room say the same
thing that you're saying and how come though when they say it, You just look at them andthink, how can you think that way?
but when you think it to yourself, it just seems like, it's the God's honest truth.
(12:16):
It's the way it is.
it's truly an excellent, excellent explanation that Janine gave.
That is a huge part of coaching and healing and access to others that you may not realizeis available.
we can get caught up in, we talk about being able to accept things of the, and you who amI if I let go of these coping behaviors, if I let go of this compensating strategies I've
(12:38):
had of we're surrounded by people who they're used to that's who we are.
And especially those people are those who might question is ADHD really a thing?
I think it makes it even harder for you
to let go of some of those behaviors and believe that yes, you are impacted by ADHD andyou just need to find ways to work with it.
(12:58):
all of that stuff keeps you from moving forward.
And I think it's worth noting that imposter syndrome in many ways is another form ofdenial.
It's self denial, but it is a form of denial.
When we ask ourselves, who are we?
The role of masking.
Masking consciously or unconsciously, you're pretending to be neurotypical.
(13:22):
You put on a socially acceptable face even when it doesn't match what's happening inside
on top of all of this, the other thing that really starts to happen, you start to compareyourself with others.
you start, doing all the research, I remember reading stories of, people who'd lost theirjobs, lost their homes.
been arrested, And it made me look at my struggles My job's not been threatened before.
(13:46):
I've not gone bankrupt
You feel like ADHD has impacted someone's life so much more than yours that therefore youreally should just be able to do it on your own, You just need to toughen up.
You just need to work harder because it could be so much worse for you.
You're not struggling enough.
Which is such a weird thing to say, no, I'm struggling, but not enough.
(14:07):
so I don't need, I should be able to handle it on my own.
uh
what is enough?
Where is that bar for enough?
we enter this comparison trap.
That is one of the most devastating things I think to our community as a whole, How manyof you have grown up being told it's not that bad?
I cut my hand, it's not that bad.
I got sunburned, it's not that bad.
(14:29):
It could be worse.
It could always be worse.
you should be grateful even though we are grateful for the things that we have again weare comparing ourselves to others we cannot do that my experience is not less than
Janine's experience is not less than we are on a spectrum it is impactful spectrums areabout extremes
(14:49):
extremes that we all experience in different ways.
We are all our own walking statistics.
Just because you haven't filed bankruptcy, That was one of the things Janine said, Well, Ihave, I've filed it twice.
And I've gotten totally fucked.
part of that is based on things that I ended up experiencing because of the way my ADHDworked and me being a people pleaser and me
(15:12):
missing out on opportunities and not setting boundaries that work and for my earnings andthings like that.
Those things have impacted me.
I may not look like they have, but they definitely have.
Janine's experience is not less than mine because she has not filed bankruptcy.
She has experienced things that I have not, but we have both experienced extremes in waysthat we may not recognize.
(15:35):
There is no getting around that, but it does not make it less than.
And that is something that we have to teach ourselves.
We have to stop minimizing ourselves.
We do not have to make ourselves small to be loved, to be accepted, to be heard.
We do not.
No, and we don't have to be martyrs, We do not have to do those things.
(15:58):
And we think that we do.
We tell ourselves there is no other way.
because we get into that singular line of thinking.
We become black and white thinkers.
We get upset and we grab onto those things because we don't have anything else to grabonto.
and we let them impact us and we end up in these awful cycles, but we can break thesecycles and we can be together and we can do better in our community by recognizing some of
(16:22):
these things.
And one of the big impacts is imposter syndrome because if we didn't think we wereimposters, we would think we were good enough.
now for our reoccurring segment, that's not normal.
Believing you don't deserve that promotion because you haven't been there long enough.
Not normal.
Screw that.
(16:42):
Go put your resume in.
Convincing yourself you're a failure because you're not perfect.
That's not normal either.
You're amazing.
Believing you should know everything about a subject or a job.
Not normal.
Dude, if you have ADHD, more than likely, you already know everything about the subjectanyway.
(17:03):
Trying to excel in multiple roles to prove your worth.
How do you measure your worth?
Because you, you are priceless.
Believing your success is a result of luck.
It's not luck.
It's you.
It's you busting your ass.
get shit done that nobody else will.
you deserve to have that success.
(17:24):
Masking doesn't erase ADHD, it hides it.
It is a survival strategy,
It's not proof that you are neurotypical.
I think two is, how do you look at your diagnosis?
You've got your diagnosis.
It gives you more information to help you better understand yourself.
It's not a verdict on your life.
(17:44):
It's not a pass fail.
It's just something that you can use as a tool to better understand.
yourself and also to communicate what your needs are.
Possibly up until you reach that diagnosis,
You weren't open to realizing how your brain works.
These are the things that we talk about when we say lean into your ADHD.
Is that diagnosis a tool that will help you or allow you to lean into your ADHD to allowit to help you rather than to continue to hinder yourself with these unrealistic
(18:16):
expectations with these imposter feelings that are weighing you down?
how do you coexist with it instead of How do you work with your ADHD?
It's not gonna go away.
That is beautiful, Janine.
I hadn't thought of it in that light.
the community.
there are so many other people, other women who are in the same boat as you are, the latediagnosis.
(18:39):
there are women who maybe late diagnosis came for them when they were 30, there are womenout there came with when they were 70.
And so to spend time with others,
who have this life experience, who have this unique thing come to them that tells them,after so much of their life has passed, like, by the way, you want to know why life's been
difficult for you It's because you have ADHD.
(19:02):
being able to share your stories, to hear other people's stories is so healing.
And I know for me, Jess and I have talked about this,
finally meeting other people who are like us or had such similar experiences.
it's very validating having a group of people who can help you kind of take those nextsteps of, okay, so how do I start removing the mask?
How do I start accepting that this is who I am and how do I work with that?
And we are still a community that can be completely alone in a room full of people.
(19:30):
hearing that there is someone else, knowing that we are not alone, it's something we'vekind of worked into our monologue, but it's true.
You're not alone.
There are people out there.
You don't have to show up.
every single day.
You don't have to put a huge amount of energy in to be able to find each other.
and to support each other.
Yes.
(19:50):
and I didn't use the word earlier, I was, I was cautious to use the word, but challengingyour internalized ableism.
That is what we're talking about when we say, that person has it worse, or, oh, at leastI'm not like this, at least I'm not like that, at least I haven't had to experience this,
That is
Ableism a lot of people don't realize that's what it is It's a word that gets kind ofthrown around that people don't really fully understand but Being able to unlearn this is
(20:19):
a radical act of self-compassion Let go of believing that work is tied to yourproductivity or that we must struggle quietly to be strong You don't have to be quiet.
You don't have to make yourself small
us being told to be small, us being told to be quiet, us being told that we are too muchand wrangling ourselves in and tying ourselves down with all of these expectations.
(20:44):
we make ourselves so small.
and it doesn't have to be like that.
what you said about self-compassion.
It's one of the nicest things that you can do for yourself is to let go of that entireself from being that martyr that, I just haven't suffered enough or I don't have it as bad
as somebody else.
So therefore, I need to suffer in silence or I need to just get over myself or just dealwith it.
(21:06):
find that community that can help you do that.
can't say that enough.
that means if we're going to take our own advice, it's time to rewrite the narrative.
how do we do that?
I think first Become aware of that negative internal dialogue
We learn to acknowledge it by owning our own story.
Imposter feelings thrive in silence.
(21:27):
They also thrive in shame.
Sharing your story does break a cycle.
And when we say sharing your story, it doesn't have to be a case that you're shouting itfrom the rooftops.
Sometimes speaking with your therapist.
finding a support group.
These types of things can help even journaling, but yeah, right.
But finding your own self, finding your own story.
(21:50):
learning to love yourself and who you actually are.
and not really giving too much of a shit about anybody else liking or loving who you are.
it's funny that whole thing about loving yourself.
I honestly feel it's only been like in the last year that I really understood that aboutaccepting yourself for who you are is really the key to everything because you truly can't
(22:11):
be there for someone else if you don't accept who you are.
if you're masking because you don't like who you are, you're trying to cover that part ofyourself up.
How are you truly available to somebody?
you've automatically put something between the two of you.
And it takes a lot of energy to keep that mask up.
how available are you to somebody truly if you're continuing to mask, if you're continuingto hide who you are, if you're continuing not to accept yourself.
(22:36):
I've just really, how old am I?
And I'm finally realizing that lesson of you just can't be.
You just cannot be there fully for the other people in your life if you can't be there foryourself.
I love that Jeanine, how available are you to yourself?
It makes me think of like realizing that you're starting to love yourself is one of thosethings like the first time that someone actually holds space for you and you learn what
(22:58):
that's like because you've never experienced that feeling before, And it's almost likeshocking.
It's very positive, but it's, it's like a shock to the system.
It is.
It is.
It's weird how love and compassion can bring fear to those with ADHD.
we have to learn that there's space for us in this world.
(23:20):
I think a real important thing is to know for women like us later diagnosed in life iswe're not the imposters.
The outdated system that missed our diagnosis decades ago.
Those are the imposters.
That's how you kick today in the nuts, Janine.
There you go.
Thanks for listening, everyone.
We hope you enjoyed the, nope, we hope you enjoyed the show.
(23:40):
We forgot to do even our funny trying to figure out outro, outro.
So we'll finish up with this.
we're still working on ourselves because we're all still a work in progress.
And remember, you're not alone and we'll see you next time.
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