The ADHD Shame Spiral: How I Learned to Love My Brain Again

For most of my life, I carried a secret, not the ADHD diagnosis itself, but the shame that came with it.
It wasn’t the kind of shame you talk about. It was the kind that sits deep in your body. A quiet, constant voice that says, Why can’t you just be normal?

If you’re an ADHD parent or someone with ADHD yourself, you probably know that voice too well. You feel it when you forget something important. When you interrupt. When you overreact. When you walk into a room and completely forget why.
That shame is not just emotional. It’s neurological. And it almost broke me.

But learning how to reframe it and ultimately love my brain again is the reason I built Bonding Health.
Because I know what it feels like to believe you’re broken.

And I know the power of realizing… you’re not.

The First Time I Felt Shame for Being “Different”

I was in elementary school. The nurse would call me out of class once a day to give me my “medicine,” those little orange pills.

No one ever explained what they were for. But I knew I was one of only a few kids pulled out like that.

I felt it in my gut: There’s something wrong with me.

That moment stuck with me. It wasn’t just that I had to leave class; it was that I internalized the message: I need to be fixed.
That belief followed me for decades.

The ADHD Shame Loop in Adulthood

Fast forward to adulthood, entrepreneurship, relationships, parenting, and work. On the outside, I looked high-functioning. But on the inside? I was constantly fighting a war with myself.

If I missed a meeting, I beat myself up.

If I forgot to respond to a text, I told myself I was flaky.

If I struggled to stay focused, I thought I lacked discipline.

If I lost my temper, I felt like a failure.

That’s the ADHD shame spiral. And once you’re in it, it’s hard to get out.

Why? Because ADHD isn’t just about attention. It’s about emotional regulation, and when you can’t regulate, shame becomes your default setting.

The Science Behind ADHD and Shame

ADHD brains are wired for intensity and sensitivity. We feel things deeply, and that includes self-criticism.
According to research, people with ADHD are more prone to:

• Rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD)
• Negative self-talk
• Low self-esteem due to repeated “failures” in neurotypical environments

Shame lights up the same brain circuits as physical pain. For people with ADHD, those circuits get triggered more often and more intensely.

And when we feel that pain, we don’t always know how to respond. So we:

• Overcompensate and become perfectionists
• Procrastinate to avoid failure
• Lash out, then feel guilty
• Shut down completely

And the loop starts all over again.

My Rock Bottom: Shame as Identity

I remember the exact moment it hit me.

I was standing in the kitchen, staring at a half-made smoothie I’d just spilled on myself again.

It wasn’t just the mess. It was the weight of every similar moment before it.

The forgotten deadlines. The missed birthdays. The times I hurt people because I couldn’t pause long enough to respond instead of react.

I whispered to myself, out loud: What is wrong with me?

And that’s when I realized… this wasn’t just a bad day.

This was a belief system that had been running my life.