ADHD’s Trauma, an Introduction
Depending on your age when first diagnosed with ADHD, and depending on how the people around you reacted to you as a child, you may be experiencing or re-experiencing trauma.
I define trauma as emotional or physical assault (often repeated and relentless) that negatively affects an individual’s ability to engage in peaceful and reciprocal social interaction, whether at home, at school/work, or in any other public or private setting. Trauma can show itself by engaging in any number of addictive and self-harming behaviors: binge-eating, starving, drinking, drugging, violence, self-recrimination and blame, cluttering, hiding, under-earning, over-spending, codependence, and flight, fright, freeze responses like panic attacks. Trauma can be triggered or re-triggered by events that are similar not in context but by the thematic similarities of past circumstances: abandonment, verbal abuse, other abusive situations, which may not be traumatic in themselves but may trigger reactions that feel like you’re reliving those experiences, no matter if they’re clearnly different or not.
For example, in Nursery School, I didn’t speak at all. Well, that’s not totally true. I spoke everywhere and A LOT, except at Nursery School. My mother never had an explanation for that, but it’s pretty striking. It’s called Selective Mutism, and it’s an anxiety disorder. I suspect that I didn’t speak because I was waaaay over-stimulated. I was uncomfortable at birthday parties as well, until I was 8. I’m an only child and my parents were older parents, so I was mostly surrounded by adults in my early years. Plus, it was the first time I had to pay attention all day and, for someone with ADHD, that’s challenging!
As a business owner, I went through a period of deep depression, when I was working three jobs (including 1 full-time business, 1 part-time business, and substitute teaching and school counseling) and my partner was not working at all. I could support myself but I couldn’t support two of us. It was one of the lowest points in my entire life because I felt abandoned by my partner and I felt that I was disappointing my parents (both deceased) and felt I had no one to boost my spirits.
Thousands of school children are ridiculed by classmates (“Did you take your meds?!”), teachers (“She’s using ADHD as an excuse!”) and even school administrators who would “take them down” physically and emotionally. Parents and other family members may also unwittingly try to assert their own dominance before truly understanding the nuances of ADHD and the ways to parent these children successfully.
It is likely that kids with ADHD are often traumatized by simply having to live with a very misunderstood and maligned condition, and it is also likely that those kids grow up to be women business owners who carry that pain inside, affecting their business growth, their parenting skills, and their more intimate relationships.
In closing, I’d like you to listen to this very succinct description of the effects of childhood trauma. And if you are interested in chatting with me about ADHD, contact me here. I am excited to hear from you!
Sending you healing vibes today,
xo Yafa
Copyright 2025 Yafa Crane Luria All Rights Reserved
