I Thought I Had ADHD… Until I Learned About Trauma

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]For years, I thought I had ADHD. I basically had all of the symptoms. Lack of focus, restlessness, constant overthinking. And honestly, I never questioned it. But the more I started learning about trauma, the more I started wondering, what if what I'm truly dealing with is not ADHD?

[00:00:22]What if it's CPTTSD?

[00:00:25]Now, if you don't know what CPTTSD is, it stands for complex post-traumatic stress disorder. And unlike regular PTSD, which is often connected to one major traumatic event, CPTtsd usually develops from long-term emotional stress or trauma, especially during childhood, things like emotional neglect, unstable environments, constant criticism, walking on eggshells, feeling unsafe emotionally for long periods of time.

[00:00:57]And when you grow up in that kind of environment, your nervous system adapts to survive it. That's why the overlap between CPTTSD and ADHD can be kind of crazy. Lately, I've been diving deep into CPTTSD and childhood trauma. I've been doing a lot of therapy, especially EMDR therapy, which is a type of trauma therapy, trying to understand my childhood, my self, my life overall better. And the deeper I got into it, the more things started clicking for me.

[00:01:30]Especially when I started looking at how childhood emotional neglect affects the nervous system and brain development.

[00:01:38]Because when a child grows up in an emotionally unsafe, uncertain environment, their brain adapts to survive that environment. And sometimes those adaptions can look a lot like ADHD symptoms later on in life. For example, a lot of people with CPTTSD struggle with something called hypervigilance, which means your nervous system is always scanning for danger, is always alert, always looking for threats, always paying attention to what could go wrong. And when your brain is stuck in that mode, it becomes really hard to focus. Your attention is constantly getting pulled outward, which can obviously look like ADHD. But I think the reason underneath it can sometimes be different. For example, someone with ADHD might daydream because they're underst stimulated. They're bored. But someone with CPTTSD might daydream because they don't feel emotionally safe. Reality doesn't feel emotionally safe. It's a form of escape. Not stimulation seeking, but survival. And that hit me hard when I realized it. A lot of my spacing out wasn't about entertaining myself in my brain. It was to escape reality. It felt like disconnecting in a way to soo myself.

[00:03:03]Which is sad because there's nothing wrong with daydreaming. Daydreaming like getting ideas, feeling creative in in the moment. What type of project should I start next? It's fine to space out sometimes. not be fully present uh if you're daydreaming about something positive. But if you're only daydreaming about something positive because your life is [ __ ] because you don't feel safe in your own body.

[00:03:37]That's a problem. And there's a huge difference between the two types of daydreaming. The second thing is paralysis. A lot of people with ADHD experience something called ADHD paralysis, wanting to do something but not being able to start. And I can relate to that a whole lot. When I started learning about trauma and my trauma, I realized something important. Sometimes what looks like paralysis is actually a nervous system stuck in freeze mode.

[00:04:08]Like your body and mind are so overwhelmed that they just shut down.

[00:04:14]It's not about laziness. It's not about lack of motivation, not lack of discipline, just a system that feels unsafe. And when a person's nervous system is stuck in freeze mode, it's like when animals play dead, that is what's happening to you. If you're ever in a situation where you just can't get out of bed, you're doom scrolling on your phone, but you don't really want to doom scroll. You want to be productive.

[00:04:40]You have a million things on your bucket list. No, not on your bucket list, your to-do list, but you can't get out of bed. You can't get off of the couch.

[00:04:52]That's because you're playing dead. You don't feel safe, and you're not always aware of that is what's going on, but it's the truth. And that's definitely not the same as ADHD paralysis.

[00:05:06]Then there's overthinking. Like I said before, with daydreaming, people with ADHD struggle with racing thoughts and, you know, mental hyperactivity.

[00:05:17]But with CPTSD, the overthinking feels different. It's not just mental stimulation. It's fear. Fear of the silence, the fear of being alone with your own thoughts. Because when things finally get quiet, unprocessed emotions start coming up. And that is something I can relate a whole lot to. I used to constantly distract myself. I needed the constant physical noise such as music. I love music. But now after feeling so much better mentally, after resolving a lot of trauma, doing therapy, going on anti-depressants, I don't listen to music that often anymore, which is so weird. I would literally panic if I couldn't find a podcast to listen to when doing basic tasks such as laundry and the dishes.

[00:06:16]And it's not healthy and it's not necessarily ADHD.

[00:06:22]I was avoiding myself and I even started noticing this in relationships.

[00:06:27]Sometimes people with ADHD start a conflict with their romantic partner because they are seeking a dopamine hit.

[00:06:36]They don't do it intentionally. It's it's because their brain is lacking the dopamine, right? And conflict can absolutely be stimulating, but sometimes trauma can create a different dynamic.

[00:06:51]Because if you grew up constantly feeling like you were in trouble, your nervous system will see conflict as almost a normal thing. It feels safe and normal, familiar.

[00:07:06]And I realized that sometimes if things were too normal, too calm, especially in my relationship with my boyfriend, I would kind of freak out. I would feel so uncomfortable and on edge, like, oh, something bad is about to happen because that was my normal growing up. I couldn't trust that everything was okay.

[00:07:31]So without realizing it, I would sometimes create some tension or some conflict just to avoid that discomfort.

[00:07:41]Not because I wanted drama. I hate drama. I hate tension and people being in a bad mood, but because I was already on edge, waiting to get scolded, be in trouble. A huge part of me was expecting punishment. It's really [ __ ] up, but it's so ingrained in my nervous system.

[00:08:03]And it's really sad and [ __ ] up how deeply childhood patterns can follow you into adulthood and to your adult relationships, especially if chaos feels more familiar than peace. Now, what made me critical today about my ADHD diagnosis is how well I responded to EMDR therapy, to trauma therapy. I did not expect that EMDR therapy would help me so much more than my ADHD medication, would give me so much inner peace, a quiet mind, a a more calm nervous system. I did not expect it at all. So I thought, well, if my symptoms of ADHD have been alleviated without medications by just doing therapy, do I even have ADHD?

[00:08:57]because ADHD is a chronic thing. It's a neurological thing and therapy can't erase the symptoms, but I feel like it has for me. And then I started looking at complex PTSD. I didn't know it was a thing. I thought PTSD was something for people who have been abused as a child.

[00:09:19]I was never abused in any way. But I learned that CPTTSD is about constant overwhelm, a nervous system that is always alert and the deep feeling of unsafety, the deep feeling of fear.

[00:09:37]And I have to make this thing very clear. I of course believe in ADHD. It's a very real thing, but I don't think I deal with it. That's all that's all I'm saying. And I think a lot of people out there can relate to it, can relate to my experience. And I think it's a really good idea to look into CPTTSD if you if you have the ADHD diagnosis just to understand yourself better. It might not be CPTTSD.

[00:10:05]Your brain might just be different. And that's okay. And you know what? If it's CPTTSD, that's okay, too. But if that's the case, maybe you should not be on the ADHD medications because one of the side effects is stress, is anxiety, and that's counterproductive.

[00:10:25]Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you liked it. If you want to see more content like this, remember to hit subscribe and the notification bell. Please share your experience down below. I cannot wait to read your comments. Peace out.