✨ Choosing Growth Over Guilt: Breaking Free from Dynamics That Dim You ✨
(A love letter to anyone with ADHD breaking free from a shaming relationship)
This month, Muffin and I are celebrating freedom 🥳 🐶
We’re one year out of a toxic relationship. One that almost made me forget who I was.
It almost cost me my own voice—so this letter is for anyone still trying to find theirs.
Can you relate? Have you experienced this, or are you still in such a relationship?
If you’re here, reading this, maybe you already know:
You’re not making it up. You’re waking up.
ADHD is messy—you’re operating with a brain that refuses to colour inside the lines.
But that doesn’t make you a bad person.
If you’re someone with ADHD (diagnosed or self-aware), being in a toxic or abusive relationship can feel like trying to break free from a spell—but every time you get close, the self-doubt creeps in and whispers:
”Maybe it’s you.
You are too much.
You just need to “try harder.”
I know what it’s like to stay and think—maybe if I just try harder, things will change. Shrink your needs. Become the peacemaker, the fixer, the emotional first responder. Carry all the emotional baggage in your backpack.
But the truth (and your higher self) already knows this:
You’re not broken. You’re being broken down. There’s a difference.
If you’re even questioning whether a relationship is healthy or not is a sign that clarity is fighting to come home.
Here’s what can make it complicated when you have ADHD:
People with ADHD aren’t just more “chaotic.” We’re often more attuned. More intuitive. More sensitive. More emotionally porous. More prone to gaslighting yourself if someone keeps shaming you. (Especially if you’ve spent years trying to mask, hide or people-please to stay safe).
And guess what abusers—especially emotionally manipulative ones—love to exploit?
That exact wiring. The sensitive radar mixed with just enough self-doubt to make you question your gut.
But that’s where we draw the line.
So this is not about beating yourself up. This moment is about beginning to un-gaslight yourself.
One breadcrumb of clarity at a time.
Step 1: Call it what it actually is.
You can’t heal what you’re still sugarcoating.
If someone keeps doing or saying things that make you feel small, anxious, or ashamed for existing the way you exist—they are not loving you. They are controlling you. They are trying to parent you and not in a good way.
You’re not “too sensitive.”
They’re too reckless with your heart.
Step 2: Stop giving your empathy to people who weaponize it.
You can understand someone’s wounds without letting them wound you.
If your kindness keeps getting used against you, that’s not a flaw in your empathy.
That’s a sign to put up a boundary.
You’re not cold for protecting your peace. You’re wise.
Step 3: Build a new evidence file—written by you.
If your memory feels slippery or you tend to doubt yourself after hard conversations, document what’s happening. Not for “proof”—but for clarity.
Leave yourself breadcrumbs: voice memos after arguments, journal entries, texts to a trusted friend.
But of course, don’t leave journal entries if the person you are trying to leave is the kind of person who would steal your journals, take pictures of them and share them far and wide with people you don’t even know. TRUE STORY for me.
You’re not being dramatic. You’re building your own map out of the fog.
Step 4: Don’t heal in isolation.
Toxic relationships thrive in secrecy.
Talk to someone who’s safe. A therapist, a coach, a friend who remembers your real self. Let them reflect your reality back to you.
Leaving an abusive relationship—especially with ADHD—is not weak.
It’s a rewritten origin story.
It’s an act of spiritual rebellion.
Step 5: Start micro-celebrating your clarity.
Choosing to leave isn’t one moment. It’s a muscle you build over time.
Every time you say no to being shamed,
Every time you trust your gut over their narrative,
Every time you move an inch closer to yourself—
Celebrate it. Mark it. Grow it.
Your clarity is sacred.
And if you need a little permission slip from someone 🙋🏻♀️ who’s been around the block (and kept the receipts) way too many times:
You’re not too much.
You’re not too sensitive.
You’re not too scattered.
You’re not broken.
You’re becoming.
You’re fine exactly as you are.
Be free.
Sending love (from me and Muffin)
