Self-Criticism and Self-Compassion in ADHD and Autistic Parents

If you’re an autistic or ADHD parent, you might be quite familiar with your inner self-critical voice. Maybe you also struggle with being self-compassionate when things don’t go to plan. Feeling stuck in a cycle of stress and self-blame can take a toll on our wellbeing, as well as our ability to parent. Does this sound familiar?

Before we take a dive into why this might happen, let’s take a pause to understand a bit more about self-compassion.

What is self-compassion?

Self-compassion, according to Dr Kristen Neff, isn’t just about being kind and understanding to ourselves, rather than critical or judgemental. It also includes mindfulness – the ability to recognise when we are suffering and be curious about our feelings -  and something she calls ‘common humanity’. This is about acknowledging that being imperfect is part of the shared human experience. We are not alone in our struggles or mistakes.

Self-compassion isn’t just about thinking, though, it’s also about actually taking action to help ourselves feel better.

Self-compassion isn’t just about thinking, though, it’s also about actually taking action to help ourselves feel better. Dr Neff distinguishes between “tender” and “fierce” self-compassionate actions: tender actions might be about comforting, soothing and caring for ourselves, whilst fierce actions might be more energetic: doing something differently, protecting or motivating ourselves.

Self-compassion can seem an intimidating word, but we can think of self-compassion simply as wisdom. Our wise self knows when we are suffering, it knows we are not alone, it understands what we need, and it gives us permission to meet those needs.

Our wise self knows when we are suffering, it knows we are not alone, it understands what we need, and it gives us permission to meet those needs.

What do we know about Self-criticism, Self-compassion and Neurodivergence?

As Clinical Psychologists working with the neurodivergent community, we know that many autistic people and ADHDers are highly empathetic, compassionate and wise towards others. However, many people find it much more difficult to accept compassion from others, and especially hard to direct it towards themselves. (These are known as the three “flows” of compassion.)

Research studies suggest that autistic people and ADHDers do report higher self-criticism and significantly lower self-compassion than neurotypical adults. 

Lower levels of self-compassion may be related to the higher prevalence of mental health problems reported by neurodivergent people (Galvin et al., 2021, Cai & Brown, 2021).

Let’s take a look at some reasons why autistic and ADHD folk might struggle with a strong inner critic and a lack of compassion for themselves.

The way our brains are wired

We know that the human brain is wired up to do several things that make self-criticism more likely. Firstly, it is wired up to compare ourselves to others, in order to try to ensure we are “safe” in our community or group. This can be helpful – but not when it gets too much.

Our brains are also wired up to pay more attention to negative information, and so we tend compare ourselves negatively to others. This is especially likely for ADHDers and autistic people who may spend a lot of time trying to understand others, and may already feel somehow inferior.

Our brains are also wired up to pay more attention to negative information, and so we tend compare ourselves negatively to others.

We also know that our brains are designed to crave certainty. Blaming ourselves for situations that seem uncontrollable can give us the illusion of control.

Masking & late diagnosis

Perhaps the most important reason that ADHDers and autistic people may be particularly self-critical is down to how they have experienced life in a neurotypical world.

Research has shown that ADHDers and autistic people are likely to have struggled from a young age, often feeling different or like an outsider, alongside finding neurotypical environments and expectations challenging to cope with.

Research has shown that ADHDers and autistic people are likely to have struggled from a young age, often feeling different or like an outsider.

Without an explanation as to why these things are happening, people often blame themselves. They also may camouflage to “fit in”.

Research suggests that self-judgment and feelings of inadequacy increase masking in autistic women, which in turn is associated with poorer mental health. Conversely, the experience of constant masking and camouflage can intensify feelings of self-blame.

Late diagnosis feeds this process. We know that many adults are now being diagnosed ADHD and/or autistic in adulthood and a large percentage may be still undiagnosed. Research shows that finally receiving a neurodivergent diagnosis can help people move from being self-critical to a sense of relief, self-understanding, and self-compassion (Leedham et al., 2020, Wilson et al, 2022; Da Silva & Mueller, in press).

Finally receiving a diagnosis can help people move from being self-critical to a sense of relief, self-understanding, and self-compassion.

Trauma

ADHDers and autistic people are far more likely to have experienced adverse life experiences.

ADHDers and autistic people are far more likely to have experienced adverse life experiences.

We know that “little t” traumas such as daily experiences of invalidation, blaming, misunderstanding, and discrimination can have a significant impact on mental health, feelings of shame, low self-esteem and our self-critical narrative.

Neurodivergent people are also statistically more likely to have included “Big T” traumas that may include bullying, abuse, and unemployment, among others.

These traumas are associated with similar negative outcomes to the cumulation of little t traumas, and may additionally result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or complex PTSD, in which beliefs of responsibility and self-blame are common.

Social isolation

Research tells us that autistic people are more prone to loneliness and social isolation. Social isolation is associated with poorer mental health outcomes, and can be experienced as a traumatic experience in itself, feeding self-critical beliefs. In addition, lack of contact with others (especially neurodivergent others) can reduce opportunities to experience the sense of “common humanity” that feeds self-compassion.

ADHDers often experience “rejection sensitivity” with other people which can contribute to difficulties maintaining relationships, while executive functioning challenges can also impact the ability to keep up with friends.

Conversely, research shows that connecting with other neurodivergent people improves wellbeing (Crompton et al., 2020; Crompton et al., 2023, Shea, 2022; Harmens et al., 2022).

Research shows that connecting with other neurodivergent people improves wellbeing. 

Alexythymia

Approximately half of the autistic population identifies with traits of alexithymia, which affects one’s ability to be aware of, identify and describe feelings. This may create a barrier to noticing the distress that you’re feeling, which in turn may make it difficult to be mindful and curious about these emotions, then to take action to alleviate them.

ADHDers and autistic parents may not realise how distressed they are until they hit burnout or serious mental health problems.

ADHDers and autistic people may find that they don’t realise how distressed they are until they hit burnout or serious mental health problems. This can create a vicious cycle because they may then criticise themselves for allowing things to get so bad, and so on.

Modelling

We know that neurodivergence is highly heritable, which means that if you are neurodivergent, it’s likely that one or both of your parents, or someone else in your family, is also neurodivergent.

It makes sense that if the reasons for high self-criticism and low self-compassion were also true for your parents, it’s likely that they inadvertently modelled this to you in childhood.

Even if your family are not neurodivergent, many of us grew up in a culture and generation that tended to ignore and invalidate feelings, punish mistakes, and promote achievement and perfectionism. This environment meant many of us simply did not learn how – or why – to be self-compassionate.

Many of us grew up in a culture and generation that tended to ignore and invalidate feelings, punish mistakes, and promote achievement and perfectionism.

How does this all relate to Neurodivergent Parenting?

We are a generation of parents now who grew up in a time when neurodivergence was rarely recognised or supported. We have internalised shame and criticism, and we also didn’t learn what healthy neurodivergent parenting looked like.

We have internalised shame and criticism, and we also didn’t learn what healthy neurodivergent parenting looked like.

As parents, neurodivergent or neurotypical, there are 1001 reasons we are set up to feel guilty, ashamed and self-critical. They involve the unrealistic expectations of what it means to be a parent in today’s society, alongside the way our brains are designed to handle uncertainty and comparison.

Based on messages we receive from people (friends, social media, celebrities, even professionals…) around us, as parents we also often blame ourselves for “causing” our child’s behaviour or characteristics.

It makes sense that ADHD and autistic parents are even more prone to self-criticism: in addition to being more self-critical in the first place, we are likely to find it harder to meet society’s [unrealistic] expectations of parenting and we are also likely to have a neurodivergent child who doesn’t fit into society’s expectations of children.

We are likely to find it harder to meet society’s [unrealistic] expectations of parenting and we are also likely to have a neurodivergent child who doesn’t fit society’s expectations.

As well as high levels of self-criticism being toxic to our mental health, it also makes it harder to parent: self-critical thoughts can trigger our threat response, making us more reactive. This can be particularly hard for neurodivergent parents, who may already find themselves dysregulated due to various factors including sensory overload.

Self-critical thoughts can trigger our threat response, making us more reactive.

So how can we ADHD and autistic parents be more Self-Compassionate?

As a neurodivergent parent, you want to be able to model self-compassion to your children so they can grow up with the skills you didn’t learn, as well as to be able to offer it to yourself - for the sake of your parenting, and mental health and wellbeing.

First of all, it is important to notice if and when self-criticism shows up for you. Then, acknowledge that it is not our fault that this is happening. It’s ok! Everyone is self-critical to some degree.

It is not our fault that this is happening. It’s ok! Everyone is self-critical to some degree.

Although self-criticism and self-compassion seem like two sides of the same coin, research shows that they have separate neurophysiological pathways (Gilbert et al, 2017). This handily means that we can actually increase our capacity for self-compassion without having to try to remove our self-critical voice. With more self-compassionate pathways in our brain, we can find that our self-critical voice naturally becomes quieter because we have more choices about how we respond at difficult moments.

We can actually increase our capacity for self-compassion without having to try to remove our self-critical voice.

Research shows two crucial factors for neurodivergent people in building a foundation for self-compassion:

1. Understanding oneself as ADHD and/or autistic, and/or accessing a formal diagnosis. For many people, the earlier this happens the better in order to reduce the development of self-criticism and shame in the first place, promote self-compassionate understanding, and facilitate self-advocacy.

2. The importance of neurodivergent community and support systems. These can to help us feel less alone in our challenges, access practical and emotional support, celebrate our strengths and share what it means to be a neurodivergent person.  

Find your Tribe

If you’re a neurodivergent parent looking for your people, you might be interested in joining The Neurodivergent Parent Space. It’s a vibrant and unique community where we connect and learn together. To see if it’s for you, click here.

Build self-compassion skills

Building self-compassion often takes practice, as we need to build new neural pathways over time. We will explore ways to increase self-compassion in more detail in our webinar, Practical Self-Compassion Skills for Parents.

We hope this blog post has given you some food for thought around self-compassion. Let us know what you think!

Authored by Dr. Jo Mueller of The Neurodiversity Practice.

With thanks to Dr Nancy da Silva for her research that informed this blog post. You can read her study here.