Separating Your Voice from Theirs
| with guest Karen Dwyer-Tesoriero |
Many adults with ADHD don’t just carry distraction, impulsivity, or restlessness into adulthood. They carry messages.
“You’re too much.”
“Why can’t you be like your sibling?”
“You’re not trying hard enough.”
“You talk too much.”
Over time, those messages stop sounding like other people’s opinions and start sounding like truth.
Psychotherapist Karen Dwyer-Tesoriero calls these inherited beliefs legacy burdens — internalised messages shaped by ADHD, trauma, attachment, and misunderstanding.
“That messaging was instilled by somebody else based on their own experiences. It may have nothing to do with who you are as a person.”
— Karen Dwyer-Tesoriero, ADHDifference
And yet, we carry it in our bodies as if it’s ours. This strategy isn’t about pretending those messages never existed. It’s about separating your voice from theirs.
Why It Works
ADHD brains are particularly vulnerable to internalising negative feedback. Children with ADHD often receive repeated correction: Sit still. Stop talking. Focus. Try harder. When that correction becomes chronic, it turns into identity.
Add trauma, attachment disruptions, or emotionally dysregulated environments and the belief system hardens:
“I’m not good enough.”
“I’m unlovable.”
“I’m too much.”
Legacy burdens form when someone else’s fear, frustration, or misunderstanding becomes your self-concept. The work is not about arguing with the belief. It’s about creating space between who you are and what you were told. When you introduce space, you introduce choice.
When to Use It
Use this strategy when:
- You spiral after perceived rejection
- You assume you’re the problem in conflict
- You over-people-please to feel safe
- You feel shame that feels older than the situation
- You hear an internal voice that sounds suspiciously like someone from your past
If the reaction feels bigger than the moment, a legacy burden may be active.
How to Practice It
-
Name the Message
Instead of “I’m not good enough,” try: “I’m having the thought that I’m not good enough.” Language creates distance. -
Ask: Whose Voice Is This?
Was it a parent? Teacher? Partner? Cultural expectation? Recognising origin reduces ownership. -
Look for Counter-Evidence
Build the alternative narrative deliberately.
What evidence do you have that you are good enough?
When did you feel capable, kind, competent, loved? -
Separate the Self from the Story
In Internal Family Systems (IFS), we recognise parts but we are not our parts.
You are not the critic. You are not the anxious attachment. You are the Self observing them. -
Practice Belief in Small Doses
“Dare to believe in yourself.”
The Science Behind It
Children with ADHD experience significantly higher levels of criticism, peer rejection, and negative feedback compared to their neurotypical peers, increasing the likelihood of internalised shame and negative self-beliefs over time.
When negative beliefs become embodied and reinforced over time, they operate as implicit memory rather than conscious thought. Therapeutic approaches such as EMDR and Internal Family Systems aim to create cognitive and emotional separation between present identity and past message, allowing for belief revision and increased self compassion.
In short: inherited beliefs can free true but they are not necessarily yours.
💬 Final Thought
Someone else’s fear, frustration or misunderstanding does not define you.
ADHD may have shaped your wiring. Trauma may have shaped your reactions. But neither gets to write your identity. Legacy burdens can be acknowledged and then released. You are allowed to separate the story from the Self. And you are allowed to believe something kinder about yourself.
🎧 Listen to the full episode with Karen Dwyer-Tesoriero (S2E44) here 🎧