ADHD Isn't a Superpower (And Calling It One Makes Everything Worse)

You're scrolling TikTok at 1am because your brain won't shut off, and a creator with a million followers pops up: "ADHD is actually a superpower! You just haven't learned to unlock it yet!" She's smiling. She looks put together. She's got a ring light and a script and a brand deal with a supplement company.

And you're lying in bed, unable to sleep, unable to stop scrolling, unable to remember if you ate dinner, wondering why your superpower feels a lot more like quicksand.

I get it. I've been there - and am still there! I've had ADHD my entire life, I've coached tens of thousands of adults with ADHD over the past 26 years, and honestly, very few things frustrate me more than the "ADHD is a superpower" narrative. Not because I think people with ADHD aren't incredible (you absolutely are), but because the superpower framing creates a trap that makes everything harder. Let me explain why.

Why do people call ADHD a superpower?

The superpower narrative has been building for decades, driven by well-meaning authors and social media creators trying to reduce ADHD stigma.

The idea didn't come from nowhere, and it's not all bad. In 1994, Dr. Edward Hallowell published Driven to Distraction, which introduced millions of people to ADHD and helped reduce shame around the diagnosis. His famous line, "I don't treat disabilities; I help unwrap gifts," came from a genuine place. In 2015, Dr. Dale Archer published The ADHD Advantage, arguing that successful entrepreneurs reached the top "not in spite of their ADHD but because of it." Both books sold incredibly well (millions of copies between them), and both shifted the conversation in an important direction.

Then TikTok happened. During the pandemic, ADHD content exploded on social media, and the superpower framing went from niche self-help to mainstream culture. A 2022 study in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry found that 52% of the top 100 ADHD TikTok videos contained misleading information, with the vast majority of creators citing lived experience rather than clinical training. Paris Hilton wrote a Teen Vogue op-ed in 2024 calling ADHD "my secret weapon," and Simone Biles and Richard Branson have both used the superpower label publicly.

Here's the thing: these are some of the most privileged, supported, resourced people on the planet. Their experience of ADHD (with personal assistants, private doctors, and financial safety nets) looks nothing like what most of us live with every day. The intention behind destigmatization is genuinely good. But the execution has gone sideways in a way that's causing real harm.

Why is calling ADHD a superpower harmful?

Calling ADHD a superpower creates a second layer of failure, because now you can't even succeed at the gift you've supposedly been given.

This is the part that gets to me, and I've learned it through my clients as well as living it myself. When you have ADHD, and you're overwhelmed literally all the time, and you're constantly unable to cycle through the very basics of what you need to be doing, it's difficult, it's painful, and it sucks. And when someone tells you "it's a superpower, you should be able to do all of these things," and you know you can't? You know that life is really hard, and you know you're working a hundred times harder than everyone around you. Where's the superpower part of this?

Sound familiar? The devastation happens in the gap between the promise and the reality. You're told you have a superpower, but you can't get out of bed on time. You have this supposed gift, but you forgot to pay your electric bill again, and your relationship is falling apart because you keep snapping at the person you love most. So now it's not just "something is wrong with me." It's "I have this superpower, and I'm failing at that, too." A second layer of shame on top of a pile that was already crushing you.

Dr. Russell Barkley, one of the most cited ADHD researchers in the world, has been direct about this for years. His research links ADHD to a 9.5-year reduction in life expectancy, comparable to the impact of Type 2 diabetes. He has warned that championing ADHD as a gift risks losing the legal protections and accommodations that exist specifically because it is classified as a disorder. You can't fight for workplace accommodations and call it a superpower at the same time. Those two things cancel each other out.

What does ADHD actually feel like day to day?

ADHD feels like everything is urgent, nothing gets done, and you're completely spent from fighting your own brain all day.

I want to get real for a second, because the superpower crowd seems to forget what this actually feels like for most people on most days. It's not creative genius and hyperfocus productivity sessions. It's paralysis. It's what I call the deer-in-headlights syndrome. You have so many things from so many categories all in your mind at the exact same time, and your brain can't compartmentalize what goes where. You can't figure out how to start on anything, so you just freeze. You're freaking out internally, completely still on the outside, and nobody can see it.

It's the roller coaster that never stops. You know that feeling going up the hill, click, click, click, and that pit in your stomach? We live with that constantly, always bracing for something to fall apart, never sure what it'll be. A lot of us are on the verge of tears all the time, and that's not drama or weakness. That's a nervous system running on fumes!

It's being completely mood-based (period, end of story). A neurotypical person can feel horrible and still push through their to-do list. A person with ADHD becomes the mood. It seeps into everything, your body, your thoughts, every interaction, and suddenly a bad morning becomes a lost week because your brain can't separate the emotion from everything else it's processing. And the exhaustion from masking all of this? It's not "tired after a long day" exhaustion. It's "I have been pretending to be someone else for my entire life and I physically cannot keep doing this" exhaustion. That's the part that gets people misdiagnosed with depression. You're not depressed. You're spent!

If ADHD isn't a superpower, what is it?

ADHD is a neurological condition with lower dopamine levels that affects your brain's ability to filter, prioritize, and regulate.

Let me put the science in plain terms, because understanding your brain is the first step toward actually working with it instead of against it. Your brain has lower levels of dopamine than a neurotypical brain, and you were born this way. In 2009, Dr. Nora Volkow at the National Institutes of Health used PET scans to show that adults with ADHD have significantly lower dopamine activity in the brain's reward and motivation centers. That directly affects your ability to feel motivated by everyday tasks, pay attention to things that aren't immediately engaging, and feel satisfied when you complete something.

Your prefrontal cortex (located right behind your forehead) is supposed to act as a gatekeeper. It filters information, helps you prioritize competing demands, and keeps your impulses in check. When dopamine is low, that gatekeeper goes off duty, and everything floods in at once. That's why your brain treats a thought about groceries with the same urgency as a work deadline. It's why you can hyper-focus on something interesting for six hours but can't make yourself open an email for six minutes. Sound familiar?

This isn't a character flaw, and it isn't something you can positive-think your way out of. ADHD is approximately 74-80% heritable based on decades of twin studies. You didn't get it from bad parenting, too much screen time, or red dye in your cereal (yes, people still say that). And you didn't get a superpower that you're somehow failing to activate.

Why does the superpower myth hit women harder?

Women with ADHD are diagnosed an average of four years later than men, often after being misdiagnosed with depression or anxiety for decades.

This is where it gets personal for me, because I was misdiagnosed myself before anyone figured out what was actually going on. And I'm far from alone. A 2024 Swedish population study of 85,330 people found that women receive their ADHD diagnosis at an average age of 23.5, compared to 19.6 for men. But plenty of women aren't diagnosed until their 30s, 40s, or even 50s, often after a string of antidepressants that never worked (because they were never depressed in the first place).

Dr. Stephen Hinshaw's Berkeley Girls with ADHD Longitudinal Study followed 228 girls for over 25 years, and the findings should stop everyone in their tracks. Girls with combined-type ADHD had a 22.4% suicide attempt rate by early adulthood, and more than half engaged in self-harm. Research from Dr. Patricia Quinn found that 14% of girls with ADHD were prescribed antidepressants before anyone even considered an ADHD diagnosis, compared to just 5% of boys. These aren't superpower statistics!

So picture this: you've spent decades hearing "why can't you just" from your parents, your teachers, your partners. You've been told you're anxious, depressed, borderline, or (my personal favorite) just "too much." You've tried antidepressants that made you feel worse. You finally get your ADHD diagnosis at 35, and before you can even process what that means, a stranger on Instagram tells you it's your superpower. That's not encouraging. That's invalidating everything you just survived!

Can ADHD have any positives at all?

ADHD doesn't grant superpowers, but people who have it are often passionate, creative, and deeply empathetic. Those qualities are yours.

I'm going to be really honest here, because I refuse to leave you in a hopeless place. I don't think ADHD is a superpower. I genuinely don't. But I do think many people with ADHD are absolutely incredible, and I need you to hear the difference between those two statements.

When your brain doesn't compartmentalize well, everything is kind of everywhere all at once, and that does allow for a certain kind of creativity because there are no walls. You can think in every direction simultaneously, and that's genuinely beautiful. The way we feel everything (for better and for worse!) is something a lot of neurotypical people don't experience. And honestly, I think there's nothing more gorgeous than a life lived with that much emotional depth.

But it's not the ADHD that makes you special. It's you. It's your soul, your drive, your potential. I've watched thousands of clients do remarkable things with their lives (genuinely remarkable, life-changing things), and they did those things because of who they are as people, not because of a diagnosis. Plenty of neurotypical people have built amazing things too. It's a person thing, not an ADHD thing.

The real danger of the superpower framing is that it ties your worth to your condition. If ADHD is your superpower, then managing it feels like losing your identity. And if you're struggling, it means your superpower is failing you. Both of those traps keep you stuck. You are not your ADHD. You are so much more!

What actually helps instead of pretending ADHD is a gift?

Managing ADHD means learning practical strategies that work with your brain, not rebranding your struggles as strengths.

After 26 years of working with adults who have ADHD, the single most important thing I've learned is this: action first, not emotion first. If you wait until you feel motivated, organized, or ready, you'll wait forever (and I mean that sincerely, because ADHD brains don't generate motivation the way neurotypical brains do). The actions create the emotions, not the other way around.

Here's what actually works:

Stop trying to fix everything simultaneously. Your brain wants to do everything all at once right now, and that impulse will keep you frozen in overwhelm. Start with one focus. We give clients one thing per week, something that takes two or three minutes a day, and everyone pushes back at first. "That's it? One thing? What am I paying for?" But the compounding effect is remarkable when you actually stick with it.

Work with your energy cycles, not against them. Match your harder tasks to times when your brain is naturally more energized, and put easier tasks in your low-energy windows. This sounds almost too simple (and yes, most of our clients say that at first), but it works with basically 100% consistency.

Think of it like curly hair. You can't use the same brushes, shampoos, and styling products that your straight-haired friends use and expect the same results. Your brain is wired differently, and you need different tools. That doesn't make you deficient. It means you need a different approach. And once you find it? You're set.

Stop waiting for the superpower to kick in. It's not coming. What IS available is something better: learning to manage your most challenging symptoms so they stop running your life. I don't have a superpower. I've learned to manage a lot of my most challenging ADHD symptoms. That's it. That's all I've done. And it changed everything!

How do you actually build a life you love with ADHD?

You build a life you love by accepting ADHD is genuinely hard, getting real support, and learning strategies that fit your brain.

I want you to hear this: ADHD is hard. It's really, really hard. And if you've been struggling, that isn't because you're broken or lazy or not trying hard enough. You've been playing a game that wasn't designed for the way your brain works, and nobody handed you the right instructions.

But here's what I also know after 26 years and tens of thousands of coaching sessions: it is completely manageable. Not always easy (not even close), but absolutely learnable. The challenges that feel so crushing right now can genuinely shift from this heavy, suffocating weight into "now I know what to do, and I know how to do it." I've watched it happen thousands of times, and I've lived it in my own life.

You don't need a superpower to build a life you're proud of. You need strategies that work with your wiring, and support from people who actually get ADHD (not just people who read about it on TikTok). You need permission to say "this is hard" without someone chirping back that it's actually a gift. Because once you stop performing gratitude for a condition that's been kicking your ass, you can finally start doing something about it.

We're not damaged. This is all learnable. And you are so much more than your ADHD!