The Link Between Self-Mistrust and Adult ADHD

Mistrust beliefs are typically other-focused, rooted in one's experiences of having been wronged, abandoned, or abused by others in trusted relationships. These experiences leave them wary and on guard about others’ motives.

Does adult ADHD leave you feeling you cannot trust yourself? Read this for some new insights.

Source: Brett Jordan/Pexels

Self-Mistrust and Adult ADHD

My first book on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for adult ADHD,¹ is where I first made mention of “self-mistrust” beliefs. They became apparent to me in countless sessions hearing clients’ self-doubts and corresponding self-recriminations and frustrations with themselves for consistently not doing what they know they needed to do and that they knew full well they could do.

But the insidiousness of the effects of ADHD is that they were still unable to reliably count on themselves to implement intentions as a consequence. The consistent inconsistency of ADHD left them believing, and often saying aloud, “I can’t trust myself.”

Several years later, I stumbled across Albert Bandura’s construct of self-regulatory efficacy (SRE) while I was writing a book in which I took a stab at proposing a cognitive theme germane to adult ADHD.² SRE’s description, that of a kind of meta-efficacy, fit with the consensus that ADHD is not a knowledge problem but a performance problem, self-dysregulation regularly punctuating the engagement and follow through on otherwise reasonable endeavors. Quoting Bandura:³

“In many spheres of functioning, people know full well how to perform the needed behavior. Here, the relevant efficacy beliefs concern self-regulatory capabilities—can people get themselves to stick with the behavior given the many dissuading conditions they will encounter? ... (T)hose who distrust their capacities to surmount unpleasant factors have little reason to put themselves through misery. In familiar activities that must be performed regularly to achieve desired results, it is perceived self-regulatory efficacy, rather than perceived efficacy for the activity per se, that is most relevant.” (p. 64, emphasis added)

Although I continue to propose such self-mistrust as a chief cognitive theme in adult ADHD,⁴ I present it as a hypothesis to be tested. When trying to find support for this idea in the literature, I typically only encounter SRE in research on matters like exercise adherence.

Self-Regulatory Efficacy and Protecting Against Procrastination

That is, until recently. Let me be clear from the outset that the two studies I stumbled upon did not include adults with ADHD. However, the studies addressed self-regulatory efficacy and its relationship to academic procrastination in college students. Procrastination for me is the top problem shared by most adults with ADHD, so the studies captured my interest.

The first study⁵ used general self-efficacy (SE) and self-regulatory efficacy (SRE) ratings as predictors of procrastination ratings and objective academic procrastination (measured with student-generated intended assignments and number of days needed to complete them) in a sample of 105 college students. SRE was associated with significantly less procrastination when compared with general SE, which would support the idea of self-trust. A conjecture for this surprising finding was that those with high general SE but low SRE may have been overconfident and thereby underestimated academic task difficulties.

The second study⁶ included a measure of visual imagery (a variable hypothesized to increase motivation and thereby reduce procrastination) to assess its relationship to SE, SRE, and procrastination behavior ratings in a sample of 148 college students. Again, SRE emerged as protecting against procrastination, especially for participants scoring high on visual imagery.

Oddly, when including visual imagery in an analysis of the most significant factors predicting procrastination, visual imagery was associated with more academic procrastination—except for those with high SRE! Again, self-trust in one’s efficacy increased ratings on one's ability to start and follow through on academic tasks.

Take Away Message for Adult ADHD

Such studies conducted with adults with ADHD would provide a clearer connection between self-mistrust, ADHD, and procrastination. But at least there is a connection between self-trust/SRE and less procrastination. Even these preliminary findings offer further justification for fostering self-trust armed with personalized, adapted skills for coping with adult ADHD.