Masking: The ADHD High-Functioning Performance Trap

You think you're high achieving? Let me show you what you've actually been doing...

I used to think I was just really good at my job.

I showed up early, stayed late, anticipated problems before they happened, and somehow managed to keep multiple balls in the air while making it look effortless. Colleagues would say things like "Julie just gets it done" and "She's so calm under pressure."

What they didn't see was the 3 AM planning sessions in my head, the colour-coded systems I needed just to function, or the way I'd rehearse conversations in the bathroom mirror before important meetings.

I WAS high-achieving. But in order to sustain that level of achievement, I was high-functioning all the time - stressed up to the eyeballs, running on adrenaline, and never able to see my own success anyway.

The cruel irony? The better I performed, the less I could see it.

The Performance Behind the Performance

High-functioning ADHD doesn't look like what most people expect. We're not the chaotic, disorganised stereotype. We're the ones who ARE achieving - often at extraordinary levels - but we've learned to mask the enormous effort it takes.

And here's the devastating part: we can't see our own achievements because we're too focused on maintaining the performance that makes them possible.

The masking starts early. You learn that your natural way of processing the world is "wrong" or "too much." So you develop a sophisticated performance system:

• The Anticipation Game: Spending hours thinking through every possible scenario because your brain can't handle unexpected disruptions
• The Over-Preparation Protocol: Creating detailed plans and backup plans because you don't trust your ability to wing it
• The Emotional Regulation Theatre: Appearing calm and collected while your nervous system is in overdrive
• The Perfectionism Shield: Setting impossibly high standards because "good enough" feels like failure

Sound familiar?

One colleague described watching me during a company crisis: "You handled it in your typical Julie manner – calm, collected and with a sense of care for the people around you." What they didn't see was that I'd already mentally rehearsed this exact scenario a dozen times, created contingency plans for problems that might never happen, and was running on pure adrenaline while appearing composed.

The Hidden Costs of the Performance

Here's what no one talks about: masking isn't just tiring. It's systematically dismantling your sense of self.

Your Brain is Working Overtime Every interaction requires a translation layer. You're constantly monitoring: Am I talking too much? Too fast? Am I fidgeting? Do I look engaged but not too intense? This cognitive load is exhausting, but it's become so automatic you don't even notice it anymore.

Your Achievements Feel Hollow When someone compliments your work, you think "If only they knew how much I struggled" or "Anyone could have done that." You can't internalise success because you're so focused on the enormous scaffolding it took to achieve it - and you're already scanning for the next challenge to survive.

Your Needs Become Invisible You become so good at adapting to what others need that you lose track of what you need. A friend told me: "You have the ability to help people work through complex issues in a safe way without solving the problem for them." But who was helping me work through my issues?

Your Identity Fragments You start to believe the performance is who you are. The real you – the one who needs movement to think, who has brilliant ideas at inconvenient times, who sees connections others miss – gets buried deeper and deeper.

The Capability-Capacity Collision

Here's the cruel irony: the more capable you appear, the more capacity everyone assumes you have.

You're given more projects because "Julie can handle it." You're asked to mentor others because you're "so calm and supportive." You become the go-to person for crisis management because you "never seem stressed."

But capability and capacity are not the same thing.

Your capability – your natural talents, your problem-solving skills, your ability to see solutions others miss – is genuine. It's real. It's valuable.

Your capacity – your energy, your bandwidth, your nervous system's ability to handle sustained pressure – has limits. Limits that masking disguises until they're crossed.

The Breaking Point: When the Mask Became Unsustainable

For years, the performance worked in corporate. There were systems, structures, and teams to support the scaffolding I'd built. I could hide my needs behind company processes and mask my struggles as "being thorough" or "detail-oriented."

But then I started my own business.

Suddenly, there was no corporate safety net. No team to delegate to when I was overwhelmed. No established processes to lean on when my brain went offline.

And that's when I got my ADHD diagnosis.

Sitting in that psychiatrist's office at 49, everything clicked into place. The exhaustion. The over-preparation. The elaborate systems. The burnout cycles I'd been attributing to "just working hard."

I realised I had a choice: I could continue the performance and burn out trying to run a business with a masked nervous system, or I could figure out how to succeed as myself.

The mask had to come off.

Because here's what I learned: you can't build a sustainable business on an unsustainable version of yourself. If I couldn't be authentic about my needs, I'd never be able to maximise my capability while maintaining the capacity to actually deliver.

The performance that got me promoted in corporate would kill my business. And possibly me.

The Path Forward: Business as a Mirror

Starting my own business forced me to confront everything I'd been hiding. There's nowhere to mask when you ARE the business.

I had to learn:

• How to work WITH my ADHD brain instead of against it
• The difference between my natural capability and my actual capacity
• How to create systems that supported rather than constrained me
• That authenticity isn't just nice to have - it's essential for sustainability

The process wasn't about dumbing down my expectations or my hopes and dreams. It was about building success on who I actually am, not who I thought I needed to be.

Now I help other women make this same transition - not necessarily into entrepreneurship, but into authenticity. Because whether you're in a corporate or running your own show, the principle is the same: sustainable success requires an honest relationship with your own brain.

Next week, I'll share the framework I use with clients to move from masking to authentic high performance – the kind that actually energises instead of depletes.

Because you deserve to be successful as yourself, not despite yourself.

What part of your own performance are you ready to examine?

Ready to explore what authentic success looks like for your ADHD brain? Download my free ADHD Achievement Audit and start identifying the evidence of your true capability: LINK HERE

‍