Toxic Boss or Bullying? ADHD at Work with Brooke Schnittman

0:00 What I noticed was that most adults don't call any of this bullying. They call it like a toxic boss or plans they heard afterwards or that's just how my family is. And if you don't have a word for it, you can't see the pattern. You just assume you're the problem.

0:14 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the ADHD skills lab. Today I'm excited to welcome back Brooke Schnittman, the founder of Coaching with Brooke and a leading ADHD coach specializing in executive functioning and coach training. Brooke has had more than two decades of experience supporting people with ADHD and is the best-selling author of Activate Your ADHD Potential and host of Successful with ADHD podcast.

0:39 Today we're diving into Brooke's latest work, the Coaching with Brooke Adult ADHD Bullying Survey, a global self-report survey exploring adults' experiences with ADHD and bullying. And you know we love to talk research here and do a deep dive on that. So I'm really excited to be discussing, you know, what people shared about bullying in childhood and adulthood, including their experiences in the workplace and relationships, and confidence and anxiety and fear of speaking up.

1:07 Yeah, I think this is going to be a great conversation. So it's really wonderful to have you here, Brooke. Thanks, guy. I'm happy to be back. Yeah. Now, before we get started, those of you who know this podcast, and some of you might be new, know that we are on a mission to support people who started something, a business, because it's the best person environment fit for them, but now they're struggling to scale.

1:31 We know from the research that this is a space that's really great for us, but we do tend to make less than our neurotypical peers. And we want to work to change that. So there's lots of research and support below around coaching operations, some of it free, some of it paid. Check out the links below and uh see what's right for you.

1:51 Amazing. Okay, Brooke, tell me about the survey. What inspired you to do this? Yes.

1:58 Well, can I go back to what you just said about yourself first? Because I think that's huge operations with people with ADHD. We need systems to thrive, even though we hate systems. So I love that that's what you're up to in your company. You can help so many business owners with ADHD. So kudos to you.

2:17 Thank you.

2:18 Yeah, I I feel like every now and again you'll have somebody and they say, Oh, I have ADHD and I made millions of dollars. And everyone else is like, okay, cool. What about me? Like my business, I'm struggling. And I think it's it's, you know, I'm very passionate about it because I didn't feel like I fit in the traditional workplace.

2:39 And I'm one of those people who left to do my own thing as a result. And I don't love seeing the research. There's just like, well, you're gonna do it, but you're gonna do it worse than everyone else. And I'm like, right.

2:50 Right. Yeah, exactly. And most of us do need operations help, and that's okay.

2:54 Yeah, hence it's the O O. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Exactly. I always say that we don't, you know, you don't need the creative necessarily. You know, other people will come in and they'll be like, oh, we need to hire someone in the creative space because we um, you know, we need to come up with this original idea.

3:13 I'm like, hey, you have ADHD. You're probably already great at that, but you do need the operation support that the neurotypicals haven't even thought about hiring.

3:23 I live and die by my accountability and operations every week. Otherwise, I'd be completely off task. Um, but I digress. I know that's not the question that you asked me.

3:34 No, no, no, it's not. I wanted to ask you about the coaching with Brooke survey. What made you decide to do this?

3:42 Yeah, so I'm gonna try not to get choked up here. And it's interesting for those of you who don't know, like I've been told that I need to talk to Skye for about a year from Pack Your ADHD with William Curb when I was on there, but I got like all emotional when I was there. And I said, you know what?

3:59 I'm not gonna go on any other podcast to talk about this. But then Sky reached out to me about something else. So I said, you know what? Let me talk to her. So in fourth grade, I switched from private school to public school. And the private school that I went to, my dad owned it. I was impulsive. I didn't raise my hand.

4:18 I would come up to the teacher. Didn't know I had ADHD, but it was kind of like, you know, I just was able to do kind of what I wanted to do impulsively and didn't have structure. And I wanted to go to public school so bad because some of the kids from camp were my friends and they went to the local public school.

4:40 Also, my neighbors went to the local public school. So I thought they would welcome me. We were besties in camp and in the neighborhood. But instead, as soon as the relief came of me moving away from private school to public school, they all turned away from me. I remember one of the first days I went to the lunch table.

5:00 And sorry, I'm gonna call her out now, Taryn Berman. We ended up becoming friends. But I said to her, Why, why, why won't you just be friends with me? Like, why won't you accept me? She's like, What are you, Steve Urkel? Like, did you l did you watch Steve Urkel recently? So instead, they all turned away from me, and I didn't understand what was happening.

5:17 And the adults in my life, my mom, my dad, the principal, the teacher, they're just jealous. But that didn't help. It just made me more confused. And it kept happening in middle school and high school and even college. Not as much in college, but it still happened. And then finally, my career as a special education teacher and later in as an administrator, it happened again.

5:43 But the thing is, I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was 35. And that was after I became an ADHD coach, too. I know it's surprising, but that's when it finally made sense. That impulsive comment, the rejection sensitivity, the people pleasing, the fawning. I spent years learning that being visible came with a cost.

6:05 And then I started hearing my own stories from clients, like successful adults being called too much, too sensitive. And they all assumed this was something they should have just outgrown. And the gap I saw in the research, too. So we know a lot about kids. And there's a large US study found out there that almost half of kids with ADHD, 47% of kids with ADHD had been bullied.

6:34 And Sky, that's about double the rate for kids without ADHD. But even the studies that survey adults with ADHD mostly ask them to look back at their school years. Far less work ask what happens after school ends. Like there really was no research out there for adults with ADHD and bullying in work, in families, in marriages.

6:59 So I went and I hyperfocused and I searched everywhere, and there was nothing. So I asked. I ran an anonymous online survey. It's an international community survey, and it tells us what adults in my community are living with. So in the first round, I had two phases. 162 adults with ADHD responded, and Attitude published those findings.

7:25 And in the second round, 129 adults responded. And nearly 95% said they've been bullied at some point in their lives.

7:37 Yeah. Yeah. No, I think this is this is a really interesting one. Because initially, when you said bullying, I was like, oh, this is gonna be about kids. But it's not, and I think it's really important because I mean, I I was bullied um in school as well, probably unsurprising considering the ADHD of it all.

7:54 And yeah, I was new, I was from a new country. There was a whole lot of a lot of things going on, but mostly I would say it was the ADHD. Like mostly it was the ADHD now. I was diagnosed very, very late as you were. And I think it did like being ADHD. I'm sure I don't know if this came up, but I was talking to I think it was Caroline about her, you know, book on friendships.

8:19 And there is this sense, I think, with the bullying where it comes into like, yeah, you know what? Maybe friendships aren't for me. Like I like she said that that came up a lot with people just kind of giving up on the idea of like friend groups when they're in your office.

8:36 Yes, it's so interesting because I would always, and this did come up, I would always go for the kids who didn't like me, who would reject me because I thought they were my friends. And if I just could go back into time and go to the groups of people that were openly accepting me and not like look down on that or look away from that, even in relationships, you know, in romantic relationships, oh, I mean, so much could have changed.

9:08 But yes, like there, this study doesn't necessarily prove that ADHD causes we're very well-versed in research here, guys.

9:17 Correlation does not equal causation. This is a survey.

9:21 Exactly, exactly, exactly. It's a survey, but at the same time, when we asked people what they felt targeted for, 72% said emotional intensity, and close to 70% said being seen as different. And then two-thirds said social differences. So those are ADHD traits, right? Big feelings have called too much, too sensitive.

9:50 So there's way more that I'm happy to go into about that, but I'm sure we'll be getting into that later.

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10:38 So if you're a business owner with ADHD symptoms who's ready to stop flying by the seat of your pants and get focused, click the link in the show notes and grab your free focus filter. Okay, back to the episode. I guess my question then for you, my first question is when we're talking about the survey, bullying and adults.

10:57 Like, there's a reason that when you said bullying, I thought we were talking about kids, because usually as an as adults, that language doesn't get used anymore. You might say, like, oh, I don't feel like that person likes me, or you might say, like, I don't feel like I'm connecting with the group, but you wouldn't say I feel bullied.

11:15 I'm curious, what did you have any qualitative research from this around that stuff?

11:22 Yeah. So first of all, anyone who is filling this out had to say, like, had to take a look at the definition of bullying. And they had to also report that they had ADHD in Maryton and Older. So bullying, as many of us think, is just a childhood issue, right? But it's not. This is a big one. In the first round, 91% were bullied as kids, and that's almost double the 47% of kids with ADHD in the national study.

11:54 And part of that is who answers a survey about bullying, of course. But people who lived it are more likely to respond. And the stories were really hard to hear. Some of it was like being left out of groups, friend groups, as you mentioned with Carolyn McGuire, never getting invited. One person describes classmates who borrowed their notes but never include them socially.

12:16 Another wrote I was labeled a ditz or an airhead or vague or dumb when the real issue was focus and working memory. Also, what shocked me was that six, uh sorry, 60, 76% were bullied as adults too. And for most people in the general population, bullying drops off after school. And this is what I was trying to get a better look at.

12:41 So one large review of workplace studies found about 15% of employees report being bullied at work. In my survey, it was 63%. And two-thirds. Yeah, yeah.

12:56 Sorry, I was gonna say, can you, because you talked a little bit about examples of bullying in childhood. Can you give me some of the examples of what what what that bullying looked like in adulthood? Because I I think there's a lot of people who are like right now going, is this me? But they don't quite know.

13:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's exactly what I talk about here is like what I noticed was that most adults don't call any of this bullying. They call it like a toxic boss or plans they heard afterwards, or that's just how my family is. And if you don't have a word for it, you can't see the pattern.

13:34 You just assume you're the problem.

13:37 Because I think the adults is really gonna hit for people. I have so many questions about adult ADHD because obviously a lot of people, but I think it's it's very validating.

13:49 So I did two phases for this survey. And in the first one, at work, the most common pattern was having ADHD traits treated as character flaws. So one person said their symptoms were depicted as character flaws or unprofessional or inappropriate behavior. Some people were punished after disclosing their ADHD.

14:09 One person asked for accommodations during a job interview and then was relentlessly picked on. They were deliberately placed in the exact environments they said would be hard for them, and then they quit in tears after 14 months. A teacher, yeah, yeah, yeah, and goes on. A teacher was told by a supervisor, ADHDs can't be good teachers.

14:33 So I don't even know why you're trying. Performance reviews, which are supposed to help people, were used against people. One person called them character assassinations with no focus on work performance. Credentials didn't help. One respondent earned a doctorate to feel confident at work and said that nothing has changed.

14:58 And others described being exploited. Colleagues and managers took advantage of their overworking, weak boundaries, difficulty protecting their time. So a lot of this was like scrutiny, mass as professionalism. And then in phase two, we got even deeper. One person said workplace bullying left me feeling like I'm in trouble anytime someone says we need to talk.

15:25 In relationships and friendships, one person wrote, I've been in some awful relationships due to the need to not be alone and feel loved. One person wrote, I feel my social needs at work and with my partner. I'm 47 and was only diagnosed this year. Um, some found it hard to tell an honest misunderstanding from deliberate exploitation.

15:46 One person was told growing up, just don't react. And now writes, I have a fear of anger and conflict because I can never win. And people were called too much, too sensitive, weird, difficulty, bossy, intense for things like impulsive comments, emotional reactions, oversharing. So there's so much, so much I could go on.

16:12 I really appreciate you sharing that. I think um, you know, it's I really appreciate the people who did this survey for sharing that. It's it's not easy, and you know, they didn't have to take that time and talk about these things, they'd probably rather forget.

16:27 So it's absolutely it can be very, it can be re-traumatizing.

16:32 Yeah, it could definitely be difficult.

16:33 And the goal of this survey was not to re-traumatize people, of course, but to make people aware of what bullying actually is and to have a name for it, so then they could have the power to do something about it, because so many of these people who were being bullied had no idea it was bullying.

16:53 Yeah, that that kind of brings up an interesting question because you know, a lot of times when you talk about childhood bullying, right? And there's a lot of a lot been written on that, the conversation is sort of, you know, people have to fight their own battles, you can't get involved, you know, and and I I say this is based on what I remember from the 90s, I'm sure it's different now.

17:15 But I'm curious, like, what is the do we even have a general rule of what it should be done when somebody encounters adult bullying?

17:26 So that's a great question. Yes. So just something that I've kind of come up with myself is if you do if you are the person being bullied, let's say, you want to first of all slow down, right? You don't have to respond right away. Two, recognize the pattern, like has this happened before? Is there a power gap?

17:50 Write it down, dates, what was said, who was there. And three, prepare words ahead of time. We know that stress strains executive function. So the right words won't come in real time, usually. So have a script ready, like I felt singled out when that feedback was given in front of everyone. Can we talk about future feedback privately?

18:10 And then the fourth step, if that doesn't work, is bring someone in. So this is where your support system is important, and this is where bystanders are helpful. So this could be someone in HR, a therapist, a coach, a friend you trust. We don't have to carry this experience alone, even though we have for so long.

18:33 And so many of us hate asking for help because we don't feel worth it. And if we could follow those four steps, like that's how psychological safety gets rebuilt.

18:42 Yeah, definitely. It's a tough one though. I I definitely think, you know, so many times I, you know, people hear, oh, well, you know, adults bullying is doesn't exactly come, you know, it's not like the movies where you're like three people are walking towards you and they push you, you know, there's a locker involved and there's a whole thing.

19:01 It's very much like, oh, everyone was just busy, or like there's a lot of um, I would say, not doubting your own reality going on, even more so than in childhood.

19:13 Exactly, exactly. So in childhood, what we found there were the bullying was a lot more overt. So to your point, it was physical, it was out loud, it was in front of people. In adulthood, it was a lot more covert, being left out, purposely being excluded from a work, you know, get together, not being brought into this project, being spoken about behind your back.

19:38 So it has definitely continued, but changed forms in adulthood.

19:43 Did you have a discussion in this about gender and bullying? Like, did that come up? Who was answering the survey?

19:50 I really wanted to understand gender as well. And I did have people's emails and names, but I didn't want to make assumptions in phase one. So I did phase two to try to get deeper, get more specific. And what I found out was that 76.5% of the people who filled out the survey in phase two were women, 20.5% were men, 2.3% were non-binary, and one preferred to self-describe.

20:19 So that counts for everyone in our phase two survey. I'm not saying specifically that men and women experience bullying differently because that hasn't been analyzed yet, with only like 27 men in the gap, right? That's that's kind of shaky.

20:37 No, that's really interesting. I mean, I find it, I find it fascinating. I think, because you know, when we don't have data, we like to talk about previous data. So we know from the previous data that, you know, there is a difference in how men and women experience bullying in childhood. And so, not always, not across the board, 100% it can be different, but overall, so it is interesting to then discuss, okay, if we're talking about bullying in adulthood, you know, is it showing up the same way for men and is it showing up the same way for women?

21:08 Like the other thing I'd love to know, and this isn't, you know, this is just classic research, as soon as someone does a paper, they're like, oh, what if we did this? Um, but it would be so interesting to also know about the kind of environments because we know from ADHD that person environment fit, as we talked about right at the beginning of this episode, is a big factor in people going and doing their own thing.

21:28 And I wonder now, having this conversation with you, if person environment fit is also about bullying and how different kinds of environments, because there is so much restriction, they lead to a sense of othering when you're ADHD.

21:43 So these are all wonderful questions. And gosh, if you were the one who helped me do this survey, you would have all these answers. Give me your ready next time, always. Let's do phase three, okay. But I was working with a bunch of ADHDers and I really want. Of them to answer the survey, and I thought to myself, I have 37 questions.

22:04 There's no way that they're gonna answer all these. So let me get to the ones that like I think they'll answer the most, and then the information I need the most. But what I can tell you in phase two, people were bullied in their family. So 51.6 percent of adults were bullied in their family. 87.7 percent of bullies said that they experienced rejection sensitivity, 82 percent had low self-confidence, 80.3 percent had anxiety, and 61.5 percent had the fear of speaking up.

22:40 And in phase one, 63% were bullied in the workplace, 54.3% were bullied in their friendships or relationships, and 18.5% got no help at all.

22:56 So, what do you think you're taking away from this? Like having done this research, and I appreciate this by the way. I one of the things about my PhD was because I I didn't finish my PhD, I went all the way to the dissertation and left to finish to start this or grow this business. But I had the reason the PhD was also a very depressing topic.

23:15 I was talking about economics and parenthood and New Zealand, and it was not looking good for New Zealanders at the time. So I have a bit of an understanding of what it's like to delve into something that is very personal and very, very difficult. How did you how did you experience that? And then what have you thought about it now?

23:36 As I mentioned earlier, diving into it, more so speaking about it and talking about the different situations that I saw happen for other individuals with ADHD, like the too much, too sensitive being mocked out or used their accommodations against them. Like that all kind of just for me, like I absorbed that because I'm a very empathetic person.

24:06 And then I started talking about it on podcasts, and then I started talking about some of my own personal experiences, and for real, it re-traumatized me to the point where I told my therapist, I was like, I don't think I can talk about this anymore. So I had to do a lot of EMDR to be able to talk about other people's experiences, but also my experience, and because there's so many of them without having a physical reaction.

24:32 And I guess if we were to think about that, then you know, what is the thing that you hope that people take away from this research? Because it was something that was difficult to do, it was difficult to talk about now. So you you have a mission, a reason for doing it.

24:46 A lot of us grew up hearing just don't react. I know that I also heard that too. Let's just ignore them, they're just jealous. One person in the survey heard it all through childhood, and as an adult wrote that they can't stand up for themselves in business situations. So this is following people through adulthood and reclaiming agency, is what I want people to take away from this because that is learning to respond again, like on your timeline.

25:18 So I'll give you mine. When I was an assistant director of PPS, special education personnel services, I once had a boss who called me into her office and put me on speakerphone. Colleagues of mine were in her room, and teachers were in the room as well. She screamed at me and accused me of not calling a parent back fast enough.

25:39 And earlier told me I had 24 hours to call a parent. I call back parents too fast. Take some time. So I was alone in my office and they could all hear her. And the next instead of doing something right then and there, because was I emotionally activated? And I needed to call in my support system, my dad.

26:00 You know, I needed to kind of process this all. The next morning, after lack of sleep, I went into her and said, Listen, I'm always open to feedback, but I'm not gonna accept being spoken to this way. And she was a bully. So that sentence kept the door open to feedback and drew a line around how I'd be treated moving forward.

26:23 Not to say that she didn't bully me again, but I said it the next morning, and that self-advocacy doesn't have to happen in the moment. So I think I mentioned before like the four steps to advocate for yourself. Again, slow down, recognize the pattern. Like, has this happened before? Prepare your words ahead of time so we don't get stressed out in the moment.

26:47 Like, bring someone in that can support you. So this is how you can like start trusting your own voice for the first time. Or again, if you did at one point and then it's been taken away from you.

27:00 Yeah, yeah. No, I really appreciate that.

27:03 So you asked about uh differences in what the survey showed for men and women, and for three categories: impulsivity, bullied by family, and bullied in romantic relationships, we saw a huge difference between men and women. So men, 70% of them were targeted for impulsivity, where only 38% of women were targeted for impulsivity.

27:30 26% of men were bullied by their family, where 56% of women were bullied by their family. And in romantic relationships, guess which one were bullied significantly more? 40% of women were bullied in romantic relationships, and 17% of men were bullied in romantic relationships. I'm not trying to make a generalization here because clearly there are men who are bullied in romantic relationships as well.

27:59 So yeah, women and men were targeted equally for emotional intensity, which was interesting. So, like 73% for women compared to 71% for men, and for being seen as different, 68% for women, 70% men. They rated the bullying equally severe, like 5.3 out of seven for both, and equally tied it to their ADHD, which was a 5.4 for both.

28:24 Both of them had high percentages of low self-confidence, 82% for 78%, and then fear of speaking up was 61% for women, 57% for men. So those were also close.

28:36 Yeah, that's really interesting. Was there an in the was there an area where men experienced more bullying? Or was it mostly like uh you mentioned women were more likely to be bullied by their family, more likely to be bullied by a partner?

28:49 Yeah, men were being targeted for impulsivity, 70% compared to women, which was nearly half of that, 38%. And we know that generally speaking, boys are more hyperactive, impulsive, where girls mask it, and then you know the symptoms change as age goes on, but that is where men really stood out.

29:14 Yeah, that's so that's so interesting. That's so interesting. Well, I really appreciate you bringing this research. I I think it's a great, it's great that you saw an area where there was a gap and you went in and filled that gap. I think that's something that I we always talk about doing and would love to do, and I'm so happy that somebody did it because it is so so difficult and so important to do this kind of research.

29:42 I guess my questions then is, you know, if there's one thing like where can people go ahead and find this research?

29:50 Yeah, absolutely. So it is published in Attitude Magazine, which is also on my website, coachingwithbrook.com. There's a link to it in the press page. So I'm happy to link that in the show notes. There's information on the phase one bullying in the international ADHD conference from 2025. There's also going to be the phase two results that are going to be reviewed in uh the International ADHD conference in 2026.

30:18 I believe Attitude's also going to be writing the phase two research as well. And I also share the research in one of my proudest moments in my coach training. So I do a 3C activation training for coaches. I do one for coaches, ADHD coaches who want to be adult ADHD coaches, and one for those who want to be student ADHD coaches.

30:44 So I share the data in there too, because I think it's very important that people self-advocate and we can teach other ADHDers to self-advocate as well. So I put in a lot of scripts, practice on that, and how to target what bullying actually is so people can become more empowered. Amazing.

31:01 Amazing. Well, then my last question is just do you have a quote that you like to share, maybe related to this?

31:07 Absolutely. So close to what we were talking about before is just choose your friends wisely. Like in fourth grade, I clung to the kids who were rejecting me because I wanted to so badly belong. And I walked right past the kids who might have been real friends. And I know that's hard, right? I know that's hard, especially when you might not have many friends.

31:29 So you kind of just take whatever you can get. Um, but it took me years to learn that I get to choose too. So you have the power not to stay friends with someone just because they want to be your friend. And belonging isn't about getting picked, it's about choosing people you can be yourself around.

31:49 Yeah, I appreciate that. I love that. Well, thank you so much, Brooke. Thank you for talking about this topic with me today.

31:55 Thank you, Sky, for having me.

31:56 Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the ADHD Skills Lab. If you liked it, leave us a five star review. It helps other people learn more about us. And thank you so much to our wonderful team for making us sound good, look good. We couldn't do it without you.