The Rachel Hollis Podcast

939 Rach How Do I Stop Hating Myself Rach I Think My Son Has Adhd

March 5, 2026

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  • Feelings of self-hatred often stem from living in misalignment with one's core self and true desires. 
  • For children suspected of ADHD, the process of helping involves becoming a detective of behavioral triggers, advocating with schools, and considering non-medication interventions like brain scans and supplements. 
  • Rediscovering identity after major life upheaval (divorce, career change) requires leaning into childhood interests and authentic preferences rather than trying to fit into a mold others prefer. 

Segments

Self-Hatred and Misalignment
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(00:01:06)
  • Key Takeaway: Self-hatred is intrinsically linked to living in misalignment with one’s core identity and truth.
  • Summary: Times of feeling frustrated, angry, or hating oneself correlate with living out of alignment with one’s core being. Identifying this misalignment is the first step toward understanding these negative feelings. Authentically living according to one’s core self fosters joy and self-trust.
Introduction to Ask Rach
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(00:02:14)
  • Key Takeaway: The ‘Ask Rach’ segment features unfiltered, real-time advice given without pre-listening to caller questions.
  • Summary: The ‘Ask Rach’ segment is a weekly tradition where listeners call in for ‘real talk and tough love.’ Rachel Hollis does not pre-listen to the voicemails, ensuring her responses are immediate and gut-driven, like having coffee together. Listeners are encouraged to use the advice or ignore it as they see fit.
ADHD Diagnosis and Support Process
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(00:04:47)
  • Key Takeaway: Helping a child potentially with ADHD involves detective work on triggers, advocating for environmental adjustments, and considering specialized diagnostics like brain scans.
  • Summary: Rachel Hollis’s first step in helping her daughter was consulting a child psychologist to differentiate between normal learning and uncontrollable issues, advising deeper dives if school thriving is affected. She became a detective, noting her daughter consistently got in trouble during overstimulating environments like recess or PE. For her daughter, brain scans at Amen Clinics provided visual confirmation of high stress activity, leading to non-medication supplement prescriptions that were life-changing.
Parenting Strategies for Overstimulation
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(00:10:09)
  • Key Takeaway: Understanding a child’s overstimulation triggers allows parents to proactively manage challenging social events and tailor birthday celebrations for success.
  • Summary: If a child overstimulates in loud, high-energy situations, parents should prepare to help them navigate those experiences, even if they attend. Conversely, parents should plan smaller, calmer events for birthdays if the child cannot thrive in overwhelming settings. Recognizing triggers helps parents set up their child for success rather than setting them up for failure.
Advocacy in Public School Settings
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(00:11:15)
  • Key Takeaway: Parents should advocate for compassionate accommodations based on observed triggers, while still teaching children to respect the rules of the teacher’s environment.
  • Summary: Advocacy involves pointing out patterns (e.g., trouble only occurring at recess) to teachers to see if environmental adjustments can be made to prevent issues. While children must respect the teacher’s rules, parents should fight for reasonable accommodations that set the child up for better control. Transitioning to smaller private school settings was necessary for Rachel Hollis because public school class sizes did not offer the required support.
Impact of Digital Stimulation on Brains
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(00:26:17)
  • Key Takeaway: Fast-changing digital content, especially YouTube Shorts, is highly overstimulating and can cause children with ADHD/ADD tendencies to become the ‘worst version of themselves.’
  • Summary: Consuming rapidly shifting video content, like YouTube Shorts, overstimulates the brain to a detrimental degree for children with focus challenges. Rachel Hollis removed all social media and YouTube access from her 13-year-old son because the stimulation negatively impacted his behavior. She notes that several countries are passing laws restricting social media access for minors due to its detrimental effects.
Addressing Self-Hatred and Identity Loss
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(00:30:51)
  • Key Takeaway: Self-hatred is often a reaction to hating the inauthentic version of oneself being presented to the world, and major life destruction can create space for authentic rebuilding.
  • Summary: The feeling of self-hatred is often rooted in hating the persona one is pretending to be, not the core self, which is yearning to emerge. Major life events like divorce and quitting a soul-sucking job create a ‘burn’ that allows a stronger, forged identity to rise from the ashes. To rediscover identity, one must explore who they were before external expectations—asking, ‘Who were you before you were theirs?’—is crucial.