What happens when ADHD, trauma, and the patterns we inherit from our families overlap?

Jami Shapiro sits down with licensed marriage and family therapist Virginia Wilcsek, founder of The Transcending Pathway, for an honest conversation about ADHD, narcissism, generational trauma, and the nervous system.

Virginia shares her experience growing up with a narcissistic parent and how that eventually shaped her work helping people heal from trauma and difficult relationships. Together, she and Jami explore how growing up around emotional dysregulation, chaos, neglect, or caregivers who weren’t attuned to us can affect the way we learn to regulate ourselves.

They also unpack an important and complicated question: where does ADHD end and trauma begin? While ADHD and trauma are not the same thing, they can share characteristics such as emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, difficulty focusing, and executive functioning challenges. Virginia explains why biology, development, environment, and our family experiences can all be pieces of the larger story.

What You’ll Learn

• Why ADHD and trauma can sometimes look similar
• How generational trauma can affect nervous-system regulation
• The impact of growing up with narcissistic or emotionally immature parents
• Why an unsafe or chaotic environment can keep the body scanning for danger
• How emotional dysregulation and executive functioning are connected
• Why regulating the nervous system may need to come before problem-solving
• What somatic practices are and how they can support regulation
• How imposter syndrome and negative self-talk can show up with ADHD
• Simple breathing and grounding techniques for moments of overwhelm

Why This Matters

For many adults discovering ADHD later in life, understanding their brain can also bring up questions about their childhood and family history.

Maybe a parent struggled with emotional regulation. Maybe home never felt completely predictable or safe. Maybe behaviors you once thought were simply part of your personality make more sense when you consider both ADHD and the experiences that shaped you.

As Virginia explains, the relationship between ADHD and trauma isn’t an either/or question. ADHD has neurological and biological components, while our developmental experiences and environment also shape how we learn to respond to the world.

A Tool to Try

Virginia shares a simple four-part breathing exercise for moments when you feel overwhelmed or dysregulated:

1. Take a breath and release your throat.
2. Take another and release your chest.
3. Take a third and release your stomach and pelvic muscles.
4. On the fourth breath, release everything.

Then notice: Were you holding your breath? Were you bracing? Did anything shift when you gave your nervous system a moment to regroup?

The ADHD Button Question

Jami asks Virginia: If you could press a button and no longer have ADHD, would you press it?

Virginia’s answer is an emphatic no.

She shares that one of her favorite parts of ADHD is having many different interests, projects, and passions. What might feel “scattered” to someone else allows her to explore different ideas, support people in different ways, and continually discover something new.

About the Guest

Virginia Wilcsek is a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of The Transcending Pathway, a California-based group practice specializing in trauma, complex PTSD, depression, anxiety, grief, loss of identity, and healing from pathological relationships.

Virginia is also a certified breathwork trauma facilitator and incorporates somatic approaches into her work, helping clients understand not only their thoughts and emotions but how their experiences can show up in the body and nervous system.

About the Host

Jami Shapiro is an ADHD coach, speaker, author, and founder of Silver Linings Transitions. Through Grandma Has ADHD, she helps adults, especially women discovering ADHD later in life, better understand their brains, let go of shame, and find tools that work for the way they’re wired.

Resources

• The Transcending Pathway
• The Transcending Pathway workshops
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
• Scattered Minds by Dr. Gabor Maté
• This Explains So Much by Jami Shapiro

Connect with Virginia

Website: The Transcending Pathway
Instagram: @thetranscendingpathway

Connect with Jami

Website: jamishapiro.me
Book: This Explains So Much by Jami Shapiro

If something in this conversation sounds familiar, Virginia leaves listeners with a simple reminder for those moments of overwhelm, self-doubt, or dysregulation:

“It is not a you problem, it is a nervous system that never learned to feel safe.”