A companion to the main ADHD article, written for nurses.
Charge nurse pulls you aside after report and says you’re too sensitive about the assignment board. Three shifts ago she said the same board was just how we do things here. You leave confused about what actually happened. That confusion is the point.
What this actually is
Workplace gaslighting is a pattern where your manager or coworkers repeatedly deny, minimize, or reframe things you clearly experienced, until you stop trusting your own read of events. For ND professionals it lands harder because you already second guess your perception under masking. It’s not a personality clash. It’s a repeated behavior pattern that erodes your reality.
How it shows up
In you: you replay conversations for hours trying to find where you overreacted. You start pre-apologizing before you even raise an issue. RSD spikes so hard after a vague correction from charge that you can’t chart straight for an hour. You keep a mental transcript of what was actually said because you no longer trust the room’s version.
In your patients: the ND patient who says you told me something different yesterday and gets told they misheard, when they didn’t. The patient labeled difficult for asking staff to confirm instructions in writing, because verbal only information has burned them before, in healthcare and everywhere else.
What actually helps
Document in real time. Send yourself an email after any charged conversation with the date, time, and exact words used, before your memory gets edited by anxiety.
Ask for feedback in writing. Can you send that in a message so I don’t misremember it is a completely normal request, not a confrontation.
Name the pattern out loud once, calmly, to the person doing it. Last week this was fine, today it’s not, help me understand what changed.
For patients, write instructions down and hand over the paper. Do not rely on the hallway version of what you just said.
Find one coworker to reality check with. A single witness turns your memory back into a fact.
One move today
Start a plain document titled Work Notes on your phone. After any conversation that leaves you doubting yourself, write down what was said, verbatim, immediately.
The bottom line: your memory of the shift is not the problem, the pattern of being told it’s wrong is.
Go deeper
Read the full piece: What Is Workplace Gaslighting of Neurodivergent Professionals?
ND Hive is coaching and community, not therapy or medical care.
Written by ND Hive.