ADHD, fairness, Justice and the cost of being the one who copes

I’ve been angrier than I expected to be, and it took me a while to understand what was actually fuelling it.

Nothing explosive happened. There was no dramatic rupture. No single moment I could point to and say, “that’s it.” Just a long, careful exchange that had clearly been thought through. The kind of communication that takes time and effort. The kind that comes from someone who cares about getting things right.

And yet, when I stepped back and read it properly, I realised something had shifted.

When care starts carrying weight

This is someone who matters to me. Not casually. Not superficially. Someone I’m invested in, whose presence in my life is meaningful, whose wellbeing I care about, and whose absence would be felt. That connection is real, and it isn’t something I’m confused about.

And still, I was furious.

Not threatened. Not insecure. Furious.

The conversation was framed around good intentions. Care. Fairness. Emotional safety. All sensible language. All the right ideas. It acknowledged closeness and the need to handle it carefully.

But threaded through it was something else.

Limits were described as inevitabilities. As the natural outcome of circumstances. As the result of careful choices made to avoid discomfort. Adjustments were presented as consideration. Silence was framed as protection.

Responsibility had quietly migrated.

I hadn’t asked to be shielded. I hadn’t asked for partial truth. I hadn’t asked for a curated version of reality. When something was hard for me, I dealt with it myself. I stepped back when I needed to. I managed my own reactions without making them anyone else’s responsibility.

I found myself positioned as someone whose resilience now required managing.

That’s where something in me pushed back.

Because this wasn’t just emotional. It was ethical.

I have ADHD, and one of the less talked about parts of it is a highly responsive justice system. It means I notice unfairness quickly. My brain tracks responsibility and consequence almost automatically.

When something is misaligned, I feel it physically before I can explain it intellectually.

It’s not about being rigid or self-righteous. It’s about proportion. Who holds the power. Who absorbs the cost. Who gets protected. Who is expected to cope.

When those things don’t line up, my nervous system reacts.

That’s what was happening here.

How limits appear without being said

Here’s the pattern that became impossible to ignore.

Plans changed at the last minute. Time together stayed provisional. Contact ebbed and flowed depending on who else was present.

Commitments were softened in advance, just in case they caused friction elsewhere. Nothing explicit. Nothing overt.

Just a steady narrowing of what was possible.

When someone’s emotional reactions determine the range of choices available, limits don’t need to be stated. They’re absorbed. Learned. Lived around.

What unsettled me wasn’t that this dynamic existed. It was how easily it was justified.

Care became the explanation. Sensitivity became the defence. Avoidance was reframed as kindness. Meanwhile, the person whose behaviour caused the most disruption was handled with the most delicacy.

And the weight went somewhere.

To the person who stays regulated. To the person who can tolerate complexity. To the person who doesn’t escalate.

To me.

ADHD and a heightened justice response

This is where ADHD justice sensitivity bites hardest.

When responsibility is redistributed based on who can cope, rather than who is causing the harm, my system lights up.

Not with panic. With anger. Clean, sharp anger that says something is wrong here.

Not because anyone is being intentionally cruel. But because the arrangement relies on my capacity rather than my consent. My steadiness is treated as availability. My understanding as obligation.

That’s not balance. It’s convenience.

And my body rejected it.

Not because I lack empathy. I don’t. Not because I don’t understand history or context. I do. But because explanation is not the same as accountability, and compassion is not the same as compliance.

This is something people with ADHD often struggle to articulate.

We’re told we’re overreacting, too intense, too sensitive. But often what’s happening is that we’re responding accurately to unfair systems that others have learned to tolerate by numbing out.

I can accept that someone I care about makes allowances I wouldn’t. That’s their choice. What I can’t accept is becoming the place where the impact of those allowances lands.

What I’m no longer willing to carry

Once I saw that clearly, the anger stopped feeling chaotic.

It wasn’t pushing me to confront. It wasn’t demanding resolution. It was drawing a boundary.

I can value a connection deeply and still refuse to participate in a system that protects harm by redistributing responsibility to whoever can cope best.

That isn’t fairness.

It’s imbalance.

And my nervous system won’t smooth that over.