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Ep 11: ADHD and Emotional Regulation
275 Plays1 year ago
In this episode your host, Jade, will share some insights and strategies surrounding emotional regulation and the role it plays in ADHD. We'll look at some of the ways dysregulation (or lack of control over emotions) impacts your life and some of the strategies for self soothing.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Host Background
00:00:06
Speaker
You are listening to Awaken ADHD, a podcast where people share their ADHD stories, life before and after diagnosis, support strategies, strengths and challenges. Hi, I'm Jade and I'll be your host. I'm a counselor, ADHD coach and fellow ADHD. yeah So join me as we Awaken ADHD.
Acknowledgment of Indigenous Peoples
00:00:31
Speaker
This podcast was recorded on the land of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation, and we wish to acknowledge them as traditional owners. We recognise First Peoples of Australia as the original storytellers and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Challenges in Podcast Production
00:00:53
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of Awakened ADHD. This time there will be no special guest. Sorry guys, just me this time. And to be honest, the reason I'd say it's just me is because I'm feeling guilty that I haven't been creating podcasts in a few weeks, months. And one of the reasons is that I'm just not getting around to reaching out to you all. And I've got lots of people that have said, yeah, I want to come on. And I'd love to you know chat about my story, but actually coordinating that and getting people on board whilst this podcast is important to me.
00:01:36
Speaker
it also feels like one of those areas that I get a bit stuck in. So still working through that myself. But this morning I woke up, I just thought I'm going to create some podcast. And you know when that feeling comes on, sometimes you've just got to ride the wave. So I only have a short amount of time. Let's get cracking.
Understanding Emotional Regulation in ADHD
00:01:56
Speaker
So today I thought I would chat about emotional regulation.
00:02:01
Speaker
As you're probably aware, emotional regulation is a huge component of the ADHD presentation. Now, it's something that everybody struggles with to lesser or greater degree, but we know that those experiencing executive function challenges, ADHD diagnosis, and many other mental health conditions as well, have an extra hard time regulating their emotions. So basically the capacity to self-soothe or respond appropriately to whatever the the stimulus is, whatever is coming at you.
00:02:44
Speaker
One of the challenges that I know that I've experienced and and many other of my ADHD clients have experienced is the challenge between pausing and not just responding instinctively. And if we just respond with the first thing that just arrives out of our mouth, then it's not often the most measured or considered or appropriate response. So that's something I work with a lot of people and with and also work with myself every day, trying to get a little bit better at pausing between what's coming at me and how I'm responding.
00:03:20
Speaker
So some of the ways that emotional regulation might show up in your life, or dysregulation I should say, is road rage. Are you a bit cranky on the road, a bit impatient, frustrated? I tend to be on the side of passive-aggressive these days, not a very nice.
00:03:39
Speaker
A very nice model, but if you see me on the road and you're driving 40 kilometres entering a freeway, I'm going to get a little bit passive-aggressive with the air, which again is a moderated version of really angry and you know overtaking and speeding and such. I'm more moderated. Still not pleasant though. Perhaps you go from calm to explosive without feeling like there's any warning.
00:04:06
Speaker
there, minding your own business, and then something comes at you, whether it's a noise, a a frustration at something you do, and then bang, you're just explosively angry or sad. That capacity to go from zero to 100 without warning and without any sort of noticeable gradient between calm and really, really big intense emotions.
Sensitivity and Emotional Spillover
00:04:36
Speaker
Often it also shows up in being drawn into other people's emotions. You know, we can be highly sensitive, highly empathic individuals, and that means that sometimes we we kind of get drawn into the chaos and drama of other people. This is certainly something I struggled a lot with in my teens and twenties, and I try very hard, obviously, as a therapist.
00:04:59
Speaker
It wouldn't be great if I got drawn into other people's emotions easily, but it is something I have to actively work on every single day. You may have been told you have anger issues, meaning that you just go to defensive angry reactions quickly.
00:05:17
Speaker
you might feel that all of your emotions are pretty intense and not within your control. Often the emotional regulation can be this, we're trying all day to hold, mask, manage all day at work or at school or you know with the kids and then it comes to a certain time of the day and you no longer have the capacity so you meltdown or shutdown or explode. So there's none of that slowly responding to what's coming in during the day and and managing it and almost soothing or or kind of discharging some of that intense energy
00:05:57
Speaker
little bit by little bit in healthy ways rather we hold it hold it hold it hold it exhale at home but that exhale can be a really big explosion or a complete shutdown which can be obviously quite damaging the defense so feeling like you have to defend yourself and that we know often comes from feeling threatened and i'll talk about a little bit about that in a minute people often say to me they feel like their emotions control them rather than them having some sort of control over over their emotions. And to a certain extent, that does make sense, especially when we're we're dealing with complex mental health issues, extreme anxiety and chronic depression and grief and sadness and and those sorts of things. And whilst the emotions might come in, even the thoughts might just appear without, you know, obviously you're not thinking about
00:06:52
Speaker
thinking the thoughts, if that makes sense. Now I'm going to get existential in you. But it's rather, what do we do when these emotions come upon us or these thoughts arrive in our head? How much time we give them, how much energy we give them, what we do with them, how we notice what's happening in our body. That's the control that we actually have a little bit more of than we actually think.
Motivation Through Emotions
00:07:17
Speaker
So why is emotional regulation challenge as a big part of the ADHD profile?
00:07:23
Speaker
I think there are many contributing factors, such as that threat detection and signal challenges that we can often face, memory issues, brain connectivity differences. There's lots and lots, and I won't go into all of the science behind it. Some of the other things involve strong emotions that drive action. So ADHD is were often highly motivated by intense emotions. I know that that really big up energy helps me get stuff done, helps me keep moving. So I've often had people describe that anger or anxiety is actually an emotion or a state they don't want to move away from, don't want to let go of, because it's an action-oriented emotion. Whereas if they really tapped into what was happening for them,
00:08:12
Speaker
It might be sadness or hurt or despair and that feels like a less action-oriented and that can be scary. If I need to be doing and need to be surviving and need to be up and about and caring for kids or work, whatever it is, these up energies, whether they are healthy in large doses or not, can often feel like they they're the only things we've got to get us through. Big threat or little threat?
00:08:40
Speaker
Often we can't tell the difference between a minor or a major threat or problem. Therefore, we can react in big ways to small things. We're missing that, again, that moment to critically analyze what what's been said to us, what's the input, what's the stimulus, whether it's, you know, another person or ah or the traffic or is something going wrong at work. And we haven't filtered that through.
00:09:11
Speaker
and then chosen how we're going to respond to it. That means that all threats could just be big rather than go, oh, this is about a number two level threat so I can respond to a two level response. Oh, this is like an eight. So I can, you know, it might be appropriate to get quite upset here and respond in a different way.
00:09:35
Speaker
I think another factor is self-worth. Many ADHDs, whether late diagnosed or early diagnosed, often have spent a lot of time in their life feeling like they got everything wrong, that they were constantly making mistakes, that they were lazy, that they, whatever the things are that you had internally said about yourself or internalized from somebody else saying about you, that can really break us down and contribute to feeling big intense emotions and that can obviously filter into that threat detection.
Living with ADHD: A Daily Struggle
00:10:14
Speaker
Somebody will have a look on their face or they'll say one thing and you'll go straight in to defend that part of you that has been hurt for years and years and years. We could do a whole series of podcasts on shame and the impact, particularly in the neurodivergent, through the neurodivergent lens.
00:10:35
Speaker
Tolerance is another one. ADHDers are often doing life in hard mode. I was thinking yesterday as I was driving to work, I've got a really sore arm at the moment, a bit of tennis elbow, though I've never played tennis and wouldn't like to play tennis because I don't like the idea of bouncy balls heading towards my head. Anyway, that's another story. um I've been kind of parenting and working and doing everything with very little capacity in my left arm and quite a lot of discomfort. and It's almost like I'm doing life with one arm tied behind my back. and It's frustrating and it's exhausting and it's it's making everything take longer and I'm dropping things or making mistakes or just not being able to do things that I would normally be able to do.
00:11:28
Speaker
And as I was driving to work yesterday, I was thinking that's a good analogy or metaphor for what it's like for an ADHD, especially undiagnosed and unsupported, doing life in hard mode with one arm tied behind your back, constantly exhausted and burnt out and suffering. And that can really lead to in intense emotions. All right, so now that I've thoroughly depressed you all with why you're feeling so sad and angry and overwhelmed. I want to say that there is good news.
Strategies for Emotional Regulation
00:12:02
Speaker
Even before I understood my neurodivergence, I had obviously been
00:12:09
Speaker
training and practicing for a significant amount of time as a therapist. And and through that process, I learned to how to regulate my nervous system, how to self-soothe, how to connect into the body, how to pause between stimulus and response.
00:12:25
Speaker
Even though now, retrospectively, I realized that what I was learning was probably significantly more challenging or effortful. There's effortful a word. and Let's just go with it. Then perhaps ah another individual that doesn't have these challenges. so One of the strategies is awareness. and I can't stress awareness enough. The more you know about yourself, the more you know about how ADHD shows up about in you. The more you know about emotional regulation, the better success you're going to have at being able to soothe yourself. So paying attention to your thoughts. Notice those feelings and how they show up in your body.
00:13:11
Speaker
If you are disengaged from your body, then you have a significantly lower chance of being able to regulate your emotions. You need to sense what is happening on the inside, as well as how you're holding yourself and what muscles are tensing and other physical manifestations of your emotions or the stories you're telling yourself. And once you've done that, you have the capacity then to soothe. You can notice the stories. You can perhaps challenge the stories and those negative beliefs. Challenge them not in a a hostile way, but in a reframing way. Oh, yeah, I know that I'm feeling lazy or stupid right now.
00:13:52
Speaker
But what I actually know is that I'm feeling a bit stuck and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I'm struggling to make sense of something that usually I would understand. That way you you're kind of just softening it a little bit, taking out that hostile language. And then you can go to the body. Then you can breathe all the way down into your belly.
00:14:16
Speaker
over and over again through your nose and actually start to soothe yourself. It isn't easy to disconnect from, or not disconnect, ah hold the thoughts lightly so that you get the opportunity to connect to the body and breath and soothe yourself. Then you can come back to the stories and often once you've soothed the nervous system and the body, the stories have less weight and power.
00:14:43
Speaker
One of the things I often say to my clients, whether they're parents or not, is you know imagine yourself to be an upset child or imagine you ah you were dealing with a child, whether it's a child within you or another imagined child. You need to assess what's impacting, there's capacity to be regulated. You need to ask, you know, like you would a little kid. Are you hungry? Tired? Thirsty? Overstimulated? Misunderstood? Feeling rejected? At your emotional capacity for the day? Looking for a bit of a dopamine hit? We need to know that when we see a kid that's really overwhelmed. We kind of, you know, we do that quick scanning through what's happening.
00:15:33
Speaker
was leading us to here and then we might be able to find strategies that work. um Maybe you need a shower or some exercise or dancing or breathing, moving meditation like walking, swimming, running, playing, maybe connection, a hug, talking it out, journaling, creativity, whatever it is that works for you.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, so that's just a little bit about emotional regulation and how it shows up for many people, many of the people I work with and for myself. But I can't stress enough how this emotional regulation coupled with self-awareness is actually foundational in moving forward. You can take the medication, you can have a new diary and a new system and a new strategy, but if you don't have self-awareness and the capacity to emotionally regulate, then you're really going to struggle to connect with those that you love.
Emotional Regulation in Relationships
00:16:33
Speaker
You're going to struggle to not cause rupture.
00:16:37
Speaker
through big emotional dysregulation regularly and you're going to struggle to take accountability for it, see that it's coming or have any sort of control over it. So emotional regulation and self-awareness together, you can start to notice how it's showing up for you and then take back a bit of control.
00:17:00
Speaker
So I hope that was helpful. Thank you for listening and please reach out,
Listener Engagement and Participation
00:17:06
Speaker
book in. There's actually a link on my website Awakened.com.au and you can book in a podcast time and then I can connect with you and and give you all the details and and have a chat and then we can just book in a time and do it. I need more people showing up and recording with me. I would absolutely love to do it. I just,
00:17:29
Speaker
I just struggle to reach out in between, ah you know, the work and the the family and such. So it's just one of those things. Networking and social media and such, as I've said, are not my strengths. I'm not going to beat myself up for it, but I do really want to get this podcast moving and and have more of you people sharing you people. Is that right? Sorry, that sounded weird. More.
00:17:56
Speaker
people more fabulous neuro sparkly or parents of neuro sparkly individuals coming on here professionals whoever it is come on share your story and let's just build a bigger better community where we can support one another and learn and share and grow from each other thank you for listening and until next time keep being your lovely neuro sparkly self bye
00:18:25
Speaker
This podcast is not a licensed mental health provider.
Podcast Disclaimer
00:18:28
Speaker
It represents the personal opinions and experiences of individuals. No content should be taken as professional advice or recommendation.