hello brains for a lot of us including
me emotional dysregulation
is one of the most challenging aspects
of adhd
so let's talk about emotions
[Music]
when i was a kid i lost stuff i forgot
stuff
i got distracted but it wasn't until i
started going off on everyone around me
that my parents were like
maybe we should get her checked out i
was easily frustrated
incredibly sensitive and angry a lot
my emotions usually made sense for the
situation but they were often
out of proportion with the situation now
i understand that this is because adhd
brains have trouble regulating emotions
but when i was a kid all i knew was that
my emotions were a problem
not just for me but for those around me
so i kind of
learned to avoid having them really so i
wouldn't be a problem
i learned to choose situations that were
less likely to create emotional
dysregulation
if i couldn't avoid a difficult
situation i learned to modify
it for example i used to bring a book
with me everywhere i went so i could
read if i got overwhelmed or anxious
now i'm learning to use music to adjust
my mood i learned to distract myself
from the thing causing the emotion
i talk about that in this episode and i
even learned to suppress my emotions
holding in tears at work or biting my
tongue when i'm angry and according to
stanford university psychologist james
gross
these are all legitimate strategies for
managing emotions
there are even names for them and
they're kind of cool situation selection
situation modification attention
deployment
and response modulation these are all
strategies people with adhd can use to
kind of turn down the volume on our
emotions and make them easier to handle
so we can stay out of the red this is
really useful for things like
rejection sensitivity which i talk a
little bit more about in this episode
but there is one strategy a lot of us
never learned
including me which is why i'm learning
it now and that
is accepting that we have emotions
and learning about them which it turns
out is kind of important
yeah we can do our best to avoid
difficult situations but they're still
gonna happen
we're still going to have big emotions
and if we learn to accept and understand
those emotions we can keep tabs on them
better
we can communicate them better and we
can even
manage them better according to dr mark
katz practices that help us
accept emotions non-judgmentally and not
as shameful
can help us exercise better self-control
and this is true for both children
and for adults speaking from personal
experience it can be hard
to accept our emotions non-judgmentally
and not as shameful
after years of well being judged for
them and feeling ashamed of them
and it can be hard to be mindful of them
when we've gotten so good at avoiding
and minimizing them
so where do we start according to the
experts get curious
here are a few questions i'm learning to
ask myself what does
this emotion look like we can draw it
imagine it
paint it sculpt it act it out these are
all ways to better understand our
emotions
to accept that we have them that they're
allowed to exist
a few months after my mom died my
therapist told me to imagine my grief
and i pictured this elaborate system of
glass tubes running through my body that
are normally dormant but when something
reminds me of my grief it's like
a coin gets dropped into it it lights up
the whole system and it squeezes my
heart
and it hurts later she asked me to paint
my anger
and put it on a wall and make friends
with it when i told her i didn't want to
make friends with anger because anger is
scary
she told me to pick a level of anger i
wasn't scared of and at least make
friends with that
to have compassion for it this is my
frustration
those of us with adhd tend to be really
creative and it turns out we can use
that skill to help us get to know our
emotions better
two what's a more specific word for this
emotion
a lot of us might say we are stressed or
anxious
or upset pixar did a pretty good job of
covering the basic emotions
joy sadness anger fear
disgust and pixar did their research on
this these are universal emotions
they show up on people's face in the
same way in every culture in the world
but from there we can get more specific
an emotion wheel
is a great way to do that emotion wheels
can help us find more
exact names for our emotions which is
good because the more specific we can
get about our emotions the better we can
communicate them
and just validating emotions whether
they're ours or someone else's
by recognizing and naming them can make
them easier to manage
it can be easy to think we shouldn't
accept what we or someone else is
feeling because we
shouldn't feel that way but validating
emotions doesn't mean
accepting the thoughts and behavior and
perspective associated with those
emotions
maybe we know the thought that's
creating the emotion isn't based in
reality
but the emotion is still very real
validating the emotion
is a great way to make ourselves or
others feel seen and understood even
when we don't agree on perspective
which can help de-escalate an emotional
situation we might guess wrong at first
but if that happens our brain
or theirs can correct us which can help
us figure out what we're actually
feeling
it can be hard to do this in the moment
because the more emotional we're feeling
the harder it is to think clearly
and that's true no matter what emotion
we're dealing with but we can practice
by thinking back to an emotion we had
earlier
and trying to identify it finally the
ultimate mindfulness question
three how do i feel right now this is
surprisingly hard to tell for a lot of
us
both because it's hard to think clearly
when we're emotional and because a lot
of us have learned to say i feel
followed by something that is not
actually a feeling
i feel like this is a stupid question i
feel like
throwing my computer across the room
right now i feel like eating cookies
as dr b from take this points out it
should only take three words to describe
a feeling
i feel blank more than that and we've
probably gotten into the thought adhders
do this
really quickly we often have a lot of
automatic thoughts that pop
up about a situation before we even
recognize what emotion we're feeling
but those thoughts can help us figure
out what we're feeling we can also check
in with how we literally feel i've
linked to a worksheet that can help with
this one in the description below
sometimes we don't know what we're
feeling but our bodies are giving us
clues
once we figure it out and this is the
tricky part mindfully
accept the answer it's okay if we feel
irritated
that doesn't mean we have to do anything
about it recognizing that something is
there doesn't mean we have to pick it up
and throw it at someone and in fact
recognizing that we're angry while we're
still at this level
might make it less likely that we get to
this level or at least be a good clue to
let us know to put some strategies
in place in case we do once we figure
out what we're feeling we don't have to
tell everyone what we're feeling
all the time that can create its own
issues boundaries are important but it's
also important for us to at least be
emotionally honest with ourselves
so yeah three questions to ask ourselves
to be more mindful about emotions
what does this emotion look like what's
a more specific word for this emotion
and how do i feel right now and be
patient with yourself as you figure it
out
this isn't easy adhd ears are not the
most self-aware
in fact we often experience either
alexithymia no words for emotions or
dyslexothymia the wrong words for
emotions and a lot of us have
experienced trauma as well
which can complicate the process so if
you can it's a good idea to work with a
therapist on this
who understands adhd again that's what
i'm currently doing and it is helping a
lot
how do i feel right now relieved
because i'm done with this episode but
i'm also anxious because
i hope you like it thank you to my brain
advocates and all my patreon
brains for making me feel valued like
the work i'm doing on this channel is
worth doing
even when i'm overwhelmed i'm thankful
for you
let me know what you're feeling in the
comments below and i will see you next
video
bye brains
[Music]
you