hello brains did you know ADHD affects
our emotions like all our emotions I've
always been told I was too sensitive I
cry easily
I get excited easily and my mom deserves
some sort of combat award for surviving
the emotional storm that was me growing
up turns out what creates this emotional
rollercoaster is something called
emotional dysregulation and it's a big
part of how ADHD affects our lives but I
didn't know that because the DSM which
is what doctors used to diagnose ADHD
doesn't even mention it inattention
impulsivity hyperactivity nope
which is kind of weird if it's such a
big part of ADHD right well there's a
story behind that and it's super
interesting wait for it cool history
stuff that looks fine it looks fine
basically ADHD is nothing new it's gone
through a bunch of name changes over the
years but the symptoms have been
documented as far back as the late 1700s
and the trouble with emotions we tend to
experience has only been a part of its
description until the 1970s what
happened in the 1970s researchers get
serious understandably they wanted to
focus on the aspects of ADHD they could
measure in a lab and emotions are hard
to measure in a lab based on their
findings the first official DSM
descriptions of ADHD or born and even
though later evidence of emotional
dysregulation kept showing up in ADHD
research it was kind of too late to add
it back in but the understanding of ADHD
is improving all the time and whether it
ever makes it into the DSM or not it's
now understood that there is a
connection between ADHD and emotional
dysregulation more research needs to be
done but for now this is what we know
those of us with ADHD experience normal
emotions as in it's totally
understandable that you got upset when
that person insulted you most people
would but the way we feel and respond to
those emotions can be more intense and
last longer than it does for
neurotypical brains why even though we
experience normal emotions our brains
have trouble regulating those emotions
the ability to regulate our emotions is
what allows us to calm down and make
good choices when something gets us
worked up sounds simple but emotional
self-regulation is actually a pretty
complicated four-part process and it
relies on stuff the ADHD brain tends to
have trouble with first inhibition as in
not impulsively reacting to an emotion
not super easy for those of us who are
naturally impulsive in fact according to
dr. Russell Barclay the more generally
impulsive we are the more emotionally
impulsive we are too and with that kind
of impulsive 'ti do we may not even make
it to the next part to self soothing the
ability to calm down that initial
emotion most of us do have ways to
self-soothe but they're not always
healthy 3 refocusing our attention
literally the exact problem that we yeah
yep moving on for responding in a way
that makes sense based on our goals this
shouldn't be too hard right
we just have to remember what our goals
are then be able to remember what the
other person said
what we wanted to say how it worked out
for us the last time we responded that
way consider all the different variables
in this particular situation and then
predict the possible different outcomes
based on those responses and then choose
the best action that fits with our goals
actually that's a lot for somebody with
ADHD
we have limited working memory this kind
of trouble with emotional
self-regulation is obviously a problem
for things like anger and frustration
and that's a lot of what gets us into
trouble at school work and in our
relationships but ADHD years experience
emotional dysregulation with other
emotions - sadness happiness even fear
it can affect us in ways we may not even
realize as in we are working on an
important assignment and someone we like
texts us the excitement makes us respond
to the text forget about the assignment
and five hours later that assignment
isn't done even though it's a really
important and be due tomorrow is
emotional dysregulation all bad I don't
think so personally I love feeling and
expressing strong emotions I get excited
easily and for the most part that makes
me pretty fun to be around and I love
hanging out with other ADHD brains for
the same reason we're passionate
interesting expressive people besides
emotions are a good thing they
communicate to us they motivate us me
acting impulsively on my emotions is the
reason this channel exists but for those
times when emotional dysregulation makes
us not so fun to be around or gets in
the way of our goals
what's a brain to do well like any ADHD
symptom emotional dysregulation varies
from person to person and even from
situation to situation so first it helps
to figure out when and how it is getting
in the way of your goals a great way to
do that is to use an emotion tracker you
can create your own or use this one
which we link to in the description
below basically when you have an
emotional reaction pay attention to it
afterward write down what happened what
you felt how you reacted and the
consequence is good and bad of that
reaction no judging this is for
informational purposes only try to have
a sense of curiosity about it wow when I
put off studying completely I feel
really guilty and embarrassed but when I
work on it even a little I feel better
huh I totally get angry and defensive
every time my boss points out that I'm
late it does not work out well for my
diet when I
for to buy everybody doughnuts pretty
quickly you should start to get a sense
of when your emotional reactions are
getting you into trouble or throwing you
off your goals the good news is there
are plenty of strategies that can help
I'll go into some of those in future
episodes and I've linked to some great
articles as well but even better news
just the act of noticing your emotions
can help you slow down your emotional
reactions so you have time to decide how
you want to respond instead of just
reacting it's called mindfulness and
according to research it works that's it
for this week give it a shot let us know
how it goes
of course if emotional dysregulation is
really getting in the way of your life
it can help to work with a therapist
cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT in
particular is great for those of us with
ADHD special thanks to Patrick for being
an amazing research consultant and
suggesting the emotion tracker thanks to
Alex the Cisco for creating an actual
combat award that you can print out and
give to a heart in your life there's two
links in the description below one like
mine and the other one that you can fill
out yourself you know what you did and
of course thank you to my brain
advocates and all my patreon brains
because of you Edward and I are able to
work nearly full time on these videos
and they're really making a difference
follow me on Facebook and Twitter
like subscribe click all the things and
I will see you next week bye brains
question time ll and YouTube asks are
there any tips you can offer for ADHD
people who are trying to organize their
thoughts for things like writing essays
etc yes I have to write these episodes
every week and it is really hard for me
to organize my thoughts as well so
before I even start to write I do a
brain dump just put everything you think
might be helpful on the page without
worrying about the order or anything
literally as it comes to you write it
down
like just don't but once your ideas are
on paper it's a lot easier to organize
them than if you're still trying to hold
them in your head I usually do a brain
dump first outline second then write
that's my process hope it helps you can
also try things like mind mapping which
we'll go into in future episodes
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