The Story of ADHD and Emotions

Let me tell you the story of ADHD and emotions. 

Imagine a realm different from this earthly realm, where souls mix and mingle in a connected web; where it is not clear where one soul ends and another begins. These souls look to earth with longing. They desperately wish to be allowed to experience corporeal life, separate life. To feel grass under their feet, to sense a breeze going past their skin, to hear the morning chorus of bird song, to smell petrichor or the scent of a rose, to understand what it is like to not know another soul so completely that you understand their motivations and thoughts. To experience emotions, the link between body and soul.

See one of those souls pull away from the web on its way to being born, ecstasy bubbling up, now that if will finally experience sensations. The first thing it senses is confusion. Discomfort. It cries. Everything is strange.The clarity of thought it had is gone. Everything is different. The light is bright. There is noise. Everything is scary.

As human beings we evolved to survive. Our survival responses are there right from birth. We know to cry when afraid or feeling discomfort. When no one comes to give us comfort, we know we are in mortal danger and we stop crying. We are terrified. Adrenaline and cortisol flood our tiny baby bodies when we cry. Opiods are released when we are so afraid that we stop crying and hope not to be seen.

That baby needs to be taught to feel safe and secure. It needs to be taught how to feel happy. As it cries and is picked up and comforted, its autonomic nervous system is being regulated and it starts to feel safe. As soon as it is placed back down it feels unsafe. It wants to stay in contact with its mother, to keep feeling safe and secure and happy. To be held by someone who is calm, happy, and whose nervous system can soothe the baby’s nervous system.

As ADHDers we often have parents who are ADHD and who struggle with their own emotions. They may have been told that it is important to let children cry themselves to sleep as it trains them to do so. These parents may not trust their own emotions enough to do what they would otherwise instinctively know is the right thing to do. Their baby crying may trigger them and make them angry or upset or scared. Their angry, upset, or scared nervous system speaks to that of the baby who gets more upset. “What do you want? You are dry, you have been fed, I don’t know what you want?” The parent, whose nervous system may mostly be in fight or flight mode, may end up shouting at the baby. They may feel guilt and shame that they cannot seem to figure out this parenting lark.

The baby grows up into a toddler who has temper tantrums. It may fly into a rage when it is not given what it wants. The parent may become exasperated and tell it that “it’s not that bad. Stop being so angry. You need to learn to stop getting so upset.” The parent themselves may feel unable to cope with the tantrums, being triggered by them and unable to calm themselves down. The baby may get so upset that it screams out in frustration until it faints from lack of oxygen. The parent may feel that the best thing is to leave it to ‘get it out of its system’. Meanwhile the baby learns that what it feels isn’t right, isn’t how it should feel. It doesn’t feel safe. ADHD emotions are intense and often misunderstood. The toddler may become very quiet, the sort of child that is not seen, not heard, not noticed. It may become an angry child that hits out in frustration. Its emotions are not being validated. No one tells them it is alright to be upset, to be angry, to be sad. No one sits with them while they have these feelings and helps co-regulating their nervous system.

Soon the toddler won’t be aware of what it is feeling as it was never explained what those sensations meant. Patterns are set in the body on how to respond to specific sensations and triggers. Feelings are internalised and turn into tightness in muscles, or a sore tummy, or a patch of skin that itches and needs scratching continuously. The toddler doesn’t play with others. It is too busy checking its environment to make sure it is safe. It takes over a role it should never have had. It needs to control its environment. It needs to make sure it is safe. No one else can do that.

When the child goes to school, reports will come home to the parents that their child had another tantrum and hit a child so hard that a bruise formed. The parents tell the child off. Tell them that hitting is wrong. At school the teachers try to talk to the child, asking them why they hit the other child. Whether they were upset. Why they were angry. The child is bewildered. It doesn’t know why it did it. It doesn’t know why it is angry. It has sensations in its body and follows an existing pattern. It may continue to explode in anger and become that child that no one invites to parties as the other children don’t want to play with it. Or it starts to internalise all that anger and fear and become frozen, a child that no one notices, that comes across as calm and shy. A child that is not invited to parties as it never plays with anyone.

The executive functioning skills development lags behind by about a third in ADHDers. That means as children they are out of synch with other children. It means that often they say things impulsively, act impulsively, not understand the social cues, and often become the outsider. Emotion regulation is part of the executive functioning skills as it depends on the ability to pause, to assess risk, and to decide what to do. ADHDers mostly have an autonomic nervous system that hasn’t learned to be calm and connected and that is not capable of pausing. They follow the existing patterns their bodies have set.

All through their schooling this child is told that ‘they do not try hard enough’, that ‘they need to learn to control their emotions’, that ‘they do not live up to their potential’, and that ‘they need to focus better,’ all the things they struggle with and need understanding for. They learn that they are stupid because they cannot do the things that others find so simple. No one ever points out that their ability to spot patterns is much better than that of others. Or that they could become an inventor or entrepreneur because of all their ideas. Or that they have real skills in emergencies. It is always the things they struggle with that are identified and complained about.

They end up doing exams at a point where their executive functioning skills are the equivalent of an 11 year old. They have no study skills, cannot organise to save their lives, struggle majorly with time, and either sail through the exams as they are fascinated by everything, or crash completely. If they sail through these exams, at some point they will come across having to learn something they are not fascinated by and then realise that they have no study skills, no skills at organising papers, or writing papers. They spend so much energy at school that in the evening and at the weekends they crash. Migraines, muscle ache, chronic fatigue, depression, and anxiety sets in.

This pattern continues when they start working. At first each job is a challenge and they tackle this challenge head on, and are noticed for learning fast and being great at the job. Then it gets boring. They lose focus. Can’t seem to organise themselves. They are criticised. They may lose their job. Despair sets in. They spiral into depression. They determine to do better next time. Their bodies are screaming at them.

They land another job. This time they are so anxious to do well that they give 100% every moment of the day. Yes, they are exhausted and crying when they get home, but the job gets done, and they are given more responsibility as they are doing so well. As they are incapable of gauging how much time each area of responsibility would take, they accept each new lot of work. Soon they are spinning many plates, and are terrified of dropping one. Anxiety builds up. They fly off the handle at home and have huge arguments with their partner. At work they make a major mistake and when questioned about that, they may storm out of the room after throwing a chair through the window, or they may break down in tears.

A repeat cycle of burnout and intense working becomes part of their pattern. They think this is a typical ADHD symptom, never realising that it is a trauma response. No one has ever explained to them that their strengths are different from those around them. That their weaknesses are where others have strengths. That they were never effectively taught emotion regulation skills. That all those times that they were criticised, ignored, laughed at, trauma built up.  They are not aware that anxiety, depression, burnout, overwhelm are not ADHD symptoms but trauma responses due to living a life that is alien to their brain wiring.

Life doesn’t have to continue like this. ADHDers can change. Not the typical ADHD brain wiring, as that is not the problem, but the brain’s plasticity can work to improve their emotion regulation, to give them the calm they need to be able to design a life that works for them.

A good start for this is my ADHD Emotion Intensive this August. Four sessions of learning why we have such intense emotions, what it means to have trauma responses, and how to start to shift to a calmer and happier self.

Session 1 - Introduction to ADHD and emotions

Session 2 - Surviving and Thriving

Session 3 - The neurology of ADHD

Session 4 - The inner child

You choose what you pay (minimum price is £100 for the four sessions). 

August 1, 8, 15, and 22 at 7pm.

https://www.scatterbraincoaching.co.uk/offers/cy7bwD4