ADHD, Emotional Regulation, and Overwhelm
If you have ADHD you probably know what it feels like when emotions come on really strong. A small disappointment can feel huge, a stressful conversation can stay in your head for hours, frustration can turn into anger really quickly, and excitement can make it almost impossible to think about anything else. Sometimes when everything gets to be too much your brain just seems to shut down.
There's a lot more going on than just having big feelings. Your brain is constantly figuring out what matters, what feels rewarding, what feels threatening, what needs your attention, and what you should do next.
With ADHD that can change a lot depending on what is happening around you. Something new, urgent, interesting, emotional or rewarding can grab your attention almost instantly. Sometimes your brain just has an easier time getting engaged when something feels important or stimulating. Emotions are really good at making something feel important, so they can grab your attention fast and make it really hard to focus on anything else.
When something happens, your brain and body respond at the same time. Part of your brain is trying to figure out what just happened and what it means. Your nervous system is changing how alert and activated your body is while the parts of your brain that help you think, plan and slow down a reaction are trying to figure out what to do with all of it.
Most of the time these systems work together pretty well. But when something really gets to you, the emotional response can happen incredibly fast. You might know that something is probably going to be okay and still feel like everything is falling apart. Your brain knows one thing while your body is telling you something completely different.
Your nervous system is constantly adjusting how alert and activated you are. When something feels stressful, threatening, overwhelming or intense, your body can shift into a more activated state. Your heart may beat faster, your muscles may tighten, your breathing may change, your stomach may drop and you may feel restless or on edge. Your attention can also lock onto whatever is happening. Your body is getting you ready to deal with something, and the hard part can be coming back down when the situation is over but your body and brain are still acting like it is happening.
Think about your level of activation like a dial from zero to ten. At zero you are barely awake. Around five you are alert and able to function. At ten you are completely overwhelmed. For some people with ADHD it can be hard to stay somewhere in the middle. When there is not enough stimulation you might feel bored, disconnected or unable to get started, and when there is too much stimulation you might feel like everything is happening at once and you cannot process any of it. Add emotion to that and the dial can move really fast.
Think about getting criticized by someone you care about. You hear what they say and immediately something changes. Maybe your stomach drops, your heart starts racing and you feel angry, embarrassed, hurt or defensive. Then your mind starts going over the conversation. What did they mean? Did I do something wrong? Why did they say it like that?
The more you think about it, the bigger it can start to feel. Your nervous system becomes activated, your attention gets stuck on what happened and your thoughts keep bringing you back to it. The emotion gets stronger and your body becomes even more activated. Your brain and body are feeding into each other, and that is a big part of why emotional overwhelm can feel so exhausting. You can be sitting completely still and feel like you have been running all day.
This is why criticism and rejection can be so hard to let go of. We are wired to care about relationships, belonging and what other people think of us. For someone with ADHD, the feeling that someone is upset with you or disappointed in you can become incredibly hard t
o move past. Someone else might forget the conversation five minutes later while you are still thinking about it that night. You might feel it in your body too. Your chest feels tight, your stomach hurts, your thoughts are racing and you want to defend yourself or explain yourself, or maybe you just want to disappear and avoid everyone. People often call this rejection sensitivity.
ADHD involves differences in brain systems that use dopamine and norepinephrine, and those systems are involved in attention, motivation, reward and executive functioning. This helps explain why something can be incredibly important to you and still be almost impossible to start. Emotion can do the same thing. If something feels exciting, scary, personal or important, your brain has a very strong reason to pay attention, which can make emotional experiences really hard to ignore and even harder to move on from.
We usually think of emotions as something that happens in the brain and then affects the body, but it works the other way too. Your brain is constantly paying attention to what is happening inside your body. Your heart rate, your breathing, your muscles, your stomach and all of those physical sensations are sending information back to your brain.
Think about anxiety. Something feels threatening and your body reacts. Your heart starts beating faster and you notice it. Your brain can take that as another sign that something is wrong, and now the cycle gets stronger. You feel threatened, your body reacts, you notice the reaction, you feel more threatened and your body reacts even more. This is one reason calming your body can sometimes make it easier to calm your thoughts. You are giving your brain and body a chance to settle down enough to figure out what is actually happening.
Sometimes overwhelm looks like doing absolutely nothing. You can't answer the text, you can't decide what to eat, you stare at the thing you need to do and can't start, you don't want to talk to anyone and you feel completely exhausted even though you have barely done anything physically. Sometimes there is simply too much happening at once. Your brain is dealing with emotional stress, cognitive demands, sensory input and everything else going on around you, and eventually it can feel like there is no room left. Overwhelm can look like freaking out, but it can also look like sitting there completely frozen.
This is where emotional regulation becomes important. Emotional regulation is having enough space to feel what you are feeling without immediately having to act on it. You can be angry, hurt, disappointed or excited and still give yourself a little time before deciding what to do with all of it.
If your nervous system is at a nine out of ten, it can be really hard to think clearly. Telling yourself to calm down or be rational probably is not going to get you very far. Sometimes you have to help your body settle first. Maybe you take a walk, get somewhere quieter, take a break, eat something, get some sleep, reduce the amount of noise and stimulation around you, take your medication as prescribed or simply give yourself some time before trying to figure out what the whole thing means.
You may be able to get from a nine to a six. Then maybe you get to a five and suddenly you have a little more room to think. You can start asking yourself what actually happened, what you are feeling, what your body is doing and what you want to do next.
Think about your brain, your emotional system and your nervous system as three parts of the same conversation. Your brain is asking what is happening and what should I do. Your emotional system is asking how important is this. Your nervous system is asking how activated do I need to be. They are all talking at the same time.
When you're overwhelmed, all of those systems can be going at once. Your body reacts, your attention gets pulled toward what happened and your thinking brain tries to make sense of everything. Sometimes your body needs a chance to settle before your thoughts can catch up. Once your nervous system starts to come down, you usually have more room to think about what happened and what you actually want to do about it.
Being overwhelmed means your brain has detected something as important, your nervous system has become activated and your attention has been pulled into the experience. Your thoughts, your feelings and your body are all responding at the same time, and that can make the experience feel bigger and harder to step away from.
The important part is creating a little space between feeling something and deciding what you are going to do about it. You do not have to solve everything while you are at a nine. You can notice that your body is activated and give yourself time to come back down. You can let your nervous system settle before deciding what the feeling means or what you want to do next.
The goal is to have enough space between feeling and reacting that you get to choose what happens next.
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