Managing emotions is possibly the most challenging part of having ADHD for me. It’s a complicated business that is difficult to understand in real-time. It’s taken me years of unpacking to understand why emotions have hijacked my brain and been the cause of so many disastrous decisions. But now that I finally understand it all, I’ve been able to do something about it and be much more compassionate with myself as I continue navigating the landscape.
Let’s start by looking at thoughts.
Thoughts give rise to stories, and stories birth emotions. Emotions drive behaviour, and repeated behaviours become automated habits. And we are more likely to repeat behaviours when they make us feel something that we want to feel. Or help us avoid feelings we don’t want to feel. Habits are established when we connect a particular behaviour with having or avoiding a particular feeling.
If you are troubled by constant anxiety, you might look for all kinds of things to do to stop yourself from feeling anxious. Once you find something that relieves your anxiety, you will likely repeat it. You can become quite attached or addicted to the thing that stops the anxiety or pain. Or you might be pleasure-seeking and looking for something that makes you happy. For instance, Freud thought cocaine was a brilliant way to lift the mood and make you happy. He suggested it to friends and patients, and it worked until it didn’t. It nearly killed him, made many of his friends depressed, and one of his friends actually committed suicide. Often the things we pick to create pleasure or avoid pain don’t turn out well in the long run.
Everyone is different and will pick their own cocktail. You might do things that numb you, like drugs, alcohol, or Netflix. Or something that makes you feel pleasure, like sex, gambling, shopping, getting another tattoo or overeating. People with ADHD are particularly susceptible to pleasure-seeking or pain-avoiding because they have low levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine — a chemical released by the nerve cells to induce happiness. This means that people with ADHD are "chemically wired" to seek more pleasure than others. This makes them susceptible to addictions, which hardwire the pattern of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
Humans and animals are wired to seek or avoid emotions and feelings; it’s part of the survival instinct. But problems occur when there are bugs in the system, and we cannot differentiate between healthy or unhealthy pleasure or actual or habituated danger or pain. So many aspects of modern-day living mess up this feedback loop because we no longer live in harmony with the rest of nature. Artificial and processed foods, over-stimulation, and office work are a few examples of things that result in mixed-up signals. And evidence shows that people with ADHD are more likely to have experienced trauma and habituated anxiety.
On top of this, people with high vata or ADHD often experience emotions much more intensely than others. Emotions are experienced way out of proportion to what is going on. They are felt acutely and can lead to rash decisions and extreme reactions. It’s as if the brain is flooded with an intense emotion that fills your entire being and has logic flying out of the window. These emotions can be incredibly uncomfortable, unbearable or exceptionally pleasurable. And they will steer the boat unless you learn to calm them down and respond rather than react. It is not uncommon for people with ADHD to be labelled as oversensitive, insensitive or over-reactionary. This is also known as emotional dysregulation.
Emotional Dysregulation
Emotional dysregulation refers to fast-building, high-intensity emotions that seem to come out of nowhere and cause a storm in a teacup. Many people struggle to understand, recognize or process these big feelings. This creates so many problems in relationships. Emotional dysregulation is just as frustrating to the people who experience them as it is to people who are receiving them.
It’s not uncommon for people with ADHD to avoid having intimate relationships because it is just too painful to keep repeating unwanted patterns.
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria
Sensitivity is also a big emotional issue for people with ADHD or high vata. You can either be highly sensitive or highly insensitive, or both. Extreme sensitivity or lack of it can make understanding what is going on in our interactions with other people a nightmare.
RSD is the fear of actual or perceived rejection, abandonment, criticism or failure. It can be extreme and crippling. It can make us run away from situations, ruminate about experiences or play small. It explains (in part) why many people with ADHD end up in jobs that are far below their capabilities or pay grade.
RSD can lead to an emotional shutdown, especially when overwhelm, confusion and chaos occur. Understanding and articulating your feelings can feel impossible, and processing them takes a long time. The result is a lot of confusion about why things are as they are. It can feel safer to avoid creating meaningful connections or cling like a crazy person to anyone who throws you a breadcrumb.
Anxious, Avoidant or Fearful Attachments
People with ADHD often experience relationship problems because they cannot form or maintain secure attachments with others. Our attachment styles are formed in childhood due to our experiences with significant others. If we experience trauma, neglect, abuse, criticism, smothering, inconsistency or intrusiveness, we will likely find it hard to bond with and trust others. People often repeat familiar patterns because they know the steps to the dance. They seek out others who know the dance too. This means that they recreate the same patterns that they experienced in childhood.
People with anxious attachment styles often have low self-esteem, need constant reassurance, care more about their partner’s needs than their own and can be jealous clingy or suspicious.
Those with avoidance styles of attaching have experienced caregivers who were emotionally cold, did not tolerate the expression of feelings, and allowed the child to fend for themselves. They find intimacy difficult and can take on the lone wolf role. The slightest hint of someone expressing feelings can have them pushing the eject button.
People who grow up in chaos, trauma, neglect or abuse are likely to develop disorganized or fearful attachment styles. You can expect to see aggression, bizarre behaviour, and chaos.
Since people with AHDH have likely suffered in many ways at home, school, socially and at work, having issues with attachment is not unusual. It’s one of the many factors that can contribute to relationship difficulties.
The ADHD Triangle of Tangled Emotion
When you combine these three things, the result is a triangle of tangled emotions. I see this in practice so often and have definitely experienced it myself. It goes like this.
Emotional dysregulation triggers rejection sensitivity which inflames insecure attachments in relationships. And then we keep running around the triangle.
With each trip around the triangle, the emotions grow incrementally, the narratives in our heads get louder, and the samskaras or patterns are reinforced. It can be hard to break out of this triangle until you can see what is happening and implement some interventions. The good news is that you can find solutions to all three parts of this triangle with some work. Much of my work with my clients is helping them get a handle on all these things. And I continue working on it myself—every day.
Rejection sensitivity can be calmed by radical self-acceptance.
Emotional dysregulation can be de-escalated with mindfulness and contemplative practices.
We can learn to form secure attachments with awareness and some efforts to change.
All these things take work, but the good news is that they can change. Stay tuned; tips to calming vata, cultivating radical acceptance, becoming more mindful and developing awareness are coming to a screen near you.
Until then, thanks for reading.