By: Kat Matchett, M.A.
If you have ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder), you likely struggle more than other people with many types of self-regulation skills, including regulating your emotions. Both children and adults with ADHD tend to have faster, stronger, and longer lasting emotional reactions than other people would in a similar situation. You may experience your feelings as being out of control, going from “zero to 100”, or being overwhelming, whether they are positive or negative.
While not included in the ‘official’ diagnostic criteria for ADHD, emotional dysregulation is often experienced as the most impairing symptom. This is especially true for adolescents and adults. Big, intense emotions, and the impulsive or disproportionate reactions to them, can be a major source of conflict, impairment, and shame for people with ADHD.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), while first developed to treat other conditions, is now a commonly recommended treatment for improving emotion regulation in those diagnosed with ADHD. The four main types of skill taught in DBT can give you tools that you can use to accept, cope with, and change the difficult emotions you experience in your everyday life.
- Mindfulness skills can help you tune in and pay attention to what is happening inside of you and in your environment in non-judgemental ways. You can learn to stop, slow down, and take a step back before reacting impulsively or emotionally.
- Distress tolerance skills can be used in a crisis to calm your body down, accept what’s happening, and cope with intense feelings.
- Interpersonal effectiveness skills can be used to develop and keep positive and healthy relationships. These skills can empower you to handle challenging conversations in an effective, assertive, and respectful way that is fair to both you and the other person, which can make these situations less overwhelming and emotionally distressing.
- Emotion regulation skills help you identify and change your emotions over time, reducing your vulnerability to intense negative emotions and helping you build positive emotional experiences.
If you have ADHD, experiencing big and intense emotions may be just a fact of life – that is simply how your nervous system is wired. Accepting this about yourself and learning DBT skills can give you ways to accept, cope with, manage, and change your emotions so that you can build a better life.