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Emotional Withdrawal as a Coping Mechanism
It can be difficult to explain the struggles of being a woman/girl with ADHD. We struggle with organization, forgetfulness, staying on task, picking up on social cues, just to name a few. It’s not always easy for girls to feel as though they fit in with their peers. It can also be a challenge as girls become women with ADHD. So, in order to protect ourselves from rejection, bullying, or any other negative situation, we try to find ways to cope. One way is emotional withdrawal. We do this by bottling up our emotions, or pretending we don’t care, for instance. Girls with ADHD may learn this coping mechanism at…
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More emotional self-awareness
Emotions are things that we all experience as humans. It’s part of life. We may not always like having them or dealing with them, but they’re still there and one way or another should be faced. No matter who you have, whether you have ADHD or not, a learning disability or not, you’re going to feel something at some point during the day. Just like everyone else on the planet. As someone with ADHD, I know it’s difficult to handle emotions, especially considering that we feel our emotions really strongly and there are times we can’t always control our emotions, such as our anger. Impulse control is a struggle. I…
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Emotional Dysregulation
Individuals with ADHD tend to feel emotions more intensely than those who don’t have ADHD. It also seems that not only do we feel more deeply, but we also struggle with regulating our emotions. Many with ADHD, both kids, teens and adults, often have difficulty controlling their anger, frustration, and other emotions. We feel both positive and negative emotions very intensely and sometimes we can’t control our outbursts of emotions. This emotional (dys)regulation is often overlooked. Perhaps because we focus more on the more common/well-known symptoms of ADHD, like poor memory, hyperactivity, and distractibility. Several researches are starting to show the connection between ADHD and emotional regulation. It seems to…
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Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve learned a lot about ADHD/ADD, how it affects us, how it affects our lives, the good, the bad, just to name a few things. In this post, I’m going to discuss a topic that I’ve never written about before. A topic that I’ve heard of here and there over time, but never looked into or anything like that. Something that many with ADHD/ADD experience. And that is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. What is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)? Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is the extreme discomfort and pain that will be triggered to being rejected or receiving criticism from someone close to the individual. It is…
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ADHD, shame, and strategies to overcome it
In my last post, I discussed how ADHDers’ experience with shame, and I felt shame recently, even though there wasn’t any real reason for me to feel this way. This lead me to wanting to know more about ADHD-related shame and find ways to overcome it, when I do experience, which leads me to this post. First of all, what is shame? It’s when you feel like you’re flawed or inadequate. You have feelings of embarrassment and humiliation. You don’t feel like you belong or aren’t good enough, because of things you’ve done or not done, past experiences, and such. People with ADHD struggle on a daily basis with getting…
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Facing my Emotions
Sometimes it can be so easy to avoid diving into our emotions, why we feel a certain way, why we feel a certain about ourselves, just to name a few things. It can be easy to be on autopilot and avoid our feelings and the reasons behind them. I am definitely guilty of this. Avoiding why I feel a certain way, why I think a certain way about myself, and all that. However, over the last few months, I have realized how unhealthy it is. I’ve started to really do some personal development, work on myself, and really change and face my emotions. I’ve avoided thinking/accepting my ADHD, how I…
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My Journey with Acceptance
Over the last month or two, I’ve done some thinking about myself. And about my ADHD. Although I was diagnosed almost 20 years ago, I still can’t say that I ever really came to terms with it. I do still struggle with it. I’ve pretended that I don’t have it. There have been so many times, when I’ve wished I didn’t have ADHD. But the fact is that I do have ADHD. It is a part of me. It is a small part of who I am. Over the last few weeks, I’ve realized that I do have to come to terms with it. That it is a part of…
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The emotional side of ADHD
Just like everyone else, those of us with ADHD/ADD have emotions of our own. We are human beings too, after all. Nothing unusual about having emotions and feelings. However, there is a difference with how we feel our emotions. The way we feel them and express them may be slightly different from how others do. Those of you who are reading this and do have ADHD/ADD know what I’m talking about it. You experience this first hand. For those of you who don’t, I will try to explain as best as I can. ADHD/ADD affects so many different aspects of our lives. This obviously includes our emotions, and it affects…
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Self-doubt
There are always times when we all doubt ourselves. We question whether we can do or achieve something. I think it is normal for everyone. It happens. However, it seems that for those of us with ADHD/ADD we may do so perhaps a little more often. At least, I imagine that this may be the case. I know that I do doubt myself quite a bit. Sometimes, a little more than others. Lately it has been one of those times when I have doubted myself a little more than others. I wonder if I can make things work. I wonder if I can work from home and take care of…
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Time to think about self-care
Let’s face it, our lives can be busy. There’s no denying it. There’s definitely a lot to do in a day. It is exhausting for anyone. It is difficult sometimes to have to juggle work, school, family life, and anything else we may have going on in our lives. This may not be much of a surprise. For those with ADHD/ADD, this is true as well. However, there is a slight difference. Having ADHD/ADD can be exhausting all on its own. Not only are we trying to juggle everything in our day-to-day lives, like everyone else, but we are also trying to make sure we’re focusing on what we’re supposed…
