Welcome,

Sorry to take so long to get back to you. It has something to do with avoiding New Years’ Resolutions because I fail at those every year, trying to decide about continuing the newsletter at all and attempting to write a few articles myself. I’m not too proud to admit that it was all a bit too much for me to handle.  Feeling a number of negative emotions while trying to write about how to deal with emotional sensitivity made me feel like I’ve just been masquerading as someone with anything useful to say at all. After a number of false starts, I’m calling Enough! Therefore, you’ll get one very late newsletter now and the second about the first week of February.

My first article is Self-Regulation: Controlling your emotions with ADHD.  It proposes that emotions are a major factor of ADHD that affects all aspects of life for those with ADHD. Unfortunately, Emotional dysregulation is often interpreted as a lack of self-control. Self-Regulation, however, is a non-judgmental and positive way to express the necessary steps to learning to control your emotions with ADHD.” The article includes a number of strategies from experts used to get control of your ADHD.  You CAN take your life where you want rather than being swept along by unchecked feelings.

Also this month, please welcome Louise Bown, ADHD coach, advocate, and author as a new writer for us.  Rollercoasters & Egg Shells: ADHD Parent and Child Relationships is a heartfelt portrait of the many ways that oversensitive emotions, the opinion of others & the need for constant reassurance affects both parent and child.  Being diagnosed and accepting this “rollercoaster of emotions” as an important aspect of ADHD helps build personal coping strategies.  Those very skills also help avoid “walking on eggshells” with their own children.

 Video

How ADHD Causes Emotional Dysregulation – ADHD amplifies emotions due to poor connections between the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and a delayed reward system. The prefrontal cortex would normally allow you to take a deep breath and process strong emotions before responding.

Recommended for your attention:

See Thomas Brown’s  NEW Understandings of ADHD: The role of emotion for an in-depth explanation of this topic. These slides from the Burnet Seminar offer some Key Takeaways. Most of them are in a less technical language that these examples. Chemistry of motivation is modulated by complex processes resulting from amygdalar integration of idiosyncratic emotion-laden memories embedded in perceptions and various cognitive networks. Also, Working memory & focusing impairments characteristic of ADHD may impair motivation by causing emotional flooding or constricted focus.

I’m glad to finally put this newsletter away.  I have technical work ahead but tomorrow is another day. I’ve got the time, interest, and I’ve moved on from a place where doing nothing feels safer than getting something done. That’s always worth celebrating!

Until next week, take care,

Joan Jager

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Photo by Ricardo Viana on Unsplash – Splattered paint – Modified on Canva.com