What is ADHD Emotional Flooding?
ADHD emotional flooding occurs when our feelings overwhelm our brains and take over all the bandwidth we normally have for logical thought. An emotional flood is like a tidal wave of feelings that can temporarily consume our whole minds!
Anyone can experience an emotional flood, but people with ADHD may have more trouble regulating their emotions during the flood.
You have probably seen footage of the disastrous and deadly flooding in Texas recently. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones, and we grieve with them. We do not take that loss lightly. The rapid, consuming flood waters we see on the news reports demonstrate just how bad it can get!
Our emotions can carry us away just like the flood waters. This is especially true for people with ADHD!
What Causes ADHD Emotional Flooding?
Just as a flood is caused by heavy rainfall, ADHD flooding is caused by situations around us that bring about strong emotions. These situations are called “triggers”. Anything can be a trigger to a person, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense to other people.
Triggers may include:
- Stressful events in our daily lives
- Overstimulation from loud sounds or bright lights
- Conflicts with other people
- Losses we are experiencing
- Feeling separated from friends or loved ones
- Anything else at all that we find stressful
Another important thing to remember here is that ADHD emotional flooding can come from feelings that are negative or positive. We can get so mad that we act impulsively and destructively – and – we can get so excited and gleeful that we say or do things that are not appropriate in the moment.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by positive emotion? Many clients have shared with me that they felt a sense of euphoria right before telling a perfectly timed joke, and sometimes that feeling has lead them to keep laughing and telling jokes until others were tired of hearing them. This is an example of a positive feeling being taken too far.
Another person I know with ADHD experienced a fire in their backyard last year. They were so emotionally triggered with fear, excitement and anger shortly after the fire that they punched a hole in a wall. In this case, the emotional ADHD flood carried them away to destructive action!
Emotional Intelligence:
If you are a person with ADHD, Autism, or other forms of neurodivergence, chances are you are quite intelligent! Maybe you are creative, maybe you are analytical, or maybe you’re intelligent in many other ways. But, have you developed your Emotional Intelligence yet?
Emotional Intelligence is “the ability to identify, understand, and use your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress and anxiety, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict.”
Similarly, Executive Function is the ability to plan, monitor, and accomplish our goals. We already know that people with ADHD usually have problems with Executive Function. Emotional Intelligence is part of Executive Function.
Simply put, learning to manage our emotions helps us accomplish our goals. Having a higher Emotional Intelligence helps us have higher Executive Function.
Building Emotional Intelligence
Becoming more emotionally intelligent starts with learning to pay more attention to your emotional state at any given time. This is where things get interesting for folks with ADHD, because we already struggle with paying attention!
It helps greatly to learn your body’s signals to feeling strong emotions. These signals are sometimes called somatic cues. Strong emotions might show up as tension in your chest, a furrowed brow, a pain in your shoulders, or even stomach pains, among other things.
Once you learn to recognize where emotional distress shows up in your body, you can label the feeling. Giving the feeling a name helps your brain regain its logical powers! Once a name is applied, your brain can separate itself from the emotion and better understand what to do about the feeling.
Feeling vs. Thinking
I used to have an old car that had a gas tank with two lobes. If I went around a curve, all the gas would get thrown to one side. But, the fuel pump was only on one side. Sometimes, all the gas would get thrown to the side away from the fuel pump, and I would actually run out of gas with plenty of fuel in the tank!
In that car, there was a second pump that was supposed to pump gas to balance out the levels in those lobes so I would never run out of gas. I ran out of gas several times before I realized my balancer pump was broken!
The same thing can happen in our brains if we aren’t careful. The gasoline in our brains is called “Attention”. The main problem for folks with ADHD is usually how we regulate our Attention, hence the name “Attention Deficit Disorder.”
When all of our attention is going to the emotional side of our brains, we’re going to experience ADHD flooding. While this is an unavoidable, normal, natural occurrence, we can still learn to recognize it and regulate our emotions by redistributing our attention.
How to Cope with ADHD Emotional Flooding
The first thing you will need to do to help yourself cope is to ground yourself. Grounding exercises help us to calm down by stepping away from the emotional vortex and focusing on the present moment. There are some wonderful videos available for free on YouTube from qualified therapists. Here is a list of quick things to help you cope in the moment.
- Do a 5-4-3-2-1 sensory check: Name out loud 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste.
- Name objects around you and their color. “Brown lamp, black TV, blue blanket…”
- Run cold or warm water on your hand or arm. If this isn’t enough, grab an ice cube from the freezer and hold it for a while.
- Take a few long, slow, deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. Feel the air expand your lungs and then feel yourself exhale. (Be careful not to hyperventilate)
Remember that it is important to activate your logical side by paying attention to your inner state. Here are some logical questions that will help you build emotional intelligence to increase your executive functioning:
- What am I feeling right now?
- Why am I feeling that way? (Don’t judge yourself – just stay in the facts.)
- What is going on around me?
- What do I need to do to help myself?
Waves of Emotion
A helpful visualization during flooding is to picture the emotion as a giant wave: You were standing on the dry beach when a wild, large wave rolled in and flooded the whole area around you. Now you are up to your ankles – maybe even your knees – in water. BUT, there’s a great thing about waves. Just as surely as they rolled in, they will also roll out.
The emotion you feel is temporary. Even if it was triggered by a permanent situation, the emotion you feel toward that situation is temporary. People change and grow and evolve and mature through adversity. You will, too!
Get Help with ADHD Emotional Flooding
I work with creative professionals across Georgia who deal with Anxiety, ADHD, or Autism (Level 1). If you’d like help with these or related issues, give me a call at 770-615-6300.
You can also schedule a session here. I offer both telehealth and in-person sessions, and I’m in-network with Aetna insurance and Lyra EAP. I also provide paperwork if you want to file with your out-of-network insurance.