Is ADHD Anger a Thing?
ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties in self-regulation and impulse control. Although anger is not listed as one of its official symptoms in the DSM-5-TR, studies indicate that it is, in fact, inherent to the affliction, and people with ADHD are more prone to experiencing anger and irritability than neurotypical people. Emotional dysregulation is a major part of living with ADHD for both adults and children. It makes them feel emotions much more intensely than neurotypical people do and become disproportionately overwhelmed by things such as daily responsibilities, time management, sensory overload, having to switch tasks, rejection, or fatigue, all of which can make them feel stressed and frustrated, and trigger angry outbursts or meltdowns. Effect of emotional dysregulation on ADHD anger ADHD limits your executive functioning capacity by causing significant deficits in the rational thinking part of your brain located in the prefrontal cortex. This is the area that controls the mental processes that enable you to prioritize what’s important in your surroundings, filter out what might be harmful or distracting, regulate your emotions, control your impulses, and enable you to plan and direct your behavior toward achieving a specific goal. The amygdala, on the other hand, is the emotional center of your brain that controls your fight-or-flight response. When triggered, it floods your body with stress hormones such as adrenaline, bumping up the intensity of your reactions, overpowering your prefrontal cortex, taking over the running of your brain, and hijacking control of your ability to respond rationally to the situation. Emotional dysregulation clouds your judgment and causes angry feelings to escalate quickly and intensely. Instead of thinking before you act, you react impulsively, in a way that is disproportionate to the trigger rather than responding in a more socially [...]