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ADHD & Behavior: Emotional Volatility
A.B.O.U.T. Behavior #15 : Emotional Volatility
To nobody’s surprise, Mr. Trump reacted to his impeachment with unbridled emotion. In his six page screed to the Speaker of the House on the eve of impeachment, and at his Michigan campaign rally while the voting unfolded, he voiced anger, resentment, ridicule, disgust and scorn, rather than coherent reasoning or appeals to calm. This emotional dysregulation is a central feature of ADHD.
Much of the discussion over the last two decades regarding ADHD in both children and adults has focused on problems with attention and concentration that hamper academic and work performance. Our official diagnostic criteria address only inattention and impulsivity/hyperactivity. But many clinicians, researchers, and families are well aware that poor emotional control plays a central and destructive role in disrupting social interactions of those with ADHD.
The individuals with purely inattentive ADHD, (less than a quarter of the ADHD population) tend to be dreamy, spacey, and placid. However, many of those with impulsive and hyperactive components to their ADHD have deficits in the regulation of emotions, and the severity of this emotional dyscontrol seems to correlate with the severity of their hyperactive and impulsive problems.
