ADHD

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Handling overwhelming emotions? (szmer.info)

submitted 3 weeks ago by alexcleac@szmer.info to c/adhd@lemmy.world

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Hey everyone here 👋

I've been wondering: how do you handle cases, when you get overwhelmed with emotions to the state, that you simply cannot focus on anything but that emotion? I hate that feeling, because it really makes me to feel sick with just being emotional.

My take is that I usually just break from a situation, take an hour or two, and try to stim myself with something else: a game, a movie, something like that. Though, sometimes I don't have a time space to do it: I need to be gathered and focused here and now, with no space for wiggling.

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I’ve found that it’s better for me sometimes not to distract, rather to do nothing and let whatever emotion happen (like another commenter suggested).

Emotions, like everything that goes on in my head, are electrochemical in nature. Sometimes there’s an external trigger, but sometimes there’s not. Letting unexpected or over-large emotions happen and pass has made me more comfortable with that occurrence, so the next time it happens, it’s a bit easier.

Yeah, if it’s really bad in a particular situation, I’ll distract, but it’s less to avoid the emotion and more to give myself something to hold on to during the flood.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Can confirm this is a much better approach than distraction, which tends to simply delay the emotion to a later point in time. That later point in time tends to be bedtime!

[–] alexcleac@szmer.info 1 points 3 weeks ago

My issue is that if I don't keep them in check, I can just rage out on people, and will just regret of it. Hence the distraction, to prolongue the emotion in time, and to make the emotion intensity curve less steep.