ADHD and Emotional dysregulation
- Louise Foddy
- Jul 7
- 3 min read
You say, "no it's fine", when it's really not fine. You sooth feelings when someone else is angry. You push your own feelings aside to keep the peace at home. You rephrase your message when a colleague gets defensive. You minimise your knowledge and understanding when it makes someone else uncomfortable.
Sound familiar?
Emotional Regulation: A Limited Resource
Many of us have spent a lifetime learning to prioritise the emotional needs of others. We smooth things over. Read the room. Keep things calm. We anticipate needs and tiptoe around conflict. And when someone else is uncomfortable, we often feel like we have to fix it fast.
But this sacrifice comes at a cost because emotional regulation is more than just a skill. It’s a resource. And because ADHD affects the regulation of multiple systems, including focus, energy, and impulse control, when our emotional regulation is depleted, it can have a knock on effect on these other systems that need our support.
Over time, managing other people's emotions over your own drains your capacity to regulate your emotions, leading to overwhelm and further dysregulation that impact other systems.
High Empathy: Strength and Strain
Many ADHDers have high empathy. You may easily sense shifts in other people’s moods and feel deeply responsible for their emotional comfort.
While this is a genuine strength, it becomes a burden when it turns into chronic emotional labour. Masking, people-pleasing, and prioritising others’ comfort often develop as survival strategies to feel accepted and safe.
Over time, they become automatic habits, and your own emotional needs disappear from the picture.
Whose Emotional Regulation Comes First?
Ask yourself:
Does "keeping the peace" mean sacrificing your own peace?
Are you willing to give up your emotional safety for someone else’s comfort?
When you constantly put others’ regulation first, you abandon your own nervous system needs. This can lead to emotional burnout, chronic stress, and a loss of connection to your true self.
Helping Others Regulate Is Not Your Job
It might feel like kindness or responsibility. You may not even realise you’re doing it.
But while empathy matters, emotional responsibility is not a one-way street.
Imagine a scenario where putting your well-being first might disappoint or even offend someone else.
Perhaps you committed to an event that you know will overwhelm you but that one friend really wants you there.
Or maybe someone has upset you, but you hesitate to speak up because you don’t want to upset them.
Before making a decision, practise thinking: Me first.
‘Me first’ doesn’t mean ignoring the impact on others or not caring about them. It means caring enough about your own well-being to take it seriously. It means asking what you need to stay regulated before considering someone else’s reaction.
Remember, it’s each adult’s responsibility to manage their own feelings of disappointment, frustration, or upset.
Why Building Self-Trust Calms Your Nervous System
As Dr Stephen Porges, founder of the Polyvagal Theory, explains:
“The nervous system’s first priority is to detect risk and safety in the environment and respond accordingly.”
We can’t always control people or environments, but we can control how we care for ourselves. When you prioritise others' emotions over your own, you make your nervous systems sense of safety dependent on external factors, leaving you vulnerable and unsteady.
When you prioritise your own emotional regulation first, you create an internal sense of safety, which allows your nervous system to move out of fight-or-flight mode and into a more regulated, connected state.
When you trust yourself to handle your own emotions, even difficult or uncomfortable ones, you send a powerful message to your brain: I am safe. I can handle this.
For many ADHDers, emotions can feel intense and overwhelming. Self-trust acts as a stabiliser, helping you ride emotional waves with more ease and less reactivity.
How to Start Putting Yourself First
Ask yourself:
What do I need in this moment?
Am I stepping in to fix someone else’s emotions?
Can I stay present with my feelings, even if someone else feels uncomfortable?
These micro-moments build your capacity for self-leadership and emotional balance. You stop outsourcing your peace to other people’s moods and start living from your own centre.
Want Support With This?
If you’re an adult with ADHD who’s ready to unlearn the habit of managing everyone else’s feelings and start building self-trust, clarity, and calm, I’d love to support you!
Through personalised ADHD coaching, we’ll work together to:
Create and practise practical boundaries around your emotional energy
Help your nervous system feel safer and more supported
Reconnect you with your own needs, values, and sense of self
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