For a long time, I thought I just had an anger problem.
Actually, anger is what first sent me to therapy back in 2009.
At the time, I didn’t know anything about a possible connection between anger and ADHD. I just knew I could get really fucking angry.
I’d explode. I’d say horrible things. Then eventually I’d calm down and have to deal with whatever happened while I was angry.
Therapy helped me tremendously with that.
Years later, after being diagnosed with ADHD, I started understanding something I wish I’d known back then:
Difficulty regulating strong emotions is really common with ADHD.
And suddenly some of those reactions made a lot more sense.
Not because ADHD gave me an excuse for them.
Because for the first time, I had some idea why an emotion could go from manageable to WHY THE FUCK AM I THIS ANGRY? so quickly.
Can ADHD Cause Anger?
ADHD doesn’t automatically make someone angry.
But ADHD can make regulating anger harder.
Emotional dysregulation is common in adults with ADHD. Research has found that adults with ADHD can experience more intense and unstable negative emotions, including anger, irritability and frustration.
Researchers have also described things like low frustration tolerance, emotional impulsivity and temper outbursts in adults with ADHD.
In normal human language?
Sometimes the emotion can hit hard and fast, and regulating what happens next can be difficult.
That’s the part I recognize.
I don’t walk around angry all day.
It’s more like my frustration has a threshold.
Something doesn’t work.
Fine.
I try again.
It still doesn’t work.
Okay…
Again.
Still doesn’t work.
And then suddenly:
FUUUUUCK.
The weird part is how quickly I can cross that line.
Sometimes even I’m thinking:
Why am I THIS pissed off?
Five minutes ago I was fine.
What ADHD Anger Feels Like for Me
I think this is the part that’s difficult to explain to someone who isn’t experiencing it.
The anger feels completely justified while I’m angry.
I’m not standing there calmly evaluating the situation and thinking:
You know what? A level-eight emotional response seems appropriate here.
I’m just pissed off.
The rational part usually comes later.
And depending on how angry I am, what comes out can look different.
Raised voice.
Sarcasm.
Swearing.
Walking away.
Going completely quiet.
Sometimes I catch myself before any of that happens and think:
This isn’t even worth the argument.
I’m much better at doing that now.
But that doesn’t mean the anger wasn’t there.
That’s something I’ve had to learn:
Feeling the emotion and acting on the emotion are two different things.
I can’t always control how quickly anger shows up.
I have a lot more control over what I do once it’s there.
That took me years to understand.
Why Can Anger Feel So Intense With ADHD?
The explanation that makes the most sense to me isn’t that ADHD creates anger out of nowhere.
It’s that ADHD can affect emotional regulation.
Think about everything ADHD already asks your brain to regulate.
Attention.
Impulses.
What you focus on.
When you stop.
When you start.
Emotions can be another part of that regulation problem.
So when frustration hits, the difficulty may not be having the emotion.
Everybody gets frustrated.
The difficulty can be regulating the intensity of it once it’s happening.
That’s why I don’t really like thinking of it as:
ADHD makes me angry.
For me it’s closer to:
When I get angry, sometimes my brain has a harder time pumping the brakes.
And knowing that would’ve helped me a lot when I was younger.
What Has Actually Helped Me With My Anger
I wish I had some magic trick here.
I don’t.
The biggest thing that helped me was therapy.
Remember, anger is literally why I started going.
Therapy didn’t make me stop getting angry. I still get angry.
What changed was that over time I got better at recognizing what was happening before I made the situation worse.
That sounds simple.
It wasn’t.
When I’m really angry, I’m probably not going to suddenly become the most reasonable version of myself because somebody tells me to calm down.
If anything, telling me to calm down might unlock a bonus level.
What I’ve gotten better at is noticing:
I’m getting really pissed off.
And then sometimes:
Don’t.
Don’t say it.
Walk away.
This isn’t worth the argument.
I don’t always succeed.
But I’m a hell of a lot better at it than I used to be.
One of the most useful things I’ve learned is that I don’t have to solve the problem while I’m at peak anger.
I can stop talking.
I can walk away.
I can come back to the conversation.
I can let my brain come down before deciding what actually needs to be said.
Because I can come back to a conversation.
I can’t pull words back into my mouth.
What Can You Do About ADHD Anger?
If any of this sounds familiar, I’d start by paying attention to your own patterns.
Not because noticing a trigger magically makes the anger disappear.
It doesn’t.
But it’s much easier to interrupt something when you start recognizing the road you’re already on.
What happens right before you get really angry?
Is it frustration?
Feeling overwhelmed?
Being interrupted?
Something not working the way you expected?
Do you notice anything happening physically before you explode?
And what usually makes things worse?
For me, one of the biggest changes has simply been learning that sometimes the smartest thing I can do while angry is nothing yet.
Don’t solve it yet.
Don’t send the text yet.
Don’t prove the point yet.
Don’t keep arguing just because my brain desperately wants the final word.
Give the emotion some time to come down.
Then deal with whatever actually happened.
And if anger is regularly damaging your relationships, affecting your job, making you feel out of control or causing you to say or do things you regret, get some help with it.
I did.
Therapy gave me tools for dealing with anger years before I ever understood that ADHD might be part of the picture.
If I were starting over today, I’d want both pieces:
Help managing the anger and an understanding of how my ADHD might be contributing to it.
Does ADHD Explain My Anger?
I think ADHD explains part of it.
And that’s an important distinction.
I don’t look backward now and blame every horrible thing I’ve ever said on ADHD.
Sometimes I was wrong.
Sometimes I handled things badly.
Sometimes I was just fucking angry.
But learning about ADHD gave me context I didn’t have when I first walked into therapy.
For years, the explanation I had was basically:
I have an anger problem.
Now I understand that difficulty regulating strong emotions can be part of ADHD, and I recognize myself in that.
The speed.
The intensity.
That moment where frustration suddenly becomes much bigger than I expected it to become.
I wish I’d known that earlier.
Not because it would’ve excused anything I did.
Because maybe instead of only thinking:
Why the fuck am I like this?
I could’ve started asking:
Okay. This is happening. What can I do about it?
That’s a much more useful question.
And after years of working on my anger, that’s probably the biggest thing I can tell someone else dealing with it:
You may not always get to decide when the anger shows up.
But you can get better at deciding what happens next.