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ADHD Women and Low Frustration Tolerance

by | Jun 19, 2024

Summary

Life with ADHD or any brain-based challenge is inherently frustrating.  Add to that the varying dopamine levels, coexisting conditions, and life.  Our rapid escalations and subsequent low mood states make a lot of sense if you think about it. But how can we increase our stress and frustration tolerance without over focusing on ADHD?

“One of the most overlooked challenges for #ADHD adults is low frustration tolerance. Or the inability to manage discomfort. So I think I’m gonna write something about it. Happy Friday”

When I put this on X, it got quite a few retweets so it seems I wasn’t wrong. I then asked what kinds of things make you frustrated or cause you to overreact and got errr a lot of responses.

 

I have overreacted more than a few times in my life 

On my Substack I recently retold the story of  the time I, “murdered the baby birds” (according to my son).  In short, I’d been battling the momma bird for weeks and I may or may not have starting screaming about how much I hate birds and then thrown a tiny nest over my balcony while my neighbor watched.  This happened to be the same neighbor who also witnessed me beating a mouse in a Target bag with a shovel a few years prior.  

Yeah so I have issues managing my big feelings around nature.  Some people struggle with rejection sensitivity, some with anger.  Many of us also struggle with frustration tolerance and persisting through challenges. This emotional over-reactivity is, in part, due to ADHD. 

As we all know, the current criteria for diagnosing ADHD in adults still does not include emotional regulation challenges. Even though we talk about our emotions everywhere all the time and quite loudly.

 If you go on Instagram right now and search…using the AI search function that nobody wanted and everyone begged them to remove…. you can experience for yourself the momentary flash of white hot rage that I did when I attempted to find this giph of David Rose.

via GIPHY

Later I did an actual search, and I’m bad at math but I’d estimate that 80% of what came up was about ADHD and Emotions.  Same thing happened when I googled “ADHD poor frustration tolerance.”  Most of what came up was related to Emotional Dysregulation.  As much as I tired of reading and listening to content on this topic it is most definitely related to frustration tolerance. 

 

Emotional Dysregulation

In my book I offer a long explanation of self-regulation so I won’t do that here. What I will offer is that the root of the word regulate (v) is this:

Early 15c., regulaten, “adjust by rule, method, or control,” from Late Latin regulatus, past participle of regulare “to control by rule, direct,” from Latin regula “rule, straight piece of wood” (from PIE root *reg- “move in a straight line,” with derivatives meaning “to direct in a straight line,” thus “to lead, rule”).

Meaning “to govern by restriction” is from 1620s. Sense of “adjust (a clock, etc.) with reference to a standard of accuracy” is by 1660s. Related: Regulated; regulating. Source

When we talk about any kind of regulation in ADHD we are talking about our ability to exert intentional control over ourselves.  

Most of us deep down inside believe that we should be able to master our own brain, and along with that our emotional states.  This brings up a lot of shame.

People without ADHD have self-regulation problems too, but they have an easier time for a couple reasons. First, they have the ability to pivot their attention between tasks, inhibiting (stopping), and then reengaging in tasks.  

But also, they simply do not experience emotions with the same intensity that we do.  When they do experience strong emotions, they have the capacity to apply a dimmer switch at will. This is the one  time I’ll admit that adults without ADHD do have an advantage, and it lies in their skill at performing under pressure, and pausing before responding.

Our brain wiring making both of these things much more difficult.  Of course this varies based on our genetic makeup and life experiences (trauma), but overall it seems to me that we FEEL negative emotions more deeply than the normals and then we also aren’t able to handle them as well.  Once we feel something we struggle to pull it back or divert our attention away from the feeling.  This is particularly true with negative emotions like anger and frustration.  

 

Frustration

Not to be too nerdy, but I want to look at the root of the word frustration because I think it offers some insight into why it’s such a heavy emotion for most of us.   The word frustration (n) derives from:

“act of frustrating, disappointment, defeat,” 1550s, from Latin frustrationem (nominative frustratio) “a deception, a disappointment,” noun of action from past-participle stem of frustrari “to deceive, disappoint, make vain,” from frustra (adv.) “in vain, in error,” which is related to fraus “injury, harm,” a word of uncertain origin (see fraud). Earlier (mid-15c.) with a now-obsolete sense of “nullification.” Source

Language forms our thinking.  When we get frustrated it’s because we are actually deeply disappointed and feel that we’ve made a mistake.  We know the pain of trying and failing. Most of us also know the pain of trying and then facing challenges that feel insurmountable. 

Frustration for ADHD folks is about the self, it’s not about the thing we’re doing or the roadblock we’ve encountered. It’s about feeling like we’ve made a fool of ourselves by trying to begin with.

 

Emotional Overfocus

When you focus on a negative emotion your brain will start to pull in memories, often from years prior, and create a story, not just about the situation at hand, but about WHO you are as a human being and the value you offer the world.  Over time the stories start to reinforce each other. The stories get bigger and scarier and eventually become negative beliefs that are very hard to pull apart without professional help.   

You and I experience negative emotions like those Magic Grow animals they used to sell in the 80s and 90s.  You start with a smallish starfish, add in some water ( negative experiences and messages), and all of a sudden the Starfish is bigger than your own head and it’s slimy and gross and you don’t know what to do with it.  Toss it?  Stare at it? 

magic growing starfish similar to magic growing negative emotions

In other words we overreact to our negative emotions and blow things up.  

 

 

How do you increase stress tolerance?  

Since frustration and stress tolerance seem to be a complex topic, I’ll break it down into a few components.

Emotional “Dysregulation”

I’m not going to write yet another article with strategies to handle the emotional regulation stuff.  Just google it.  What I will offer is to repeat what I’ve said before and written in my book. 

  • People are weird. Try not to personalize things all the time.
  • Start to notice the people/situations that throw you into a spiral
  • Practice self-compassion
  • Notice your patterns (we all have them), and get honest about them
  • Take your meds as prescribed
  • Talk to a therapist about things other than ADHD (context/history matters)
  • Remember–not everything is about ADHD

 

I refuse to write about RSD here.  Rejection sensitivity is real and we all experience it, but we have recently been applying it too broadly for my taste.   If we start calling every awkward interaction with another human RSD, we will never be able to CTFD enough to talk to anyone, let alone someone who we love.  Go ahead and come after me, it’s cool.   

 

Energy Management

Energy management is a HUGE part of life with ADHD.  You and I use more energy getting through the day than other people use running a 5k.   Check out this article I wrote about ADHD and exhaustion in 2022.     

 I don’t really believe in Revenge Bedtime Procrastination <clutches pearls>.  I think that at a basic level most women don’t get any time to themselves where they are not attending to someone or something else. So when we get a quiet moment we seize the opportunity and shoot ourselves in the foot.

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination sounds catchy but offers no usable solutions. 

Make Sleep a priority. The best thing I ever did was develop a sleep routine. I don’t call it sleep hygiene because it sounds unappealing.  But I do have a very predictable routine, as well as a bedtime.  When I started to have insomnia I got an appointment with a sleep specialist.  Also, many of my clients have told me CBT-I is a wonder.   I also love this stuff called BEAM. I don’t know why it works but it does. (Not an affiliate but I do get a discount if you purchase)

 

Coexisting conditions

Nobody wants to talk about it  but most of us have a lot more than ADHD going on. You need to acknowledge this because it does impact your ADHD-specific symptoms. If you have anxiety or depression, you still need to treat it at the same time. Recognizing ADHD does not mean the other stuff goes away. If you feel that your substance use is a factor, talk to someone. No sense in isolating.  I know it is difficult to know who to trust, but try** to cooperate with medical and psych professionals.  

 

Situational factors

Life with ADHD or any brain-based challenge is inherently frustrating.  Add to that the varying dopamine levels, coexisting conditions, and life.  If you think about it our rapid escalations and subsequent low mood states make a lot of sense.

  I heard from a lot of people about feeling belittled, or not being sure how to interpret someone else.  There were stories about plans changing at the last minute, or having other people with seemingly no self-awareness point out your flaws while simultaneously not owning their own stuff.  <see my comments about humans being weird above>

What I found most interesting was the comments about ADHD itself being the root of all frustration.  As if the way ADHD manifests itself for you as an individual is so frustrating that some of you feel gaining control over it would make life soooo much easier.

Maybe. But more than likely you’d have some other challenge in your life.   

Also, consider that ADHD is not a problem to be solved. And it most definitely is not an individual problem for you to solve.  For women in particular, ADHD creates a life experience where we cannot ignore the injustices of the world.   

Maybe it would be less frustrating, and we’d all feel a bit more resilient if we stopped trying so hard to manage our own ADHD, and we came together to create larger changes that benefit all women.