Episode 14: Why did I act like that?

In this weeks episode, I share a recap from a coaching session I had with a client who was really feeling really ashamed of her own behavior towards her partner and was really confused about what had caused her to act the way she did.

We will talk about the emotions that can cause us to say and do things that we really don't feel proud of, and why sometimes those actions just continue to escalate and we feel powerless to stop or change course.  

We also talk about why when feeling certain emotions such as rejection or sadness or self doubt, we might end up turning to emotions such as anger, resentment and irritation because those are emotions that we can express and expel outwardly and at others as opposed to emotions that feel stuck and like they will consume us. 

If you've ever found yourself picking fights, making passive aggressive comments, or behaving in relationships in ways you're really not proud of, maybe this episode can help bring some awareness as to why.  We're not looking for excuses, we're looking for explanations so that we can better understand what is driving our behavior and feel more empowered to disrupt those patterns in the future. 

If you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to this podcast and make sure to rate and review so more people can access ADHD coaching support. And I would LOVE for you share it with your friends and family!

Disclaimer:
This podcast is not intended to be a substitute for coaching, therapy, or any other medical intervention.  Rather it is a resource for you the listener to learn more about yourself and your ADHD.  Furthermore, these sessions reflect MY personal style of coaching and how I was trained, and are not meant to be a representation of all ADHD coaching.

All sessions being highlighted in this podcast are being done so with permission from the client being featured. Some details may be slightly altered in order to keep their identity anonymous.   
 
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Transcript

  Hello. Welcome back. Thanks so much for joining me again on Monday morning, ADHD coaching. I am your host and coach Emily. And today, I'm going to share with you from a session I had with a client who had just gotten into a really big fight with her partner. And she was really confused about the whole thing. She was really not understanding why she started the fight to begin with. She was feeling pretty ashamed of herself or how she had been acting towards her partner. And she was really just kind of calling herself crazy for how she had been behaving. 

And parts of this episode might have you wondering, like, how is this related to ADHD? Is this really a coaching topic. This feels like more of a therapy thing. And that's totally fair, but honestly so much, if not, all of it really pertains to emotional regulation, which is in fact ADHD related and something we need a lot of support with. So just keep that in mind when you're listening. 

 We started off the session with my client, telling me all about the past few days, when it all started, what's been going on since then, she told me she had COVID last week and was really out of commission and in bed for a few days. And the other day she was finally feeling better, not feeling like she needed to be in bed all day. And so she was out in the kitchen and her girlfriend was in the other room playing video games. And she found herself getting really annoyed. Because she wanted to be hanging out with her girlfriend now that she was finally feeling better. And she said her girlfriend really wasn't making any effort to stop playing the video games and come hang out with her.

So she started making some passive aggressive comments and throwing little jabs, her way, things like, oh, I didn't realize you were such a gamer and talking about how it was a waste of time, her playing video games all the time, which. You know, as she was telling me in the session, she was kind of cringing and said she doesn't actually even believe that's true. And she honestly didn't even know why she was saying those things. She went on to say she was just like making a lot of noise in the kitchen, you know, opening and shutting cabinets really hard and slamming the drawers and just kind of shuffling around out there really in hopes that her girlfriend would notice and come out. And finally her girlfriend did come out and was acting kind of confused and asked, are you angry at me for playing video games or something like what's going on?  And my client told me that she was responding, saying like, no, I'm not angry. But it was telling me  she clearly was. 

Later on when her girlfriend was still kind of confused about what happened. She asked if my client wanted to talk about it again, and she, again, continued to be a bit passive, aggressive and told her , there's nothing to talk about. It's not even a big deal. I just want to move on.  And she said her girlfriend was really kind and understanding and seemed supportive and really did just kind of move on. 

 And then my client continued by saying she was being so kind and patient when she had every right to be upset with me. I really wasn't being nice to her. And that actually made my client feel worse because her girlfriend was being so nice and she couldn't stop acting and feeling angry towards her. And that led her to start feeling pretty embarrassed and ashamed about how she was behaving.

She then went on to talk about how she picked another fight later that night that I don't need really need to go into too many details about that one, but she made it clear that her girlfriend had actually done nothing wrong, but it led to a very similar situation where. her girlfriend was confused, but trying to be understanding about why she was so upset. Which led my client to again, feel even more embarrassed and more ashamed of her behavior. And now she was really just angry with herself that she couldn't let all of this go. 

So since then she was able to talk to a good friend about it. Who helped her find a way to kind of apologize to her girlfriend and share the fact that she really didn't know what caused her to act like this. And her girlfriend was willing to listen and they worked it out and they moved past it, which is great. However, my client is really still in this place where she's so frustrated with herself and still very confused about why it happened in the first place. She kept on saying things like what's wrong with me that I do this. Like, why did I act like that? I don't understand. I was acting crazy.  And she was really just wanting to figure out what happened, what was going on with her, why she felt like she had no control over the way that she was acting. 

 And so that's what we're going to do in the session. Really get curious about what was driving all this behavior so that she can work towards not repeating it in the future, because she really doesn't want to be treating her girlfriend or anyone really like this.

One thing I did want to mention before we start to dive into it is that she had told me kind of separately earlier in the session that because she'd been sick. She wasn't taking her ADHD meds and she takes stimulants and was kind of wondering if that had something to do with it, but really didn't know how it would.  And I actually told her, like, this could have something to do with it. 

It definitely could have played a role in her picking this fight. You know, ADHD brains are often seeking stimulation. Right. And we can do this in healthy ways. Like traveling, listening to podcasts, hobbies, playing sports, going to concerts, talking with friends, you know, just to name a few. And also in not so healthy ways like scrolling, social media, playing video games all day, engaging in. Risky behaviors. Or picking fights with people. And, you know, she had just been sick for the past week. So she had been in bed resting, really not doing much of anything. So, yeah, it's possible that her brain was kind of seeking some kind of stimulation and pair that with the fact that she had been off her stimulants. It makes it even more possible.  And she was surprised to hear this part. She really didn't know that there could be this connection between ADHD and starting fights. But yeah, we talked about how that very well could have been a part of it. But yeah, there were likely some other things kind of going on at the same time.  

Now there are three places along the way that we could get curious about the first place was just what was happening in that moment. Right? What was going on for her? When she was standing in the kitchen and her girlfriend was playing video games in the other room. There were likely some thoughts that she had maybe a story she was telling herself about why her girlfriend wasn't joining her in the kitchen. Which was probably bringing up some big emotions for her and driving her to act in a way she really didn't feel proud of. 

The next place that we could look at was the middle, where she was starting to acknowledge that she really didn't like what she was doing or how she was treating her girlfriend. And she really couldn't figure out why she was behaving this way. And she was also starting to feel really embarrassed and ashamed about it. And it seems like those emotions maybe continue to drive this behavior. As she kept picking more fights and being passive aggressive and claiming she wasn't angry when she still really was angry and was having a pretty hard time apologizing to her partner who was trying to work through all of this with her. 

And then the third place is the aftermath, how she's feeling right now after they reconciled and work through this. But she's just still confused and angry with herself. And. Keep saying things like what's wrong with me? What did I do that? And in the aftermath, she's definitely feeling a lot of shame.  

And since my client repeatedly expressed her confusion over why it all happened in the first place. Why is she even pick this fight to begin with? We started there and I asked her to take me back to that moment where she's standing in the kitchen and her girlfriend is in the other room playing a video game. What was going on for her then? What were some of the thoughts that she was having?  

And at first she recognized that she was wanting attention. She was wanting her girlfriend to want to come hang out with her, but was also feeling like she shouldn't have to ask her to come hang out. She told me that if she had to ask her, it meant her girlfriend didn't really want to hang out with her. She would just be forcing her to come hang out. And listen, we could get into a bigger conversation here about why it can be so hard to express our needs and the desire for other people to read our minds and know what we want. But I have limited time. 

So I'll just put that out there and move on.  And so because your girlfriend was in the other room playing video games and not joining her in the kitchen. The thought she was having was she should want to be with me right now. And so the fact that she's not out here means she doesn't want to be with me right now.   And she was giving like a frustrated laugh, as she said this in the session, because rationally, she knows that's not true. 

They have a really great relationship and she knows her girlfriend loves to hang out with her. She knows she wouldn't feel forced into it. She knows if she had just asked her girlfriend, she would have turned off the game and like happily gone for a walk or done something else with her. So she knows that thought is not actually true. But this is what happens when we become really dysregulated, rational thought goes out the window and our emotions take the lead.  

 And so I asked her how that felt when she was thinking her girlfriend doesn't want to be with her right now. And she said it was kind of hard to figure out at first she was saying, . I don't know, I was really irritated and it was almost like I was jealous. Like she was choosing video games over me, but it didn't really seem like irritation or jealousy was the driving force here. And then she said it almost felt like she was rejecting me.  And the moment she said, it felt like she was rejecting me. I kind of knew that we had gotten to the heart of what was going on. 

, the emotion she was experiencing was rejected or a rejection.  And, you know, I don't want to turn this episode into a whole thing around rejection sensitivity, which maybe you've heard it referred to as rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, or RSD. So if you haven't heard of that, definitely a good thing to go look into and I'll try to give a quick little summary for context.  , so essentially what it is is that people with ADHD tend to have a really hard time when it feels like we're being rejected, whether or not it's real or perceived rejection. It can be just such an incredibly painful emotion. Four. Listen for human beings in general to experience, but for those of us, with ADHD, it can be so hard and sometimes physically painful. And there's lots of different ideas, theories out there about why that is. 

Some of it may have to do with the fact that people with ADHD likely have received way more rejection throughout their lives, just because they may think behave and do things differently. This can look like criticism, judgment, insults being excluded, et cetera. And so now, even when someone might not actually be rejecting them, So many things feel like rejection due to all these past negative learning experiences where they were being rejected. And so they may have become very hypervigilant and highly sensitive. To any slightly negative comment, or even if someone's mood feels off or.  Someone playing video games in the other room and not joining them in the kitchen.  

It also may have to do with the fact that we have deficits and our ability to self-regulate self-regulation is one of our executive functions. So we may feel emotions, especially negative ones, so strongly, and then our brains, which are moving really rapidly fixate on what happened. And we spent a lot of time ruminating and can really struggle to soothe ourselves. And as a result can remain in a state of dysregulation for long periods of time. There's obviously more to it than that. And that really might not have even been a very good explanation. So I would encourage you to look into it more if you're not really familiar with this concept. And again, I say this often, this of course does not apply solely to people with ADHD. Some people with ADHD may not be really sensitive to rejection, but it is a common trait.  And one that definitely seemed to be playing a role in this situation.  

Okay. So my client is now standing in the kitchen and she's feeling rejected by her girlfriend. And that emotion feels horrible, painful, even. And so it seems she turned to other emotions to kind of distract herself from that one. She turned to anger, disgust, resentment irritation. And the thing about those emotions is that, well, they don't feel very good either. They can be externalized. 

And what I mean by that is that she can point at someone else and claim they did something wrong. They're at fault. Which is much better than turning inward and feeling like there's something wrong with you, or you did something wrong. And in an effort to sooth or get rid of those emotions. You might slam kitchen cabinets or pick fights or make passive aggressive comments or vent about the person or yell or scream or throw things. Not that I'm saying that's what she did here, but things like that, where you can kind of externalize that emotion, you can get it out of you. 

But as you can see, it's a very temporary fix because when her girlfriend was patient and understanding, and didn't argue back new emotions, like shame and embarrassment emerged, and she could recognize in our session now that she was continuing to pick fights and provoke her in hopes that her girlfriend would get angry or say something mean back or react. And then she could feel justified in how she was acting and wouldn't have to feel shame or embarrassment. But her girlfriend didn't. And so those emotions just grew and grew and grew. 

And no, this wasn't a conscious thing at the time, but talking about it now in a more regulated and curious state, She could see it as a well-worn pattern of hers from growing up where arguments would escalate. And then it would no longer just be her in the wrong, and she wouldn't have to feel shame about the things that she said, or did.  

And so listen, parts of this are ADHD. Parts of this are  her past experiences, but that's also because she's a whole person and you really can't just cut and divide down the middle. And work with one piece of her. And that does give some additional information about what was driving her behavior.  

And I mentioned this at the very beginning of this episode, you know, while you might be thinking, how is all of this ADHD related? Isn't this more therapy work. And to that, I say,  Yes, no, maybe somewhere in there. Yes. Therapy could absolutely support her in these areas of working out how things that have happened in her past are influencing and shaping how things are happening in the present.  And difficulty with emotional regulation is a huge part of having ADHD. And as a coach, a big part of what I do. And in my opinion, probably the most important part is helping clients acknowledged that they were feeling something, then helping them recognize what emotion it was. Then helping them learn how to allow themselves to feel that emotion as they work towards increasing their tolerance of it. And then helping them learn how to soothe these emotions in healthy ways, rather than just distracting, avoiding pushing them down so that they aren't controlled by them. 

That's emotional regulation. And so no, this session wasn't about how to be more productive at work or how to get places on time or how to move through the to-do list or be more organized. This session was about how do I become more aware of and improve my relationship with my emotions? So that I can be the person I want to be and show up in relationships in a healthier way. 

 Okay. So back to my client. So now we're starting to really see the whole picture here. What started as a thought or a story she was telling herself about why her girlfriend was playing video games. Well, that brought up a really hard emotion, right? She was feeling rejected and in an effort to protect herself from that emotion and not have to feel it because it was too painful for her to tolerate. She got angry, irritated, and resentful. And started throwing all that emotional energy back at her girlfriend so that she didn't have to feel it, but that didn't really work because her girlfriend wasn't really reacting in a negative way. 

And so now she was starting to feel embarrassed and ashamed for how she was behaving. And so kind of continue trying to get a reaction out of her girlfriend, but eventually she kind of just started to turn inward. She said she was crying a lot when her girlfriend tried talking to her about it and she wanted to avoid conversations because those things were only making her feel those emotions. She didn't want to feel the ones. She was really trying to push down or distract herself from. 

But she couldn't just ignore all of it. And so she kept on asking herself what's wrong with me? Why did I do that? i"m being crazy? And is just left sitting with that shame.  And I love that she had a good friend to talk to, to help her remember that her girlfriend really does love and care about her and is a safe person to talk to and share her shame and confusion with. And so she was able to finally do that. 

And it was really interesting for her to see that when she was thinking she doesn't want to hang out with me and feeling really rejected. Not only was she unable to actually pause and challenge whether or not that thought was even true, but. She was actually showing up in ways that her girlfriend probably really wouldn't want to be around. 

Right. She was saying mean comments and picking fights and acting angry while saying she wasn't, and that's not a very enjoyable person to spend time with.   So yeah, that was pretty interesting for her to see it like that. And again, to see the whole picture means she's not just like, oh yeah, I was a jerk. No wonder why she didn't want to be with me. It was more oh yeah. That makes sense. That I was acting like that. I really don't like when I'm feeling rejected.

So once we pieced all of this together, I could see, you know, some of the tension and confusion and shame starting to release for my client a bit, because it all was starting to make sense to her. She could see how this type of situation has played out a lot in her life in many relationships. And because she didn't understand why, well, it's really hard to change or do anything differently, 

but she wasn't just being crazy. She wasn't just a horrible person. It's not. That there's something wrong with her. There was a reason or really many reasons for all of this. Now does that excuse her behavior? No, it explains it. And in seeing it as an explanation, she can now use what she knows and try to learn and grow and support herself better in the future so that she can work towards changing this behavior. 



Okay. So now what she can't change anything about what has already happened. So why does being aware of all of this in hindsight, even matter? Well, because she will inevitably feel rejected again. At some point she will inevitably feel angry or embarrassed or ashamed. Well, the situation may be different in the future. The emotions will feel the same and the thoughts could be something very similar. So knowing we can expect that , we can find ways to support ourselves beforehand so that we can respond in a way that feels better. It feels more aligned with who we want to be. 

So we started by just validating the emotion. She was feeling rejected. That's understandable, and something she can't really control. Oftentimes our emotional response is stemming from past experiences, which again, Might have been out of our control feelings come, we can't stop them from coming and it's okay. And it's not a problem for her to feel this way. But we do want to challenge the thought. That's either creating the emotion or fueling it.  And her thought she doesn't want to be with me right now was doing just that. 

And it was coming from this story she had in her head. Which she believed she should want to be with me. I shouldn't have to ask if I have to ask it means that's not what she wants. I'm just forcing her to hang out with me.  Again, there's a conversation to be had here about, you know, what it was like for her when she was growing up and expressed different needs. But I'll leave that more for therapy territory while acknowledging that it still does matter and has an impact here. 

 So I asked. Was that true? Did her girlfriend actually not want to be with her? Because more often than not, we believe our thoughts. We see them as facts. And she kind of just laughed and said, no, probably not. And I recognize it's not. always that easy to just say no. So this just happened to be a pretty clear answer for her. But so right there, we can show our brains. Hey, that's not actually a fact. Is it maybe true? Maybe she doesn't know that she's not inside her. Girlfriend's head. 

So then I asked for evidence as to why the opposite, meaning that she actually might want to hang out with you. Might possibly be true. And she easily talked about how she knows her girlfriend, like spending time with her and going on walks and happily accompanies her when she wants to go places.  She added it's possible. She had no idea. I was feeling better. She might not have even known I was in the kitchen because she was focused on the game or maybe she thought I was cooking. She might've been waiting for me to let her know I was up for doing things. There was so much evidence available. She just couldn't access it at the time. But again, when we get dysregulated that rational thinking gets turned off.  

So how do we stop this from happening again in the future?  Well, one of the reasons it's important within a session to practice allowing emotions and learning what they actually feel like in your body. Is so that in the future, we can notice them and recognize that we actually are feeling something and what we are actually feeling. 

If you know, that rejection feels like a knot in your stomach or a pain in your chest or a sinking feeling in your gut. Or whatever that feels like to you.  If something happens in the future and you. recognize that sensation, you notice that sensation. That can be a cue for you to just pause and check in and see what's happening for you instead of immediately reacting. 

And I say that like, it's such a simple thing to do, but it absolutely is not. It might be the hardest thing to do. You better believe I still blow past that pause all the time. I am still and will forever be working on this skill. And it makes sense that this actually might be even harder for people with ADHD because our brains move so fast. And so pausing is really hard, ned Hallowell refers to our brains as having Ferrari engines with bicycle brakes.  And yeah, that's so accurate..  

But we can, and really, we must learn the skill of pausing because without it, our emotions control everything we do. But the only way we get there is to first work on this awareness piece where you don't notice it in the moment.  You aren't able to pause and disrupt the pattern right away, but you can reflect on it later and get a better understanding of what was going on and use that information when similar things happen in the future. Because if we can stop to notice and pause, even just for a few seconds, we can turn the volume down on that emotion. Even if it's just a tiny bit. That can allow us to move back into rational thinking or at least give us the ability to recognize that we can't access rational thinking right now. And so we may need to step away and take some more time to regulate.  And I've talked about. in some episodes,  what this may look like, but.  You know, I'm not the expert on self-regulation strategies, but. they're out there all over the place for free. So go find the ones that work for you.

 But what happens if we really don't recognize that we're actually feeling something in the moment? Well, that's why we also want to be aware of certain actions we take when we're experiencing different emotions. For this client being passive aggressive, saying snarky comments to her girlfriends, shuffling around, making a lot of noise, picking little fights. Those are all cues for her to look out for in the future that indicate that's something's going on. Some emotion is driving her right now and she really needs to pause. And I know it feels like maybe that's obvious, but I don't actually think it is because in the moment we feel pretty justified in the actions we're taking, you know, at least at first we do. So it's important to get a better sense of which actions we tend to regret and not feel good about. So we can try to recognize them as such, even when we're in a dysregulated state. 

And then in that pause, she can slow down and start to notice what she's feeling and ask herself why. What are the thoughts she's having? And then just like she did in our session, she can validate the emotion. Okay. It makes sense. I'm feeling this, if that's what my brain's telling me, but is it true? How do I know for sure? Is it possible? The opposite might be true. And possible is such an important word here, because if you're just like, no, that's ridiculous. It's not true. Like you're so silly for even thinking that. Like your brains kind of gonna know your lying. It won't actually believe you. And all you're doing is just stuffing down that. emotion and then it stays there. Just lingering. Saying it's possible. Just means you don't know. It could be true. It also could not be true. We've just opened the door to maybe seen it differently.  Then start looking for the evidence about why it might not be true. 

And really all of this just allows you to turn the volume down and regain control over how you want to proceed so you can make an intentional decision about it. And while I recognize this seems like a really long process, after time and practice it CAN actually become pretty quick. But at the beginning, when this is a completely new way of going about things and approaching our emotions, it might be and often times it won’t even really happen in the moment, it will happen after the moment has past as you are looking back and reflecting on it.  It’s in that reflection that you can start to notice what was actually going on underneath the surface and use that information as you think about what you want to do moving forward, or when similar situations arise. 

And what that might look like in the future is my client noticing those sensations in her body that are feeling uncomfortable and being able to identify ohhh this is shame, or embarrassment and pausing there knowing if she doesn’t, the action she will take is not something she ends up feeling good about.

 It also might look like my clients at some point noticing the action she is taking, she might have said something snarky, or slammed a cabinet and again, pausing there with the recognition ohhhh boy, this is what I do when I’m experiencing a difficult or painful emotion.  And in that pause, just getting curious, bringing her attention to the thoughts she is having about what’s going on, validating that those thoughts feels REALLY true and then allowing for the possibility that it might not be true, reminding herself her playing video games right now might have NOTHING to do with whether or not she wants to be with me but I have a need right now that’s not being met. I have a need for attention and quality time so what do I want to do to get that, or even what am I willing to do? Am I willing to go in and tell her I want to spend time with you? Am I willing to ask her if she wants to go on a walk when she’s done playing? Do I want to find something else to do until she’s available? She gets to decide, she can have control over that decision and making that decision from a regulated place will make it more likely to get her the results she’s hoping for AND she can feel better about her actions because they’ll be coming from an intentional place rather than a reactive place.     

Ok, I think that’s all I got but listen.  This is NOT easy work so if you’re kinda feeling like well that sounds like a nice way to be but it’s just impossible, I totally get it.  This is not how I function 100% of the time.  It’s like sometimes I can notice and support myself in this way and other times, nope, I just cruise right past that pause and am fully driven by the emotional part of my brain. But sometimes is better than never, because at one point in time I don’t think I EVER paused. Like ever. And it really beginning with just a better understanding of it all.  You can’t change your behaviors if you aren’t even aware of what’s causing them in the first place so we’ve gotta start with the understanding and awareness and so hopefully this episode was about to do just that.  Shed a little light on what is in MY opinion, a very relatable scenario so you can begin to reflect on how this might be playing out in your life. 

I appreciate you sticking it out until the end of this episode, hopefully it was worth it for you and I will see you next time.