…which are so hard to understand… Sometimes emotions are easy to understand. Someone you love passes away, you feel very sad and maybe even depressed. Someone you trusted made an error that they don’t acknowledge but it did hurt you, you may feel disappointed and maybe also anger. I have always struggled with emotions. Sometimes I had too many, sometimes I showed too few… And at times it was very difficult for me to understand why I was feeling a certain way. And it also has not been easy to describe my feelings and emotions to others. And I have dealt with emotions in certain situations that others didn’t understand, or didn’t find appropriate, and I’ve been told may times to not “be a bad sport” and to just deal with it by moving on. When I was being tested for ADHD and autism, emotions played a part in the questioning and talks. Recognizing them, dealing with them, describing them. When you are doing something, and there is an “unknown trigger”, and all of a sudden you feel terribly sad, or maybe incredibly angry, and you have no idea why… It is so hard… Because you don’t understand why you are now feeling this way. But at that time, you are feeling that way and you will need to deal with it on order to feel better again. Emotional Regulation: ADHD often causes emotional impulsivity, making it harder to control responses to situations. Autistic individuals, on the other hand, may have difficulty processing and understanding emotions. Together, these traits lead to emotional exhaustion, as individuals with AUdHD may experience heightened reactions to daily stressors. The Neurodivergent Brain Sometimes you just have to let it all out. The last few years, I have tried to write about it when I could. I always hope that the writing will help me to realize what the trigger was, to recognize the emotion that it brought out, and to hopefully also find a way to let the emotion simmer down again. Sometimes, it helps me and I feel better when I am done with writing. At other times, I need to find a safe space to just let the emotion come out and then be done with it. But not knowing what the trigger was, what the emotion represented, means that if it happens again, I will be caught by it again as well. And I’ll need to go through the motions again… And I hate it when I keep feeling bad without knowing why… 😔 What Is Emotional Dysregulation? Emotional dysregulation refers to difficulty controlling emotional responses, leading to heightened reactions such as anger, frustration, or sadness. For individuals with ADHD and ASD, these intense emotional states can feel overwhelming and persistent. In ADHD:  Emotional dysregulation often stems from deficits in executive functioning, which impair the ability to regulate impulses and emotions effectively. Research indicates that individuals with ADHD frequently experience heightened emotional reactivity and challenges returning to baseline after emotional distress (Shaw et al., 2014). In ASD:  Emotional dysregulation is often linked to sensory sensitivities, difficulties in social communication, and alexithymia (trouble identifying or describing emotions). Studies have shown that emotional regulation in ASD is influenced by atypical neural connectivity in brain regions involved in emotion processing (Mazefsky et al., 2014). Neuroaffinity.co.uk Dealing with emotions can be hard enough when your brain works “in the usual way” (Neurotypical). But when dealing with a neurodivergent brain, it throws in some extra challenges, making it very hard, and for me nearly impossible, from time to time. The last 13½/14 weeks, I have had a lot to deal with. Major trauma, emergency surgery, losing Arwen… Even typing her name still makes my tears well up… I miss that silly gall so incredibly much. And a little while ago, I shared a blog post about how dealing with grief can be made more challenging as well, due to being NeuroSpicy 🌶️. That post can be found here: Am I stuck? I’ve also been trying to write more about my emotions, two of the most recent posts can be found here: Emotions everywhere 🐾 & Mixed emotions 🐾 . Intense and Frequent Negative Emotions Autistic individuals experiencing ED might exhibit heightened negative emotions like sadness, anger, anxiety, or frustration more frequently and intensely compared to their neurotypical peers . Intense and frequent negative emotions can manifest as: Explosive Outbursts:  These might involve sudden and disproportionate reactions to seemingly minor events. The individual may struggle to control their anger, leading to verbal or physical aggression. Prolonged Emotional Episodes:  Difficulty recovering from emotional upset can lead to extended periods of intense emotional expression. This may include crying, shouting, or engaging in self-soothing behaviors that persist longer than might be expected given the triggering situation. Sustained Negative Responses:  Even after the triggering event has passed, individuals with ED might hold onto negative emotions, impacting their ability to engage in subsequent activities or interactions. Elevated Irritability:  Increased sensitivity to frustration can lead to a lower threshold for annoyance and anger. The individual might appear easily agitated or quick to anger in various situations. SimplyPsychology.org I feel as if most of these examples have been taken from my experiences. While reading these, it’s like they wrote it about me and my difficulties with these kind of (negative) emotions. And I guess that dealing with grief, among others, could be seen as a negative emotion. But while I write this, I wonder if it is… Because dealing with grief can be important for someone as well. But sadness is usually seen as a negative thing, so… Hmm 🤔 I guess I will need to find it on DuckDuck now. I wish I were better with knowing about emotions. Grief  is a cacophony of unpleasant emotions: pain, regret, guilt , remorse, fear , anxiety , all waxing and waning at will. But beneath them all, all the time, is the melancholy oboe that is sadness. Sadness is different from depression . Sadness is a natural response to a situation. Unlike depression, which can be paralyzing, sadness doesn’t so much take over your life as accompany it. It surfaces sometimes, bringing sighs or tears, but it is not the dark obstacle to fully functioning that depression can be. Certainly, sadness can morph into depression, and it’s important to know the signs of clinical depression  if you feel your life has become unbearably dark. But sadness is not, for the most part, destructive; it is simply part of life. PsychologyToday.com Because the emotion(s) I am struggling with most all involve , as you probably can guess, are involved with grief over losing my soulmate. Even after all these weeks, I am still crying every day over missing her. Little triggers that make the tears well up. And now, with the two galls staying over with me, there are a few more triggers involved of course. But this time, I am expecting them, I understand them, and I know I can just let the tears flow and remember my gall with both love and sadness. I have no idea how long it will take me to learn to live without her. I wonder when I will be able to see pictures or videos of her, when I remember her, and I will be able to smile then, instead of bursting out in tears. She was such an important part of my life, part of me, for many years. She saved me in so many ways. And I just feel so empty and lonely at times. I know there is no “set time” for the grief to pass on. There are only some guidelines, that I shared in the “Am I stuck?” blog post. But in the past, when I have been struggling with emotions like grief, people often would say “but it’s been such-and-so long already”, like there is a set time in which someone is allowed to grieve and after that, people just expect you to be “accustomed” to the new situation, where you have learned to live without that someone that you lost. Autistics often thrive on sameness and routine, and grief and loss are the most disruptive of changes. The complexity of emotions surrounding grief may be amplified for autistics with increased social communication challenges and heightened sensory sensitivities. PsychologyToday.com I also have a hard time letting go of certain emotions. When I feel hurt, angry, or sad, it can linger in me for quite a while. And even when more time has passed, there will still be triggers from time to time, that make me relive the emotions again, like it’s just happened for the first time. For example I will use something that happened to me during the check-up at the hospital last month. I wrote about it in a blog post, for those wishing to know more of the details: “Just a little bit of bad luck” . But to say that the surgeon dismissed the whole thing as if it were something as simple as getting a blister from wearing bad shoes… He didn’t acknowledge what had really happened, he dismissed the idea that it could have been prevented if both parts had been replaced at the same time, with better fitting sizes… The worst physical pain I ever experienced, it lasted for 5 hours and resulted in more pain and it being a huge traumatic event… I was so frigging angry, and I still get angry now when writing about it. But at the time of it happening, I tried to shut myself down. If I would have shown my true anger there, things would have gone terribly bad… 😔 Those angry feelings I still have from time to time when I struggle with the pain that’s still lingering in my hip area. And I still feel so sad many times a day, when something triggers a (happy) memory of my gall. I wish there was a way to “get over it” easily and then, maybe, I would be able to feel happier again. Heck, I just started crying, and the two galls were with me on the couch. They both tried their best to come to me and cuddle and kiss me. So of course that made me cry even more… They felt my pain and tried to comfort me. Which of course triggered memories of Arwen doing just the same for me… 😢 I don’t understand how some people seem to handle emotions like anger and grief so “easily”. Of course they may be better at hiding their emotions… 🤔 I just wish I knew how to think about Arwen without starting to cry… It’s OK to cry over her when I am safely at home, but it also happens in public places, and that’s way harder for me to deal with. Dealing with emotions like anger and grief… I just wish that, in some ways, the AuDHD would not make them harder for me to deal with than they are. Of course I don’t know how it feels for neurotypical people when they have to deal with those emotions, but after reading about all these emotions and how it’s different for NeuroSpicy 🌶️ people to deal with them… Sometimes I just wish I were more NT so I didn’t have to struggle so much… (which is not a certainty, I just really am hurting at the moment, especially due to the grieving… 😢 ). This probably won’t be the last post that I will write about emotions… But it would be nice if a next one could focus more on some happier things happening… Thank you for your interest in my blog. I really appreciate your visit. If you like my posts and you want to share them on your social media, please, feel free to do so! I’d be honored. If you don’t want to miss a thing, press the follow button (you’ll need to be a signed in WP user) or you can follow me though the FediVerse with the link below, or scroll down and leave your email below this post. If you are a WP user and you would like me to know you liked my post, press the star/like button please. You can also comment when you see this post as a Toot on the Fediverse, and I’ll be notified of that as well. Thanks ever so much! Of course comments are welcome, but spam won’t get shared, so don’t bother with that… Please be wise and stay safe! I hope to see you back real soon again, feel free to drop in anytime! Wishing you all the best. With love, Cynni 🌹 https://flic.kr/p/2qCtAEn I am living on a disability income and don’t generate an income with my blog. 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🫂 Fankoos 💜 so much… Yeah it’s definitely an extra challenge to try and deal with these emotions properly, on top of feeling so sad all the time. 😔 No one told me yet to stop grieving, but I suspect there will be someone at some point that will tell me “it’s been so long ago now”, like grief has a maximum time to be allowed or something. 😔 Thanks so much for your support 🌹 💜 🫂

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