Mel Robbins says ADHD is misnamed: it's not mainly an attention problem but a regulation disorder affecting attention, motivation, energy, emotion, sleep, and appetite. Emotional dysregulation—overwhelm, guilt, shame, paralysis—is often the real struggle people face daily.
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First of all, I hate the name ADHD. I think it's stupid. ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition which stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I think ADHD at its base is a regulation issue. Yes, attention is part of it— difficulty regulating attention— but also difficulty regulating motivation, difficulty regulating energy, difficulty regulating emotion. That's a huge one. Difficulty regulating sleep. Difficulty regulating appetite. And anybody with ADHD has felt this. And if I'm speaking to you, these are things that you've probably experienced too, because it's not as simple as, well, I don't— you know, it's hard to stay on task today. It's, okay, I am so overwhelmed and I have beaten myself up about this, and now I feel paralyzed with this guilt and shame and this Overlay of this emotional component. And I think unless we really, really get on top of this and start looking at the emotional regulation part of ADHD, we're never going to fully encapsulate the full picture.
I'm looking at our executive producer Tracy, who I've worked with for 10 years, and I'm smiling at you, Tracy, because I canceled 2 days of taping last week because I found myself in this state where the word I was using is, I am so overwhelmed right now.
Yeah.
And I feel so flooded with emotion, I don't even feel like myself. I can't function right now. But I didn't think that was related to ADHD.
And I think when you, when you drill down and actually look at what regulation is, right? Like, for mood, right? If this is kind of normal baseline, and this is down in the depths of depression, and this is like so happy and elevated, right? Yeah. People generally, they, they have a normal ebb and flow that can happen situationally. With ADHD, it can feel like ups and downs and ups and downs, and it's usually coupled with Anxiety and productivity issues and all of this mashed together in this story. Stop it in the early days.
Yes, it's like you feel like a hurricane. You feel like a hurricane.
