How to Regulate Your Emotions When You Have a Ferrari Engine and Bicycle Brakes

Oh my gosh. Woo, okay. Hi everyone. Like he said, I'm Emma McAdam. Um, I am a YouTuber. I speak to millions of people on YouTube every month. I have almost no practice at all at public speaking. So, this is what Chris means I guess when he says he likes to take risks with this conference. So, good luck to us all. Um, this is actually what's called asynchronous development. It's when one of your skills is highly developed or talented and the other is underdeveloped or disabled.

Um, so bright but unmotivated anyone? [laughter] Um, this asynchronous development can show up on so many levels. Uh, but today we're going to be talking about how it impacts emotion processing and emotional regulation. So, in addition to being a therapist, I also meet the criteria for ADHD and I've had to manually learn how to regulate my emotions for the last 35 years because it feels like the dial on my emotions is just turned way up. And it turns out that up to 70% of adults with ADHD struggle with emotional dysregulation.

Okay, so what is asynchronous development? It's when one part of you develops faster and the other part of you is behind. So, you might be really smart but lonely because your academic skills developed much faster than your social skills. Or you um, this might happen on a physical level, right? You might be super athletic but um, much slower at reading. Um, you you know, you this this can also happen on a physical level. Like this is the really tall kid in kindergarten, right? Mentally and emotionally he's five but because he's bigger and taller, people expect him to be more mature.

So, he gets criticized and corrected more often. Um, this can happen when you're super smart but have poor impulse control skills. So, you keep saying stupid stuff. Um, and for some of you, this is not me, you might be super socially brilliant. Like you can read a room, you can make everyone laugh but you can't make yourself do the dishes. Um, so most people go through these periods of asynchronous development but for people with ADHD or neurodiverse brains, it's often um, much bigger gaps.

So, what's actually happening in the brain that makes these emotions feel so big and so hard to control? One of the things we see with um, ADHD, on average, kids with ADHD have a two to three year delay in brain maturation. So, MRI scans of hundreds of kids found that cortical thickness peaks for the neurotypical kid around age 10 but for neurodiverse kids, kids with ADHD, it's closer to age 13. And these these delays were most pronounced in areas responsible for executive function, working memory and attention.

So, even if kids um, catch up neurologically later in life, that timing lag can cause significant struggles with emotional and behavioral regulation during childhood. So, by this point, maybe you've already labeled yourself as the bad kid, the dumb kid, the sensitive kid or the reject or maybe you've just built up a bunch of maladaptive coping strategies. Maybe you've just developed some ways to deal with your emotions that are not healthy like daydreaming or substance use. Um, guys, I okay. First off [laughter] Okay, we should like I look at this picture and I'm like, why did I not get diagnosed until last year?

Okay. Um, okay. I I do not mean to brag but I was in the 99th percentile academically and I did not learn how to put on mascara until I was 25. [laughter] Um, I graduated first in my high school class but I did not learn how to introduce myself to people until college. Like literally to say, "Hi, I'm Emma. Where are you from?" Right? So, [laughter] sometimes being smart can be a disability on its own and that is asynchronous development. A part of your brain flies so fast that the emotion regulation or other parts just can't keep up.

Um, like this plane. It flew so fast that it literally shot itself with its own bullet. How many of you guys can relate to this? Okay. [laughter] Um, and so even more than that, even more than being smart or whatever, I I was and I still am just like exceptionally sensitive. Like so so emotionally sensitive. I feel every emotion like so loudly in my body. Um, and with a Ferrari brain, every emotion just feels like it's dialed up. Now, I understand some people who are neurodiverse may experience this quite differently but this is my personal experience.

Um, there's some there's some words for this and I've I've struggled to find good words to describe this but we see it in clinical practice all the time. Um, this can be called excitability where the theory is that some brains light up a faster and stronger and they stay lit up um, and activated longer than others and this this might happen intellectually. Like let's talk about fossils and how cool they are. Or um, this could be like you have you're more excitable with psychomotor skills.

Like you need um, I I need like two hours of physical activity every day to feel like moderately calm. Um, you might see this excitability in creativity or social skills or sensory intensity. Like sensory stuff is just so excitable, right? And and also emotionality. Um, there's [snorts] another term for this. Uh, it's called 2E or twice exceptional. Oh, okay. Yeah. Where you're highly gifted in one area and then disabled in the other. You're exceptional on two sides of this. So, uh, a bright kid might have extremely gifted verbal skills.

They can explain the physics of a black hole but they can't get themselves to turn their homework in, right? Um, a gifted kid who has ADHD or dyslexia or some other brain difference can be, to quote Scott Barry Kaufman, one of the quirkiest, most creative, most interesting kids in the world and struggle immensely just to function. So, I I assume most of you know what comes with that. Which is shame. Um, bright but unmotivated, too sensitive, no self-control, not trying hard enough, right?

Adults say, "I don't know what to do with them." Kids say, "What's the matter with me?" So, these kids are more likely to be punished or corrected or shamed because they're smart. Or one part of their brain moves fast. People say they should know better. But the smart part of your brain is actually making it harder, not easier to process emotions. Raise your hand if you can relate to this. [laughter] I love it. I love it. Okay. So, then all that shame leads to developing sometimes anxiety, depression and masking, right?

Um, for me it looked like hiding behind my strengths. Just focus on academics, ignore the social scene, right? >> [snorts] >> Um, maybe you hid behind labels, uh, being the class clown or thinking of yourself as just bad at math or calling yourself stupid, right? Masking and shame directly impact our ability to regulate our emotions and and they're going to take what's already hard enough and just pile more pain and suffering on top of that. So, we're going to talk more about masking in a second but um, first can we talk a little bit more about what's going on in the brain here?

Um, [snorts] one of the things we see with ADHD is what's called cognitive profile scatter. So, most people think that IQ is just a number, right? Like 140 is genius, um, 85 to 115 is average but most people don't know that IQ is actually um, an average of four sub uh, tests or sub of of four different skills which include verbal reasoning, processing skills, uh, processing speed, working memory and perceptual reasoning. Okay, so here's the thing with averages, right? A neurotypical person might have scores that are tightly grouped around their average with a 110 IQ.

But one thing we often see with ADHD or autism is that someone might have the exact same IQ, 110 IQ but they're going to have like 130 processing speed and 90 on their working memory. So, that's like a 40 point gap. And as a result, Russell Barkley says that's like a race car engine with bicycle brakes. The amount of data you can intake is like a thousand and your ability to process it is like 10. Like you just can't keep up. Um, for me this often looks like in social situations where you can be super observant.

You can like intake a ton of information. You can have a million thoughts. You be like, "Oh my gosh, what are they saying? What should I say? How am I standing? What are my hands doing?" Right? [laughter] You might be thinking all this and because it's running so fast, you just like are literally like like so derpy. [laughter] Uh, the processing speed. Like your processing cannot keep up with that flood of information. So, having these fast bits in your brain make it so much harder to actually process information in a reasonable way and I think you guys understand this, right?

Like on a on a physical level. Oh, when I worked for residential I worked for this residential treatment program and we worked with all these teenage girls and and they would come in to us and they'd been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and they were suicidal. They were on they were using drugs. They were you know, at risk teens and what they got in our program was right at the beginning a very thorough neuro psych evaluation which is a privilege that a lot of people can't afford.

It's literally like two to five thousand dollars. And what we found in these neuro psych evaluations is that most of these girls were above average intelligence but they had these gaps. They had these 30 point gaps most of the time in their IQ scores. Um and so like that that was what was leading to so many emotional difficulties and you know, probably the fact that their parents also gave them some of that. Like their parents were a big part of that. And I the place I worked for we did a ton of work with families because the family was such a big part of that of that system.

Um let me give you one more example. My colleague Greg, he worked with this really bright young man. He was on the spectrum. And this kid knew everything about countries like other countries. He loved to study every country. He knew all the facts. He knew all the details. He knew about all the languages. He knew about all the foods. He knew about all the things. And then he sees on the news that there's a war in Sudan and he feels like it's his best friend who's being killed.

So he ends up he you know, his ability to intake information is like a thousand. That race car brain and his ability to process it is like a bicycle brakes. So he ended up overwhelmed, stressed out, anxious, ended up suicidal and in the hospital. Um because he's so smart. Right? That fast part that asynchronous development and my my friend Greg did I mean sorry guys, this is like a downer. Chris gave such a nice like talk and here I am being like guys, this is so hard.

It gets better. It gets better. I promise, okay? So an IQ score and so these IQ gaps make a big difference in our ability to process emotions. But you guys know an IQ score is just one measure of intelligence and just one aspect of people. It's not even that important of an aspect of people to be honest. Um so so raise your hand if you are strong in one of these areas. How about creativity? Anyone who's like fast creative, you get so many ideas and you can't even keep up with them.

My project manager recently told me I have 261 video video ideas in development right now. [laughter] Like I don't. Look at my little it's true. She was right. Um how about [laughter] how about how about physical activity level? How many of you guys like to just move your body a lot? Mhm. Musical talent? Brains very musical, social skills. How many of you guys are just really fun socially? Awesome. Um emotional sensitivity. How many of you guys would consider yourself rather emotionally sensitive?

Beautiful. I love it. And humor. How many of you guys are kind of funny? Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh, so many of you. Um any of these gifts can overwhelm the brain's filters. Neurodiverse folk just have spikier profiles than the average person which makes it just harder to regulate emotions. So what does this feel like? This is one of the reasons why people with ADHD have higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and incarceration. Um the the and and my favorite rejection sensitivity. It's my personal favorite.

My Ferrari engine brain is like, oh my gosh, everyone hates me and my working memory is trying to say, Emma, they invited you somewhere last week. Like Um so neurodiversity can make it just much harder to process emotions because this is not because you are too sensitive. It's [snorts] not because you're too dramatic. It's just because your brain works differently. But when you have the skills and executive function, you can work through thoughts and emotions and maybe that seems like kind of a a high ask.

Um but you guys already know what's coming. Processing emotions, I like to relate this to a factory, right? When your emotions come in, you've got to pause. You've got to name them. You've got to be like, hey, what is this thing I'm feeling? Clarify it, right? You've got to process it and decide what to do with it. Um but to do this you do need executive function and with ADHD it often feels like like this one time I was with my friend and we were talking about our kids and I had so many ideas and all of a sudden I'm like oversharing everything and she's like, Emma, you keep interrupting me.

And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot. Like I'm so terrible. Why would anyone want to be my friend? This is terrible, right? This is what it feels like. Do you guys ever feel like you're just drowning in thoughts and feelings? This is and then our self-talk gets more and more negative. Oh my gosh, I'm such a jerk. I'm the worst. [Third-party I Love Lucy clip omitted (15:32–16:07).] >> [cheering] >> OH MY GOSH. OKAY, I'm glad you guys can appreciate I Love Lucy.

Thank you. Um when these emotions come in hot and fast, like I I still cry when I get feedback sometimes like at work, right? Um with the with the delayed prefrontal cortex these emotions come in hard and fast and it's hard to soothe yourself. It's hard to think clearly and without knowing what to do with these emotions, it's easy for me in that situation with my friend to just feel anxious and depressed. Like, man, I ruin everything. This is so terrible. I can never maintain relationships.

And um the really important thing here is we can actually support executive function to support emotion processing. So if if my prefrontal cortex were activated, instead of replying right away um we would do some lovely emotion processing. So let's just talk real quick about how executive function and emotion processing are so closely connected. Um so if my prefrontal cortex was turned on, when my friend's like, Emma, you keep interrupting me, I would pause, would take a breath and that requires impulse control. Right? I would remember that my friend cares about me which takes working memory.

Would acknowledge that it hurts and that she said that and then I would also be able to shift my attention to be like, oh, is it true like am I a bad person or like, oh, I wonder what I can do about this, right? Um I would calm myself down. Ask her like what being a better friend would look like and that requires self-soothing. Um I would check in with my values. Like, oh yeah, I do want to be a good friend. That's prioritization.

And then I I could potentially create a plan to be like a little bit better listener or to like build a better relationship with her so that she understands how weird my brain is or whatever that is. And that requires organization. So executive function helps us process emotions. When we lack executive function or struggle with executive function, it actually makes it a lot harder. Um the emotion processing has a couple of steps. I I've broken them down into five here. Um so it's this multi-step process.

Um that requires you to slow down, observe, explore, choose, and then act on it. And by the way, most people have never been taught how to do this. I I was never taught how to process my emotions. So I became a therapist so I could get paid to do this. [laughter] Um so this is what's really important though. This is a skill that can be learned. Knowing that like ADHD or neurodiversity limits your executive function helps give you the like framework to build scaffolding and tools that are going to help you solve problems and um be super awesome like you guys all are.

We don't we don't need more pressure. We don't need more discipline. You just need tools for co-regulation and tools to scaffold your executive function as as you try to work through emotions. So so this is just really important. Like a muscle, learning to process emotions is it's a skill that can be learned and a an ability that can be developed. Um so when I worked with these teenagers in residential treatment, they came in with their their special brains, their awesome brains.

We would just work with them over and over again gently talking with them and sitting with them and helping them have a regular schedule, talking through their feelings with them and helping them choose the kind of actions they wanted to take and what we saw were these incredible outcomes where a year out, 90% of them no longer met the criteria for the disorders they came in for including borderline personality disorder. And um Thank you. I can't even take credit cuz really it's like the staff who do 90% of the work.

The therapist meets with them. We do 3 hours of family therapy and the staff are doing like 23 hours a day of like interventions with them. But the work we did was teaching them and coaching them how to process emotions. That's literally what they did. And Greg, my friend, he worked with that kid who struggled uh when when Sudan was at war and and he worked with this kid and helped him build up the skills to to work through his feelings little bit little by little.

So, um this is a skill that can be learned. That's the really important thing. This is the If you only take one thing from this is like, "Hey, emotion processing skills are like learning how to read or learning how to write or learning how to ride a bicycle." Like these are skills that can be learned. No one taught you how to do that. Even if you have a more sensitive brain, like this is something you can do. So, um let me give you an overview of emotion processing.

Then we'll talk about three practical that can help emotional regulation if we take an executive function approach. So, um processing emotions there's the five steps. The first one is observe. Look at this. There's already six bullet points here. This is like already probably overwhelming. Um so, yes. Thank you for letting me info dump on you. I just want to I just want to mention this that because of this like and how my brain works, I made like a 31 video series on like, "Let's learn these skills practically." So, that's what that is.

Uh there's a couple other steps, right? Um observe, so then explore, choose. You guys like You could get this for free on my YouTube channel. You can take pictures if you want. I'll try and go slow. I don't go slow very well. And then act and accept, okay? Uh so, speaking of slowing down that Ferrari engine, um ADHD brains usually have a hard time thinking their way out of emotions or out of hyperfocus. So, we often need physical or bodily sensory activities to um process emotions.

And apparently I have a lot of emotions. This is me and my dad doing 100 miles on the Colorado Trail. That's how many emotions I needed to process last summer. Um but one of my wise followers told me like, "Move a muscle, move a thought." So, um exercise and executive um exercise is one of the best ways to support executive function. It improves working memory. It helps slow down your thinking. It's also one of the best treatments for mild to moderate depression. Uh movement helps various parts of the brain connect and uh regulate better.

So, it can be really helpful to talk through your emotions uh while folding laundry or processing anger or sadness while exercising or changing your environment um like going to a different room so that your brain can shift out of those highly emotional states. Um this is something I've made like a gazillion videos on. We don't even have the time to talk about it. But like learning to soothe your body is another really powerful way to process your emotions. Um medication Meditation can also help.

You guys already know about that. I'm not even going to talk about it. This is my number one favorite. Writing it down, okay? Uh writing about your feelings is one of the most effective ways to slow them down and process them. Um but you don't you don't have to journal every night, though that's not terrible. Uh but when you're feeling super emotional, put it on paper. One of the things we used to do with couples in uh marriage therapy is like if it was getting too heated, we would we would have them sit across the table from each other, hand one of them a notebook.

The person could write down what they wanted to say and then pass it across the table to their husband. They would write down what they wanted to say, pass it across. And this whole thing is just about like slowing down your thinking and processing. We got to put brakes on the Ferrari that actually work, okay? Um In addition to that, like saying things out loud uh is another powerful way to slow it down because usually like for many of us, we think a lot faster than we can talk.

So, speaking into your phone, into your voice memos, be like, "Hey, I'm feeling like it's the end of the world." [laughter] That can help slow down that processing. Um okay. Second way we can support emotion regulation when um we're trying to support executive function is by supporting working memory. So, when I'm feeling completely terrible Thank you for the chuckle. When I'm feeling completely terrible, um I'm not going to remember like, "Oh, if you just go for a walk, Emma, you're going to feel better." So, it's really important to put your coping skills in a really obvious physical place.

Tape them to your wall, okay? [laughter] You put them on your phone screen, too. But then phones change, right? Tape them to your wall. Put them someplace physical. Um Put your warning signs like if you're worried about relapse, put your warning signs up on the wall. If I'm doing this, that means I'm close to relapse and I need to call my sponsor. And then with ADHD, like prompting healthy routines and organizational strategies are often a lot more helpful than cognitive behavioral therapy.

So, put reminders on your phone for the important things. This might be something as simple as like scheduled worry, which is one of the most powerful interventions for um anxiety, or things like gratitude. Um having a biofeedback app can be really great. I like Stress Watch. I've been using Stress Watch lately. It's an HRV monitor. Um it may it measures the levels of anxiety in your system. And then I you know, I like the app Gratitude Plus. It's kind of like a way to share see like to see what your friends are grateful for, too.

So, these are some easy ways to prompt routines. We're scaffolding our executive function so that we can process our emotions. And then the last thing I would say is like we need to schedule emotional check-ins. So, um check out this dog, Haggis. Haggis has a hole in his roof. He never fixed it because on rainy days it's too wet to work. And on sunny days it doesn't need fixing. Right? So, when we're super emotional, that's not the time to be like, "Now I'm going to learn some emotion regulation skills." Right?

So, we got to schedule in a way to actually practice this. So, this can look like a weekly therapy session or scheduling in a time to talk with a friend or doing a 5-minute check-in each evening with yourself on your phone or something like that. Okay. Um The last most important thing is like you cannot just focus on your weaknesses. Okay, so my heart just about broke when I heard this story of this little girl who's 2E and she um said, "I figured out what school's about.

School is where they find out what you're bad at and then they make you do it over and over again." Right? We cannot do that. Um that would be like taking Steph Curry and being like, "You know, let's find out what Steph Curry's bad at. He's probably bad at algebra. So, what we're going to do is instead of having him practice basketball, we're going to have him study remedial math, do all this math stuff." Right? He does not need to be great at math.

He needs basic financial literacy and then he needs people around him to scaffold him and support him like a financial manager and he needs like an agent, right? So, with his gifts, he makes enough good that he doesn't need to just focus on what he's bad at. So, please don't do that. Scaffold your weaknesses enough so that you can be beautifully engaged in your gifts. So, so like maybe you're tired of hearing it. But neurodiverse folk are often amazing at emotional intuition, right? Like this is what makes me good at my job.

Um you guys are probably amazing at an inability to be fake. Some people call this awkward and I don't know why. Um Quick emotional recovery uh from setbacks, right? Find a find a hyper a new hyperfocus and move on, right? We're good at this. Um high emotional resilience in stressful situations. Like we're good at this. So, find yourself a career with some really fun crises and go to town, right? Um passion-driven emotion regulation. If you really care about something, you're going to do something about it.

Um usually. And uh so, [laughter] the whole point of this is like you've got to drop the shame, drop the masks, scaffold where you need support, build up these skills. Um you got this, right? So, I know while regulating um emotions with ADHD is often harder, I really do know you can learn to get better and better at feeling. I used to when big emotions came and hit me, I used to just always feel like it was the end of the world and everything was awful and it was going to be awful forever.

And uh now I I only feel like that sometimes. Um And I'm kidding a little bit here because big emotions do come in and they take over. But what's different now is I feel very confident in my ability to handle them. And we see this in the people who who practice the skills of emotion processing. So, um your emotional sensitivity is a gift. Um my ability to cry is a gift. I will take it. I still cry when I see Tender Real or when I see my beautiful children or when I feel God's gracious love.

I just I still cry all the time. But I don't feel shame about it anymore. And um the world needs you. The world needs your beautiful gifts. We don't need more people who are numb and checked out. We need more people who are intense and emotional. So, thank you thank you so much for being here. And also, you know what else the world needs? Chocolate. So, [laughter] um I got you all some chocolate. The volunteers are going to pass it out. It's from Utah.

Thank you so much for having me. Chris, thanks for taking a risk on me. And please take care. >> [cheering] >> Emma McAdam. Emma McAdam. Cool.