Emotional Roller Coasters and Tiny Stabilizers for Women with ADHD

Some days you feel almost fine. You get a few things done. You laugh. You move through your day without too much friction. Other days feel like an emotional storm. A small comment hits like a slap. A tiny mistake feels like proof that you are a failure. You might calm down and then replay the moment again and again.

In The All-New Complete Evidence-Based Protocol for Women with ADHD, Dr. Katherine Tidman explains that this kind of emotional roller coaster is very common in ADHD. She describes it as emotional dysregulation and links it to real differences in the brain systems that handle impulse control, reward, and emotion. Your reactions are not proof that you are weak. They are part of how your neurodivergent brain is wired and part of the story you have lived so far.

Dr. Tidman suggests that one of the most powerful tiny stabilizers is simply paying closer attention to what sets you off. She talks about triggers. These can be situations like criticism at work, certain tones of voice, or running late. They can also be internal, such as feeling tired, hungry, or already ashamed when something else happens. The book encourages you to gently track these moments rather than judging them.

A simple way to do this is to keep a brief record. When you notice a strong reaction, you write down what happened, what you felt, and what you did. One line for the event. One line for the feeling such as anger, shame, or fear. One line for the thought that rushed in such as “I always mess up” or “They will leave me.” One line for what you did next whether that was shutting down, snapping, or over explaining. Over time, patterns start to show. Certain themes repeat. This gives you information instead of only exhaustion.

The book also offers tools for when you are already in the middle of a wave of feeling. Dr. Tidman describes relaxation techniques that help calm the nervous system. Slow deep breathing with longer exhales tells your body that it is safe enough to stand down a little. Guided imagery invites you to picture a place that feels calm and to spend a few minutes noticing details in that scene. Progressive muscle relaxation walks you through tensing and releasing muscle groups so your body is not holding everything so tightly. These practices do not erase what happened, but they can bring the intensity down just enough that you can think more clearly.

For many women, small stabilizers go hand in hand with more structured help. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy appears throughout the book as an important approach. It helps you catch the thoughts that pour fuel on emotional fires and replace them with more balanced ones. Dr. Tidman also describes therapies that focus on emotion regulation and distress tolerance. These teach you how to ride out a feeling without acting on every urge, how to survive a crisis without making things worse, and how to ask for what you need more clearly.

She spends time on self-esteem as well. Many women with ADHD have heard “too sensitive” or “too dramatic” for years. That story can become part of how you see yourself. The book invites you to question that story. Dr. Tidman reminds readers that the ADHD brain often comes with real strengths such as creativity, empathy, and strong pattern recognition. Emotional work is not about becoming a different person. It is about giving your sensitive brain enough support that these strengths get more space in your life.

Emotional tools in this protocol do not stand alone. Dr. Tidman links them to nutrition, sleep, movement, mindfulness, and when needed medication. Blood sugar swings, hormone changes, and chronic stress all shape how easy or hard it is to regulate feelings. When you support your brain from several angles at once, the roller coaster can start to feel less extreme and less random.

Her own story sits quietly behind this work. Dr. Katherine Tidman is a Johns Hopkins trained scientist with a PhD in biology, with a focus on cell signaling involved in differentiation during development. In her twenties she began to experience episodic relapse remit neurological symptoms and repeatedly went to doctors without receiving a clear diagnosis. In her late thirties, after a severe episode that left her with a painful cramp in her left shoulder and unable to move her left leg forward, she was finally seen at the Johns Hopkins Neurology Department and diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her neurologist explained that by that time she was already in the secondary progressive stage of the disease. She is also a mother of two.

She founded a consulting business to provide newly diagnosed patients with cutting edge research so they can have informed discussions with their doctors about supplements and treatments. Through her website, Neuronova Network, and through this book, she offers both knowledge and compassion.

If your emotions feel too loud, the message in her work is gentle and firm. You are not broken. Your brain is sensitive and reactive, and there are tools that can help. Tiny stabilizers like trigger tracking, breathing practices, and new ways of thinking can add up over time. Step by step, they can turn the roller coaster into something you can ride with more safety and more self-respect.

You can find The All-New Complete Evidence-Based Protocol for Women with ADHD by Dr. Katherine Tidman on Amazon.

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https://neuronovanetwork.com/

 

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