Brainstorms: Understanding and Treating Emotional Storms of ADHD from Childhood through Adulthood

Brainstorms - brief moments of highly charged emotional states - are known to all. Everyone has regretted outbursts of misdirected rage, feared moments of panic, welcomed fleeting moments of excited and inspired creativity. When such storms of emotion occur too frequently, too intensely, and become impairing, they can be symptoms of an underlying neuropsychiatric disorder. We all know people who are unusually quick to feel. They are quick to exuberance, possessing a rampant enthusiasm that is rapidly sent. They are often great out of the gate , rushing headlong into their latest brainstorm , but are unable to sustain their efforts and their great ideas and plans are seldom actualized. They may be thin-skinned , overly sensitive to criticism and rejection, with a firecracker temperament that is quick to heat up, and quick to cool down. Their tolerant friends and family might affectionately refer to them as the mad scientists or the temperamental artists . This book is about brainstorms. It is about how to understand them, cope with them, and ultimately, use them productively. In particular, it is about the extremes of stormy temperament that may be an underpinning of many problems: anxiety, panic and phobic disorders, as well as eating, depressive and obsessive-compulsive disorders among others, and by far the most common disorder associated with these erratic episodes of hyper-arousal and hyper-reactivity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).