When Anxiety Shows Up as Anger
How neurodivergent kids show fear and worry in unexpected ways
I have a lot of anxiety that is deeply rooted in my experiences living with ADHD.
As a kid, I had a problem with oversharing (and weirdly, lying?) when nervous. Like for some reason when I was in middle school I told a bunch of kids that I was allowed to play on my older sibling’s high school sports team. I didn’t even play that sport nor even think about it in any way. Something in my brain was like, “try and impress these people so they like you!” so I came up with a bizarre impulsive lie that of course they all knew was crazypants. As soon as I said it I was like “WHERE DID THAT EVEN COME FROM?!” and died of cringe. I still can barely think about moment without wanting to melt into the floor.
Anyway, after many cringe-worthy experiences like that, I worked to control what I say and blurt out, so now I find it basically impossible to share any personal information about myself with anyone. I can make some small talk about television shows and stuff, but I’ve not told a single soul in person - not even my mother - that I’m getting divorced. I have absolutely no idea how to bring stuff like that up with anyone. Needless to say, I don’t have any friends.
My point in all of this is that when you grow up making a lot of dumb mistakes as an ADHD kid - particularly making those same mistakes over and over and over -, you reshape your nervous system to protect yourself. Your logical brain (“don’t overshare, duh”) isn’t effective enough at countering your impulsive brain, so you have to basically shove your impulsive brain into an impossible to access lockbox using a variety of often maladaptive coping strategies.
In my case, I prevent myself from oversharing by basically deleting the ability to share anything about myself verbally to a person I know, to the point where I’m unable to relate in a normal way with a friend. I can’t do talk therapy because I’m too embarrassed to talk about myself even with a therapist.
Despite knowing all of this, I’ve had a lot of trouble interpreting my daughter’s anger. I have to admit it’s really hard to make me angry; another fun maladaptive coping strategy I’ve unconsciously developed is assuming that every problem or conflict is my fault and I’m just a worthless piece of crap. I really never get angry at anyone except myself.
So anger directed outward feels unfamiliar to me, particularly anger that is occurring due to anxiety. My daughter’s meltdowns are often filled with rage - she will throw things at me, scream at me that she hates me and I’m the worst person ever. This of course just adds evidence to my own internal judgment of myself that I indeed am the worst person ever. So, in some ways her anger seemed at least somewhat logical.
But I finally figured it out - what my daughter is showing as anger and rage is actually absolute terror - and in the moment, her attack brain takes over to defend herself from the perceived threat she is overwhelmed by. And that entire angry reaction is occurring BEFORE her logical brain can tell herself “I’m afraid.”
Hard to Explain Fears
These are things I’ve realized my daughter is deeply anxious about:
Losing stuff (e.g., saved progress on a game, things she worked on in school, etc.)
Missing out/not having enough time (e.g., arriving home late so she doesn’t have a chance to hang out with her neighbor friend, taking a long time to find parking at the zoo and being worried we won’t have enough time to see all of the animals)
Me / her parents not being proud of her
That she can never improve / get better and she’ll always be a ‘bad kid’
That I’ll send her away to an orphanage (?) - I’m not exactly sure where she got that idea but she brings it up a lot
These things are relatively easy for me to identify and categorize, but feel absolutely overwhelming to try to logically think about for her. Her brain seems to go from “oh no, we’ll get home too late and won’t have time to see my friend” to “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME, I HATE YOU” in a literal split second.
And this makes sense - this is fight or flight. You see a tiger, you run, you don’t think, hmm, how can I calmly ask this tiger for what I need?
But her reaction isn’t flight. It’s fight. Every. single. time.
As an extremely non-confrontational person, it’s really hard for me to not be upset by these explosive meltdowns. I can’t handle being yelled at. It stresses me out in a way I can’t really describe verbally.
Not only that, it stresses me out for literally hours. Even hours after the meltdown is over, I am still very upset. If frustrations keep stacking up, I myself may totally meltdown. At the very least, I’ll spend hours when I should be sleeping beating myself up about what I should have done better.
So you see, she’s inherited this from me.
How Can an Angry/Anxiety Meltdown be Stopped?
So, in my experience - and everyone’s neurodivergence is different, so I could be wrong - it can’t be stopped.
There is no logic or reasoning during a meltdown. There is no, “let me help you name this emotion.”
The biggest thing I’m trying to work on is trying to get her to have a bit more flight instead of fight. Meltdowns often fully end once she’s had some alone time. I’m trying to work with her on identifying when she’s about to melt down and have her leave the room and try and calm herself down in another room so she doesn’t yell and throw things at me.
The problem I’m having is that at this point she says she’s just a bad kid and will never get better. That split-second still feels entire out of control for her. And if it’s always going to be out of control, she might as well make sure I feel her pain too. So she screams at me and throws stuff at me.
And I DO feel her pain. I do. I hate that she feels this way.
Outside of meltdowns, I’m trying to come up with some small wins that give her a sense of efficacy. Like, her responsibility is to empty the dishwasher and feed the dog every morning. When she gets those things done, I am super proud of her and I let her know that. She needs to feel like she has control over something.
I also need her know perfection is not the goal. Effort, small amounts of progress - that’s all we need. She can still meltdown and scream at me. But maybe she can just stop throwing things. Maybe she can work on the meltdown not lasting for as long. She can work on going to her room as soon as her thinking brain comes back online to finish calming down.
I let screentime rules get too lax over the holidays, and I’m really paying for it now. She had gotten used to waking up and playing on her tablet right away, but there can no longer be morning tablet time because she has to get ready for school. If she has ANY exposure to any screens on school mornings, it’s an enormous battle to get her to pull away from them and actually get out of the door. So now they are banned in the mornings.
So, she’s melting down multiple times a day over this. Because she’s upset in the morning that she didn’t get any tablet time, and she’s upset in the evening because it’s no more than 2 hours and all screens are off by 8PM (but I think I’m going to move this up because bedtimes are still way too late and extracting everyone from their screens is taking too long).
I honestly want to chuck every dang screen out of the house at this point. Like I really, really want to.
But her friends play games with her online, and her social skills aren’t great, so I don’t want to completely isolate her from her friends. A big part of the screentime issue is I think she’s afraid she’ll miss out when her friends are online and won’t get to play with them.
So, I’m going to accept that the meltdowns will probably continue while she goes through screentime withdrawal. And I’m working really hard on being OK with that, even though I’m not. Because that is exactly what she needs to learn - how to be OK with something even when you’re not. I don’t mean gaslighting her, I mean teaching her the ability to not hurt anyone even while accepting an outcome you absolutely hate. The ability to recognize her fears, know it’s OK to be afraid, and be able to take actions to reduce them.
I’m just going to take this day by day, one meltdown at a time. It’s OK that I’m afraid that things will never get better.
I just refuse to let that fear take over my life. I’ll be OK with it, even if I’m not.
My heart hurt reading your post.
I’ve spent over forty years helping parents who struggle raising a ‘not so easy’ child.
I dont know you or your child but you gave lots of information and because you both are struggling and your condition is one I saw daily may I offer some insight.
First, you and your child are doing the best you can with the understanding of what causes and how to help a child with tantrums.
The most common cause of your daughter’s suffering is a genetic less adaptable temperament trait. Your child processes change slowly, which requires warning of changes, and increased transition time. When increased process time is unavailable or the problem overwhelming a tantrum ensues. The short version is your daughter lives a life of best case or worst case scenarios. Nothing in between. When best doesnt happen as planned the fear of worst appears. All relates to the base cause of less effective problem solving skills. She cant get to 2nd or 3rd choices or back up plans. She is stuck at best or worse.
Current neuroscience research has shown the true etiology of this executive dysfunction and it is not caused by the inability to handle “big emotions.” ( emotions are a by product, a symptom, never a cause of)
There are three phases to a tantrum and only during the first are you able to help and as the child enters the second phase parents ‘help’ only escalates the issue. There are easy fixes, and better, real help to teach children how to self manage this problem.
The core principle of a tantrum is that it is not the result of a child being spoiled, defiant or seeking attention or power. It is simply the inability to solve the problem that has arisen. Often caused by their plan not happening, a surprise not expected, a sudden disruptive change. These,”no surprise” kids process change slower. The slow adaptability is a genetic factor that has nothing to do with your parenting skills. You are a good parent or you wouldn’t be so concerned.
Hope this helps.
I am retired and miss helping parents survive the rollercoaster of raising a child. Free free to ask a question. Soon I will be writing a substack.
Robert J. Hudson, MD FAAP
Clin Professor Pediatrics
Univ Oklahoma, Tulsa (Ret)
Book Author: The Normal but Not So Easy Child
Raising Your Child without Frustration, Anger or Guilt
What you're describing is emotion dysregulation - a core feature of ADHD that often gets missed in the "attention and hyperactivity" framing.
The neurobiological reality: ADHD involves deficits in the brain's emotion regulation circuitry, not just attention systems. Your daughter isn't choosing fight over flight - her brain is hitting the threat response before her prefrontal cortex can assess the situation. The fear of "not enough time with my friend" activates the amygdala, and without adequate top-down regulation, it comes out as rage. You're not wrong that it's terror underneath.
The complicating factor is that this isn't primarily a temperament issue or a problem-solving deficit - it's executive function failure at the moment of emotional activation. Which means the interventions that help are ADHD-specific: medication (if appropriate), very short-term emotion coaching done between meltdowns, and environmental modifications that reduce the activation frequency.
Your instinct about screens is sound. The dopamine hit from gaming makes disengagement neurologically harder for ADHD brains, and the withdrawal is real. But here's what concerns me: you're carrying this alone, and you're internalising her struggle as evidence you're failing. You're not. This is hard clinical work.
I've suggested a "stoplight check-in" between meltdowns. Three colours, one word from her about how regulated she feels. Not during a crisis - that ship has sailed. But it gives her language for the gradient between "fine" and "meltdown" that she currently doesn't have access to.
You're doing better than you think you are.