Anger and irritability aren’t part of the criteria used to diagnose ADHD, but clinicians and researchers have identified them as common experiences among children and adults with the condition.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been frequently associated with difficulty managing emotions. This doesn’t mean that all children and adults with the condition experience this difficulty, though.

Life experiences, ADHD type, emotional and professional support, and personality all may play a role.

Children, teens, and adults with ADHD often have a hard time managing strong emotions. Researchers call this emotional dysregulation.

Around 70% of adults with ADHD experience some degree of emotional dysregulation as a result of neurodevelopmental differences.

Emotional dysregulation may manifest in many ways, including anger. Some experiences may look like these:

  • You feel a persistent, low-grade hum of irritability.
  • You feel grumpy, as though something unpleasant is brewing inside.
  • You feel impatient when you’re under stress.
  • You feel a sudden surge of anger when you’re frustrated in pursuit of a goal — whether it’s a major life goal or an everyday goal like trying to get a lid unstuck or a complex math problem solved.
  • You feel emotions intensely. Sometimes, the degree of emotion you feel is out of proportion to the situation that sparks it. You know this, but you still have difficulty managing it.
  • You have explosive bursts of anger that may even surprise you.
  • You might have a hard time expressing your anger verbally, which can lead to even more frustration.
  • You may overlook other people’s feelings when acting irritably, or you might misinterpret them.
  • You might find it easier to feel and express anger or sadness than you do other emotions.

Irritability in ADHD: Ready to be angry

Irritability refers to a mood in which people tend to feel some degree of anger, impatience, and annoyance. It may manifest at different levels, including affective (how you feel), cognitive (how you interpret information), and behavioral (how you act).

Irritability is a common experience in ADHD, especially in children, but it’s not a formal symptom of the condition.

According to research, irritability severity correlates with ADHD symptom severity. That is, people with more severe ADHD symptoms seem to display more irritability compared to people with milder symptoms or no symptoms.

Some examples of irritability in ADHD may include:

  • losing your temper when faced with seemingly minor challenges (like dropping a glass)
  • feeling impatient and jumping in to do something yourself because someone else wasn’t doing it quickly enough for you
  • having a low tolerance to noises or people asking you questions
  • becoming increasingly frustrated and angry because you can’t explain something that’s on your mind

Anger, like other emotions, may have a sliding scale from mild annoyance to frustration to rage. For some people, living with the challenges of ADHD may act as a trigger to go from irritability to behavioral aggression.

Research has identified a correlation between ADHD symptoms and propensity to aggressive behaviors, especially in adolescents.

A 2021 cross-sectional study indicated that adolescents who scored higher (68.5 or above) on an aggression scale also had a 9.8-fold higher chance of having ADHD compared to adolescents who scored lower on the scale. Anger and hostility, categorized in the study as aggression subdomains, were closely associated with a higher propensity to develop ADHD.

Aggression can be proactive, which is goal-oriented and not emotionally based, or reactive, which is impulsive and the result of an external stimulus.

A 2021 study involving 1,246 children with ADHD indicated that reactive aggression was often associated with hyperactive and impulsive ADHD symptoms. Behaviors like dominating other children, which is a type of proactive aggression, were also linked to the hyperactive-impulsive type of ADHD.

The study also showed a reciprocal correlation between inattentive ADHD symptoms and increases in both reactive and proactive aggressive behaviors. This suggests that challenges associated with inattention may increase the chance of aggressive behavior over time and that aggressive behavior may, in turn, intensify inattentive ADHD symptoms.

Aggression in adults

Reactive and proactive forms of aggressive behavior are also common in adults with ADHD.

A 2022 study, for example, found that reactive aggression was more common among adults with ADHD, particularly of the impulsive and hyperactive type, compared to adults without the condition. Interpersonal conflict and low self-esteem were associated with higher levels of reactive aggression.

Researchers theorized that adult ADHD and emotional dysregulation go hand-in-hand due to specific brain activity patterns.

Anger, irritability, and aggression are not formal symptoms of ADHD in children or adults. However, these may be common experiences among people with the condition.

ADHD treatment can help to reduce the chance of aggressive behaviors and associated frustration and anger.