How People Struggling with Emotional Dysregulation Can Regain Control

This article is about overwhelming emotion or, more professionally called, emotional dysregulation. A lot of people have overwhelming emotion. It takes over, they feel like they can't stop it, and it terrorizes them. It makes life very difficult. People describe it as: I'm losing it. I'm freaking out. I'm having one of my episodes. I'm having a panic attack. I can't stop crying. I can't breathe. It may be described as: I have no motivation. I'm overwhelmed. I don't care about anything. I just want to sleep. I can't get out of bed. I haven't showered for a few days. There are many more; you can probably think of some for yourself. 

Emotional dysregulation is emotion, which is experienced as more intense, more frequent, and it lasts longer than average emotions. It really stands out as something significant, maybe even extreme.

The scary thing is that it can come on without warning or apparent reason. This is because our brains build associations which happens on an unconscious level. Something like a scent or a sound or a particular gesture or an environment that is similar to something that has happened before during a moment in time where the person was really, really upset or had a strong emotional reaction becomes associated. And then in the future, when these similar experiences come along, it brings on that same intense emotion and the person has no idea why it's happening. 

One of the frightening things about it is it just comes on and the person feels out of control because they don't know when it's going to happen next. The person feels very much not in control. Many people describe it as being ruled by their own emotions. 

Types: There are several kinds of categories or diagnoses that various types of emotional dysregulation can fall within. Many people are familiar with major depression, anxiety, which can include panic attacks, rages of anger, PTSD, which stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. It results from an extremely frightening situation that made the person feel like their life was at risk. In any case, it leaves them with a combination of symptoms which include strong emotions that come on and they don't know what they're reacting to. 

Identify: Okay. What do you do with this? Looking for, recognizing, and identifying triggers that bring on the emotion is a place to start. Triggers are those subtle things that bring on the emotion unexpectedly. The key to working on it is to keep track of what was happening right before the strong emotion started. That starts to give you a clue to what the trigger might be. 

Learn skills to cope: Now, what do you do with this? It does not mean that you avoid the trigger. And it certainly doesn't mean that other people have to be careful not to trigger you. They might not even know what your trigger is. What needs to happen is to identify the trigger, develop very good skills at coping, both with the mental and emotional response, as well as the physical response to the trigger. This involves gaining skills and practicing them until it is second nature.

You want to get really, really good at it. And it's those things that are going to help you feel more in control and like the emotion doesn't rule you. It takes time. It takes practice. There can be a lot of different triggers, so it can be frustrating, and it can feel like it's impossible. But it really is not impossible. It just takes a lot of practice and awareness. If the triggers remain, many areas of life can be affected. Obviously, relationships with family and friends can be chaotic. It can be difficult. They don't know what is going on with you. You might look crazy to them. You certainly might look out of control. And they don't know what to do about it, especially if you don't know what to do about it.

Of course, strong emotional reactions can affect performance at work or at school. At the very least, it can be distracting. It can keep you from getting work done. It can cause you to miss work. It can cause you to have to run off somewhere and hide while you have the emotional reaction and you wait for it to subside. Socially, it might be difficult to make plans especially to go out in public and around people because you don't know when an emotional episode might come on. That could be embarrassing as well as frightening. Now, internally, this can affect a person's self-esteem and their confidence levels.

It also adds to stress and can affect a person's physical health. It can affect sleep. It can affect the heart, heart rate, blood pressure, immunity. People become more susceptible to colds and become fatigued. 

Ways to manage:

So again, what do you do about it? There are skills and knowledge that can put a person in better control of emotions. These include skills for managing the physical and emotional response and being able to calm oneself. There is a form of meditation in which you stay in the here and the now, instead of everything coming in upon you. 

There's a great deal of thinking that contributes to strong emotions. Many people suffer from extreme worry about what might happen in the future and this contributes to anxiety. A lot of people suffer from unhappy memories of the past, maybe regrets, maybe guilt. Bad memories come into the present and create strong emotions that really don't fit the current moment. Learning how to take a look at your own thinking and alter it so that it doesn't bring on the strong emotion is definitely within a person's control. 

How do you learn about these things? Well, you can Google it. You can find books and other reading material that explains it to you and gives you techniques that you can learn and practice. A lot of people find it very helpful to go to counseling where not only do you learn skills, but you also talk to someone and process the emotions. When you can understand the emotions, they have less control over you. For some people, it can be helpful to take a prescribed medication especially for anxiety or for major depression. Sometimes that is needed while the person goes to counseling so that they can have the energy and the mental space to actually the work that needs to be done.

Another option is my signature program, the Get on Top of Your Emotions System. People can work through the 12-week course, learn all the skills that are needed, interact with and have support from me as well as others going through the program. Having a roadmap that covers all of the components along with support and accountability in an online format can be the key to success in gaining confidence in managing emotion.

I would encourage you to not feel like you're stuck and nothing can be done. It doesn't have to be that way. There are options and choices for managing dysregulated emotion.

If you would like more information about my services, see my website here.

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© 2022 Lucretia Donahue-Reed M.S.