Crying is a natural and healthy emotional response to various factors, but frequent, uncontrollable, or unexplained crying can be emotionally and physically exhausting and can greatly affect daily life. It may result from a mental health condition such as burnout, anxiety, or depression. Hormonal changes, such as testosterone, which is higher in men, may prohibit crying, while prolacti may cause excessive crying. If you think your expressions of emotion are out of the norm or excessive, you should speak to a medical or mental health professional.
Crying spells can be a symptom of mental health illnesses such as depression, anxiety, stress, grief, and loneliness. Hormonal changes and pregnancy, as well as hormonal changes, can also contribute to crying. Understanding whether your frequent crying spells are a possible sign of depression can help you manage these symptoms.
Depression, also known as dysthymia, can affect how you feel, behave, and think. It’s a mood disorder with symptoms that can range from mild to severe, potentially affecting your daily life. Some people cry more easily or can’t stop crying once they’ve started. This article provides tips and worksheets for calming down.
While therapy can be highly effective in managing depression and associated crying spells, in some cases, medication may also be necessary. Antidepressants work to reduce emotional blunting, and some people cry more than others for different reasons.
In conclusion, crying is a normal and healthy emotional response to many factors. However, frequent, uncontrollable, or unexplained crying can be emotionally and physically exhausting and can indicate an underlying mental health condition that needs to be addressed.
📹 Emotional Dysregulation: What It Is, How to Stop It
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What is the diagnosis for crying spells?
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is a condition characterized by sudden, uncontrollable, and inappropriate laughter or crying episodes. It is often associated with neurological conditions or injuries that affect the brain’s ability to control emotion. Symptoms can be embarrassing and disruptive to daily life, and the condition often goes undiagnosed or is mistaken for mood disorders. However, once diagnosed, PBA can be managed with medication. Pseudobulbar affect is often misdiagnosed or mistaken for mood disorders, but it can be managed effectively.
How do you fix crying spells?
To stop crying spells, slow your breath, loosen your facial muscles and throat, try smiling, push your tongue into the roof of your mouth, drink water, think of something mundane, and look at something soothing. Crying is a universal experience, and some scientists believe emotional tears are beneficial for health. It’s important to pay attention to your crying habits and how you feel about it, as there’s no official standard for a healthy amount of crying. It’s also helpful to try to smile, push your tongue into the roof of your mouth, drink water, think of something mundane, and look at something soothing.
What hormone stops crying?
Crying may be a biological response, with women crying more than men due to the hormone prolactin, which may inhibit crying. However, the difference in cry rates may be more pronounced in countries that allow greater freedom of expression and social resources, such as Chile, Sweden, and the United States. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Nepal reported only slightly higher tear rates for women. Wealthier countries may cry more because they live in a culture that permits it, while poorer countries may not cry due to cultural norms that frown on emotional expression.
Crying may also reflect attachment styles. Securely attached people are more comfortable expressing emotions and crying in healthy ways, while those with insecure attachment may cry inappropriately. Researchers from Tilburg University found that people with “dismissive” attachment styles were less likely to cry and tried harder to inhibit their tears than those with other attachment styles. Preoccupied individuals cried more often than securely attached people. Women of all attachment styles cried more than men.
Crying serves as an important communication tool for infants, allowing them to show their need for support and may serve us well in adulthood, according to several recent studies.
Why am I so sensitive and cry easily?
Emotional heightened feelings can be attributed to various factors such as diet, genetics, stress, or underlying health conditions like mood disorders or hormones. These feelings can be triggered after outbursts or crying sessions, and understanding the common reasons behind these feelings is crucial. While strong emotions aren’t always harmful, there are strategies to cope better if needed.
What is neurological crying?
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is a neurological condition causing uncontrolled or inappropriate laughter or crying episodes, which do not match the individual’s internal emotional state. It develops from brain injuries or underlying neurological conditions like ALS. PBA episodes are difficult to restrain, intense, and last longer than expected. Other terms for PBA include emotional lability, pathological laughing and crying, involuntary emotional expression disorder, compulsive laughing or weeping, and emotional incontinence.
What is paroxysmal crying?
A neonate with colic, despite being healthy and well-fed, exhibits irritability, fussing, or crying for a duration of over three hours per day, occurring on more than three days per week.
Why do I randomly start crying and freaking out?
Crying outbursts can be caused by various factors, including depression, grief, burnout, hormonal changes, medications, and neurological conditions. Crying is a natural biological response to emotional, physical, or mental stimuli, and can occur when you feel happy, scared, angry, sad, injured, or touched by emotional scenes. It can also occur without an emotional or cognitive stimulus, such as dry eyes or chopping onions. Depression, a mood disorder, can lead to unexpected and persistent crying outbursts, even if you don’t feel sad.
What is a neuro cry?
Neuro-crying is a prevalent phenomenon among children with profound neurological impairments, characterized by the spontaneous onset of crying without an evident trigger. Typically, these infants exhibit distress vocalizations due to feelings of discomfort, hunger, or a need for attention. The analysis of these cries has been demonstrated to offer insight into the neurological and medical status of the infant.
How do I stop emotional crying?
Crying is normal and can be a healthy release of emotion. However, it can be a sign of strength and vulnerability. To handle it, maintain a neutral stance, open your eyes wide, avoid blinking, and let tears pool in your eyes. Tighten your facial muscles and focus on deep breaths. Crying can feel like an inconvenience at times, but it’s important to recognize that it’s a healthy release of emotion. Convincing yourself not to cry can have the opposite effect.
Is there medication to stop emotional crying?
Dextromethorphan and quinidine are oral capsules used to treat uncontrollable episodes of laughing and crying caused by pseudobulbar affect. These medications are taken by mouth with a glass of water as directed. Dextromethorphan and quinidine are combined to treat the condition, which causes sudden and frequent episodes of laughing and crying. The medication may be used for other purposes, so it’s recommended to consult a healthcare provider or pharmacist. The Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center, and advertising on their site supports their mission.
Why do I get overwhelmed so easily and cry?
Crying is a natural response to overwhelming emotional, physical, and spiritual pain, often triggered by overburdened situations. It can be a way to express and release some of the pain. There are various reasons why crying can occur, including personality, environmental factors, and environmental factors. Crying can also provide benefits, such as reducing stress and anxiety, and can help cope with side effects. It is important to seek help when needed and to understand when to seek help.
Shirley, a therapist with over 30 years of experience, specializes in treating trauma, depression, anxiety, grief, and relationship issues using an eclectic therapeutic approach. Heidi Moawad, MD, a neurologist with 20+ years of experience, focuses on mental health disorders, behavioral health issues, neurological disease, migraines, pain, stroke, cognitive impairment, and multiple sclerosis.
📹 Three Signs Your Mania Is Coming (The Manic Prodrome)
What are the early signs that you’re getting ready to have a manic episode? We call these early signs the prodrome. Being able to …
I have c-ptsd and cannot afford therapy and I have to say that your website has helped me not only understand but process it better than I ever have. Thank you for putting this up and out there. I would say you have no idea how much it helps but I have a sneaking feeling you know exactly how much it helps.
For years, I thought of the experience of dysregulation as being like driving a malfunctioning car. You know how to drive, you have no intention of driving badly – but you lightly step on the gas & the horn honks or the steering wheel is unresponsive or too responsive or the car vrooms forward or doesn’t move at all or reverses and hits a pole. A life of no control. But you still have a life to live – so you keep going & you use all your strength to stay on the road. Recovering from yesterday’s auto injuries while incurring fresh ones. But you keep going, gripping the wheel.
My parents were masters of the behavior you described. They fought incessantly. You brought to mind a specific moment where they’d had a fight the night before. Next morning dad had already left for work as we get ready to leave for school. Mom is in the bedroom calming packing her bags. I was the oldest by 14 months but I had already figured out she wasn’t going anywhere. But, my middle sister would freak out and find me between classes to make me go with her to the pay phone to call home and make sure mom answered. That’s the tip of the iceberg. He hid his drinking (maybe that’s what they fought about) and was often violent. She went from being passive and pouting to raging back at him. They stayed together 61 years and died 4 months apart 2016-17. Talk about being disregulated. Remembering this helps me with perspective!
I am an activist in Australia, and emotional dysregulation is ubiquitous, and underpinns so many issues, especially domestic violence. Instead of raising awareness to minimize fallout, it is swept under the carpet because of what is says about our society, and government of ratbags that seeks to shirk their social responsibility. I consider it nothing short of a crime against humanity. Thank you for making this info available, I have never heard of this approach in dealing with emotional regulation, and will be forwarding this to the may people I know that struggle with this problem and hope it can help them XX
Love the daily practice…been doing it almost a year now. When I’m super angry about legitimate horrors, I burn the resentment list to help release it. It works. Been doing THAT for 20 years, called them hate letters in the past. They weren’t enough alone, your practice is so much more effective. But the burning part for extreme rage at what was done to me and my life is really effective along with your practice. Thank you so much.
I went on a trip to Italy in April. It was such a lovely experience with great people. I CRIED THE ENTIRE TIME! I couldn’t figure out what I was crying about. I would go to the bathroom, take a nap, wake up in the morning, etc., and vow not to cry anymore. Didn’t matter. I kept crying at every meal, every excursion, it was ridiculous. I don’t know why I was triggered other than I found nice people and I was used to mean people.
Good stuff and helpful in my present state. I’m Aspie and diagnosed late in life, in my late 50s. Some of the difficulties in late diagnosis is that on top of Asperger’s, many layers of trauma build up over time. Asperger’s and CPTSD share a great number of symptoms right out of the box. Add stress, confusion, abuse, rejection and isolation on top of Asperger’s and it becomes very difficult to separate one from the other. The Asperger’s I was born with. It’s part of who I am. The CPTSD has been acquired and at this point makes it nearly impossible to seek out relationships or simply enjoy the company of others. The self talk that goes on in my head is my constant companion and is often not my friend. It gets to the point sometimes where I can hardly imagine what emotional regulation might actually feel like.
There is a big difference between feeling your feelings and acting upon them. If you feel them, understand where they are coming from (I.e) PTSD/trauma and take yourself off to allow them to pass through you they will in time ease and move on. Feelings must always be felt, just not always reacted to and not always in that moment.
I want to say thank you for your articles. Your content has really been helping me! 🙂 My challenge is getting triggered at work. I find my brain spiraling, but instead of being able to stop, all I want to do in that moment is tell other people about the situation. My brain wants confirmation that what I’m feeling is justified, but even if one person ‘hears’ me, it doesn’t pull me out of the triggered state. After the wave is over, I end up feeling like an immature child who didn’t have emotional control over my state of mind.
Flat affect feels like immense exhaustion. the feelings are not me the feelings are me growing up my girlhood to things that bother me. I can’t face anyone right now so I go outside, walk, my jaw hurts… I try good regulation and alignment to a old term I like, compliance. I practice, Linda Jane you are 41 you must check in with self. Pause, breathing in the nose, venting isn’t a good idea I contain myself. Cold showers work to keep a person in the present day. Thank you Anna.
OMG this feels like such a magic secret. I’m all about expressing feelings but I’m also very emotionally volatile. I think I may have BPD (caused by cptsd) because my feelings can be so intense. I’ve recently noticed when I feel offended by someones words or behaviour, thinking about the situation in that moment causes me to become even more angry and keeps me in that space for longer which makes me blow up and scream and say things that I later regret. I find that when someone has done something wrong to me, I am the one having to say sorry because my reaction was over the top. its this reason which is keeping me from wanting to form new relationships because I don’t want to be the angry dragon and make others feel bad. I’ve read a lot of self help books but never really came across this term. So interesting.
Best article Ever! Thank you. Thank you. I’ll say what my mother in law taught me at an early age —she would say I’m not where I want to be — but Thank God I’m not were I used to be! This is my truth. Omg. I want to get a Tattoo on my forehead that says — Elegantly, with Fairness and with Love. May I never forget this!
I liked this article advisedly as I don’t totally agree w/Crappy Childhood Fairy here: She is right in saying that that one shouldn’t feel one’s feelings in all of the situations she describes, but there are other situations that call for doing so. Decades ago, when I was in my late 20’s, I was in therapy for, among other things, pathological shyness. At one point, my therapist advised me to “experience the experience” when I felt inferior. I did so, my feelings-of-inferiority would initially get worse, but then they “would disappear just like that” he said as he snapped his fingers. I credit this advice with giving me an at least adequate self-confidence level for the 1st time in my life!
You’re truly a God sent Angel. I can’t describe how much you’re helping me through CPTSD, my emotions and things I simply can’t explain or thought no one understood. But you do and it feels so liberating. It’s almost like a mother I’ve never had and I truly feel safe here. I find myself listening to your articles when I’m at work or even at home while sipping a cup of tea. You have so many answers for so many of my questions. God bless you and thank you 💜
I have to say this was a the last piece of my puzzle to finally finding peace after a journey i started 20 years ago. I started getting interested in psychology after years of abuse by my narc mom. I had many wounds but emotional disregulation was the worst wound i had in terms of pure destruction of my life and relqtionships. Thank you i can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel
This is so powerful. I’ve gotten MUCH better as I get older, but just the other day my best friend made a mistake that cost me money, and wasn’t really owning that mistake. But I didn’t yet hear their side of the story. I was SO angry, and then when they told me what happened, it was clear it wasn’t their fault. But I was still SO angry. He hung up on me. Which then triggered abandonment. Fortunately I caught my over-reaction (from years of recognizing my patterns) and texted an apology, and he reciprocated and we sorted it out (I’m lucky to have understanding friends). But when that airplane takes off… it’s so hard to know what to do. It feels like that energy has to go somewhere, even after you realize there’s nothing to be emotional about. I’m getting better, but the ideal is me regulating my feelings before they get out of control.
I just discovered your website. It takes my breath away in a good way. Makes my head and my heart spin around and around. Each article I take in puts me up on a stage with myself to understand the play. You seem to be writing a book about me and do many others and you have been here. Thanks for gently, kindly, helping open up awareness. This is life changing info. Thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences in a way that is so helpful and empowering. I have so much to chew on. Thank you so very very much for being you, for sharing yourself and for validating this experience. For helping us not feel so alone or odd in this experience. You send out a message of acceptance, respect and hope to get through some substantial pain. Thank you so much. I am very grateful. You are making a ginormous, positive difference. I look forward to learning more. Bless you. Jack
Ok, I am 54 years old and have moved back from out of state and in with my mother who really needs supervision. She has balance and memory issues. I have said I will stay for a few months while my siblings who live there figure out a longer term plan. I was there almost four weeks. Went back to see my daughter and therapist. I had a melt down. My daughter said she could feel the tension in my presence. Just being with that abuser is triggering so much rage. She is still so cruel and mean. And then I feel bad for snapping at her because I feel like I am reliving all her hatred she had for me. I thought I knew what I was in for and thought I could handle it. But the daily and all day negative comments make me want to turn my back on her. I can’t do it but I don’t want to have this struggle for sanity either.
I have ptsd and I’ve found there is a difference between retreating and feeling the trigger and projecting it on someone else. I’ve found dealing with the trigger myself without projecting the emotion onto someone else which as you said amplifies the trigger and keeps it going. But when I retreat and let my feelings flow on my own it helps me recognise the trigger and understand my feelings and has helped me to have more intimacy with myself as when I retreat I put myself and my healing first it builds self confidence. I retreat, understand my feelings from letting them flow, then when I am calm I know what to tell others about how I feel and what I can and cant be around. Calm brings clarity and I found its been part of my healing to calm on my own. Hope this helps ❤.
Yes, I’ve gotten increasingly frustrated and sometimes angry when certain customer service representatives were doing anything from cutting me off continually in conversation, not letting me finish my point, not answering my specific question / problem, and my having repeat myself for the 3rd, 4th time? One time I rambled so much, though, that she just hung up. Hmmm… The business had dropped the ball, not fixed the problem, and forced me into a corner to either call back or just give up. So, yeah, I was very frustrated. Maybe there is still something very deep going on, though. Still, after all these years? Of classes, books, conversations, counsel, prayer, exercising greater assertiveness and maintaining boundaries? Wow. OK, I will watch articles on this website, listen, ponder, and learn. A phantom stranger on another website’s page recommended you, Madame Fairy, to I’ll trust it and see what happens.
I do not agree with this. In my experience of long term healing from c-ptsd, and from what I have read and researched. We need to actually practice properly feeling everything in order to heal. Not distract or surpress further. No, our reactions are not “appropriate” for an adult most of the time. But they were once upon a time, when most of us weren’t allowed to express ourselves. I would say, practicing some form of impulse control is good, like making it routine to step aside from a situation whenever it feels overwhelming. Understanding and accepting that we are dysregulated- yes. But we need to safely feel/express how we are feeling too. Otherwise all of this will remain in our system, making us sick instead. Journalling, reading, meditation, all of this are great tools for better self-knowing, understanding how and why things happen inside ourselves and around us. But through relaxation practices and deep breathing, eventually things need to be released as well. The anger and despair etc has to do with our childhoods, its from a long time ago. But until we properly connect the now with these “old feelings”, we will not FULLY and authentically be able to comprehend how the present connects to the past. How we “create” or end up in these different scenarios that cause more chaos and trauma. Like, if you keep going back to an abusive person, or someone who just does not treat you right. Or if you mistreat yourself in any way (lack of self care, boundaries etc), yes you will break down emotionally eventually.
Bless you. I describe it as having a black hole appear under my feet. Normally that makes me fall down into the darkness where I get stuck for a while. When that dark pit opens up, I imagine I’m keeping my feet around the edge. I can’t stop the hole from opening up, but I’m getting better at not falling in.
I was thinking… you don’t “need” your feelings for everything. Certain things (filling out paperwork, putting the dishes away) don’t require emotions, and sometimes they just get in the way. And I thought ok, how do you just set your emotions to the side for now and just to a thing without expending emotional energy… and this is literally the only article I could find. Basically, some of us just being our feelings to everything and it doesn’t even occur not to… but how not to? Would love some more articles on “conserving emotional energy.”
I love how you bring up hard exercise to loosen the stress and get it all out. I was an avid cross fitter before covid hit. When everything shut down I was a mess. Now I’m learning more about my traumas and doing your daily practice. I also mind dump whenever I need to. I find getting to know myself and understanding my triggers has helped a lot. Better yet giving myself permission to simply not do things I don’t want to do or be around certain people. Honoring my own peace and space so I can have energy to handle other stressful situations and people.
Accept your feelings. Say, ok. That’s how i feel. And that is ok. Feelings cannot be argued with. You can write your feelings if you have no one to tell. In fact, it works better to write your thoughts(feelings) out rather than lash out when you’re very upset. it’s a good way to get some calm back, because you told yourself your stuff, and you don’t need to hide stuff from yourself, even if you were taught to. Writing worked really well for thousands of years. Better than talking for emotional upset. it’s only since the late 1800s that talking & telephones became widespread, and with it, the decline of family relationships. Why? Because of too many unhelpful words. So, when people get quiet…it could be a sign that they know what they need the most is time & space to think & feel what they need to, without having to accommodate others, for a while. This is particularly true if your feelings were regularly ignored or stomped on in your family life. There is something to be said for getting quiet & allowing yourself the freedom to think and feel true relief from other’s opinions.
I’m nearly 50 with CPTSD since forever, I don’t know anything else. I started reading “The Chimp Paradox” and it’s been a very helpful model to see what’s going on and attempt to deal with it! Sadly, the “Chimp” in all of us interprets the stimulus a split second before “we” do but by trying to follow the instructions, you can calm things. However, the method with this is to allow the Chimp to “exercise” by letting it be until it runs out of steam, which it always does. I think your article was quite similar to what the book says, all your articles are great, thank you 😊
I equate my responses like a hose faucet. I had a 0 or 100 valve, I’ve worked on replacing it with one that can be gentle enough to water plants, not always a harsh jet. Self realization can be uncomfortable but it’s the ONLY way to move forward. 20+ years ago, my dysregulation had driven everyone away from me. I learned that being shut down sucked, I couldn’t stand myself ultimately. I had used my depression as dirty pool; ” nothing you can do will help” against both helpful & unhelpful people. Wish I had had Ana Runkle to help me back then but still learning today.
There is a difference between feeling your feelings, ie having emotions, and emotionalizing. I think it is incredibly important to feel your feelings, but emotionalizing is something different entirely. I believe is is done mostly to control or manipuate an out come (such as to overwhelm and thus stop oneself, get out of having to move forward or own what we want, stop another, or get someone to do as we wish, to name a few). Emotionalizing causes more emotions. I believe we’re not really processing and releasing them, but more like churning them. When I truly feel my feelings I surrender to them, and something shifts within me internally. This difference has been important for me to understand. I say this because feeling my feelings and being in touch with what they are telling me has been instrumental, if not foundational, in my long term recovery. Even if just the fact that I am emotionalizing let’s me know that I am afraid and want out of a situation, and that I have a choice to continue or not, without being at the mercy of my feelings. It almost doesn’t matter so much what I choose, but that I can, and that I can stay in relationship with myself and my inner world they way I wasn’t as a child.
I’ve had long term ptsd & now on trt treatment. Recently found out I’ve got a cyst on my pituitary gland. Which has affected my testosterone levels. But I’ve also just found out that cysts / tumours can develop on the pituitary gland due to long term ptsd. Have you heard about this to. The trt treatment has massively helped me with everything that was negative in life. I’d highly recommend an mri head scan to anyone. Costly but worth it. I have to have another one in 12 months to see if it’s grown.
I’ve been talking to people about all of my “stuff” without realizing that I was causing them to become dysregulated by going on these long rants. Then they snap, and I’d get into a huge fight with them. So I never understood why the whole “talk it out” thing never worked, as that’s the advice that I’ve been given my entire life. I guess I need to figure out another way. But the other option has been the whole storm out of the room and refuse to talk to people for hours option, and that doesn’t seem so good either. Can you make a article about how to deal with the people around you who are so used to you behaving erratically that when you start to not do so they become upset and needle you until you do?
This is where I m at right now… I haven t decided how much of my CPTSD is from childhood trauma or the decades of emotional abuse from a covert narcissist who everyone sees as such a “good guy”….they have no clue…..he wears a mask with them….yes I went OFF on a bank employee a few weeks ago…..yes my adult son just stared at me blankly as a FaceTime session he initiated this morning just to get his dog home to him after vacation today turned emotionall…..he has no idea that at the moment he called I was being disrespected by his father who immediately snaps into his buddy dad voice….and acts like everything is fine…no this was a week of nonstop attempts at conversations to work on issues only to be gaslit t and stoewalled or just the silent treatment, which is his favorite……..I go into dysregulation and he then portrays ME as difficult and him the victim..ugh….I so appreciate your articles…….
Didn’t know where to put this comment, but this seems good. Today I had a breakthrough! A situation I would have preferred to avoid, and had me dysregulating all over the place, off and on for about an hour. But, I could catch myself, re-regulate, and made infinitely better decisions than I ever would have before! This was a real challenge, and I’m just so happy to have made this progress. Which I wouldn’t have, had I not found your website. That hour would have played out very differently. Instead, afterwards I ended up having a nice day and treating myself to a wonderful, relaxing pedicure. Hooray for progress, and thank you again!
Ahh, the part about being stood up made me realize something. I avoid going shopping physically, its hard for me to build new habits, or even just commit to something fun that lasts more than a couple hours, and it can heavily trigger me when things are running late. This is how my mother acted towards me, would say we’re going to the store for an hour, then 3 or 4 hours pass of her looking at clothes and I desperately want to go home the whole time, but no. I would try a new hobby, find I don’t like it, but forced to stick with it for years afterwards because it was too inconvenient or whatever for her to help me change it. On top of this I can barely tell how I feel about all of this because of alexithymia. I just enter shut down and distance mode, keep away from everyone, go from cool to cold to freezing emotionally (aka distancing myself from my own emotions automatically to try and rid myself of them).
It’s interesting that you used the word shame a couple of times in this article. When I get emotionally disregulated, I end up reliving feelings of rejection and desertion. I always end up doing something that brings on a feeling of shame. And, something tells me that’s exactly how I felt when I was a child and I was out of control emotionally and when I presented that to my parents they looked at me and did nothing and that left me feeling ashamed of myself. Thank you for wanting to help other people who may have never equated being ignored as being traumatized as children. Sincerely, Carly💗 Anna, 23 years ago I found a man that understood that I had a lot of shame inside me. He was able to point it out and free me from that burden by loving me just the way I was and always making sure that I knew that I was seen and known. That is a gift that doesn’t come along very often. But, he died and now I’m alone 85% of my life. I can’t believe I went from what felt like heaven to me to feeling that I need to beg for attention from anyone. And, we both know that you can’t get it that way. I think I disregulated my disregulation!☺
Hi Anna, this article is helpful. But as you mentioned that we get emotionally outburst. I have a different reaction. I get emotionally dysregulated and instead of expressing my anger, i suppress my anger everytime, no matter how angry I’m when it comes to bully or even mental or sexual harassment. I’m short tempered, i get angry inside my mind, my bp gets high but I’m never able to express my anger even in the situations where i should speak up. And secondly, I wanna share that i get emotionally dysregulated everytime I think about people in my mind. Because my memories with people (everyone) are only attached to abuse, neglect, rejection, betrayal. I think about them and feels like everyone is just taking advantage of me. I see that I’m so peaceful when I’m not thinking about other people and only minding my own business even in my mind and thoughts but once i start thinking about any other person, that loop of negative thinking and dysregulation starts. I feel difficult in forgiving people. For example – when a guy had previous relationships and now wants to commit with me. I’m having a little hate inside me for him deep down like if he loved someone else in the first place, why would he come to me now when he enjoyed with someone else. This is just an example. Even when people use negative words for me in a jokingly way like crazy, mad . I feel these words and gets dysregulated. Why is that so?
I got dumped yesterday because I was too much and too intense… that I was driving home my own agenda. Over the past 5 days I’d been triggered by partner and in those five days I sent two 30min voice messages (they were gentle and loving, not outraged) but it wasn’t seen like that by now ex. I appreciate that sending such long messages, no matter how loving and fair I’d made them was too much. He said it wasn’t working. I wonder whether I should apologise for what’ve done even though I know it won’t change anything but feel I should at least be responsible for what I’ve done
what advice would you give when in a state of anger, you wanna let it out because holding back will create thoughts of “not being allowed to speak up/express your emotions” as a result of childhood c-ptsd? it’s like the struggle between holding back and expressing IS the trigger. You want to express yourself so badly because you wanna be heard and you don’t want to submit/succumb to anyone, after that trauma experience
Crying at work is a sign of emotional dysregulation?I actually know, I’d feel much better after crying out than holding in tears.. It’s a quick decision between do i care more about expressing what i feel right now and cry, or i’ll force tears back inside because i care too much what people out there think of me and i don’t want to see me as a wimp. Too bad i chose and keep choosing 2nd option which actualy makes me feel like a wimp.
I wish I would have found you 6 months ago. After 15 years of marriage I found out too late what is going on with me and I ruined my marriage to the person I thought was the love of my life and couldn’t understand why she would just walk away from the one person that stayed by her side through all she had been dealing with. My rage would explode from out of nowhere or at least that’s what she saw. She wasn’t able to see how much I was dealing with on the inside. When I finally asked her to help me find out what was wrong she stood up, & without looking up from her phone said, ” get some help” & walked out on me. I now know that I was the problem.There’s alot more to it than what I’ve written, but it was the last straw
Whats wrong with solitude and finishing the rest of this life im already well over half lived in contentment thats far better then being abandonded and missing the solar cycles that is timed and theyare entertaining others and ghosting for months naw im good i got thos done in my childhood so this is just a waste of time and i will not do this anymore
How am I supposed to not feel my feelings? I have definitely been emotionally out of control. And I have injured an important relationship! I get so angry at your articles because you’re reading my diary, and I don’t like it! So now I’m trying to repair my friendship because I took my anger out on them!! 🙁 6:37
I have been looking for how to self regulate emotions and your article was the most clear, while a lot of people says pause, .. pause and what? Love you said, writing helps, exercise helps, postpone the conversation helps, till the feeling gets regulated and you can have a conversation from loving perspective instead of anger or bitter one. Thank you sooo much!!
Thank you for the amazing article, and tips for regulating myself. 4 months ago had full knee replacement, and let’s just say it’s been a downward spiral. My knee is not working as it supposed to, and the anger is overflowing. My emotional dysregulation is bad in the best of times. The last few months has been a difficult journey for my partner and I. I’ve got a lot of work to do, your article gives me a little hope I can start regulating my emotions. Thank you so much.
In a abusive childhood you are taught don’t think don’t speak don’t feel. So it’s important to be allowed to feel yo ur feelings. So the title of don’t feel your feelings, can be triggering in itself when you were never allowed to feel. But regardless of that sentence being triggering, I still watched and the information in this article was very helpful. Thank you.
I had given up trying to know what was wrong with me until I found you. I had finally ruled out Aspergers, BPD, and knew it was because I was adopted. I had read the adoption books by Newton Verrier, but she did NOT mention C-PTSD. You are really describing me here. Emotional dysregulation has been a problem my whole life. I call it the rollercoaster ride from hell. Fortunately I believe it diminishes with age and I will try your suggestions.
Restraint examples. Wow. So not intune with inability to self regulate. JUST had one before perusal this. The ‘sadness of loss’ overwhelm hit during a gentle phone conversation. I fought my body crying and of course, the phone on my end is silent as I fight the emotion threatening to overtake me. It’s NOT always possible. Thank God the person on the other end of the phone was understanding and tried to help. It’s not a cut and dry issue, emotional regulation. It’s just not. The fact is that, I become unable to actually SPEAK. So I can’t say, “just give me a minute”. Living in overwhelm. Daily. I know I’m not alone. ❤
I just left a customer service phone job at an airline. I have additional PTSD from having customers barf on me and I had to just take it…. until I no longer could take it. What I’ve learned from the last 8.5 years at that job is that so many Americans are not doing well. So many Americans have normalized unregulated emotional outbursts. Now I am having to regulate my nervous system from all the abuse.
This is definitely what I’ve been going through for a long time and it feels really good having a term for what is happening to me. Is there any reason why my dysregulation is more prevalent now that I’m in a healthy, non-abusive relationship (which I have never had before) I find myself getting these symptoms very often while I’m out in public with my partner, and I can’t help being more open with these symptoms. It makes it very hard and scary to go out with him..
This might sound really strange but I just remembered this recently my stepdad used to tell me that it was ok to pee in the bath tub as a matter of fact when he was bathing me I told him I needed to pee and he told me to pee in the bath tub and being a kid I did and he said it’s ok to do that so for years I actually believed it was perfectly normal to do that because well he said it was and he was an adult I was the kid so I believed it was perfectly normal it’s crazy how adults exspecially caregivers can brainwash children into believing a whole load of stuff that just is not true
What about legitimate grief over loss, heartbreak, rejection, etc? Sure, it may reach back to and be fuelled by past wounds from similar experiences, but is there a place to simply weep and grieve? Is that not a valid, helpful place to feel one’s feelings and let the venom out, as opposed to being unable to feel anything in response to hurtful experiences?
idk i feel like theres a way to feel your feelings in a way thats productive instead of going into destructive and reactive avenues. i feel like you can bring up vulnerably that your abandonment is coming up and perhaps you just need a hug or something or some looking into eachothers eyes and maybe the 123 method. saying ‘turn away from these emotions and shut them off put them in the drawer” feels like its a guilty dirty shameful thing… which i disagree with. this may be just confusion about semantics and we actually agree just think about it in different ways. everyones different and what works for one maybe not for another. i feel like its a difference in letting your emotions make your actions destructive or being .. honest. idk
Hey Anna would you advice someone with CPTSD to take antidepressant (Zoloft) for anxiety? For the first time I saw a psychiatrist and this man has never heard of CPTSD, all he wanted to talk about was PTSD and told me he treats PTSD with Zoloft and gave me a prescription. I’ve done a few research online and all the side effects from Zoloft seem to outweigh the benefits and that is a deal breaker for me. I like to know your thought, and by the way I won’t be going back to see that doctor.
I agree with not taking action while feeling emotional or having episodes. When i did that i always felt ashamed and guilty. I wait and dont react, distractions work the best like playing a articlegame, working on projects… But i dont act out with others. I have BPD not c ptsd.. But i dont want to make others suffer or feel bad just bc of my triggers
There’s a huge difference between FEELING your feelings and ACTING on them. The last one seems to be what you are talking about. Learning to contain and feel without overwhelm can be learned with practice. Disconnecting them from the thoughts and storylines that feed them is helpful. And allowing yourself to let things out when appropriate, before it turns into something too big to handle is crucial. Perhaps you should consider looking over the language you’re using, if you truly want to help people heal. Last two articles I’ve seen says “Don’t feel your feelings” and “No, I don’t think you can trust yourself”, which tells me that either you’re still in a very mental phase of your healing journey, and are using, and promoting, coping mechanism to avoid going further, or you’re just wanting to lure in vulnerable and unstable people that are unsure of themselves to make money off of them.
….I was with you until you said “get out of your dark thoughts”. That’s called battling your shadow or “shadow work”. Obviously you should do this alone & in solitude during controlled states but NEVER push these emotions away for to long or they will eat you alive from the inside out! Other then that, you are 100% correct. I vent to my camera & record myself & have been for almost 27 yrs. I even achieved a spiritual AWAKENING in 2018 which is why I am still alive & learning from people such as yourself. Thanks for creating this it will be very useful in my endeavors. 🙏🧘♂️🙏☯️
But I want to feel them, I spent my life feeling like a robot coping, why shouldn’t I be allowed to be able to feel my emotions fully like everyone else because of abuse that was inflicted on me, the toll that no one. quite gets is that the victim of life long abuse has payed 10 fold in various ways without ever agreeing to it. Their life is already unbearable at its always them paying. I am not suppressing it anymore. If I make the “mistake” of telling them how I feel in intense anger, really, tough, they don’t care anyway and they’ll continue to use me calm or not. What is wrong for them to experience a bit of their own behaviour back. I am paying for their abuse in every way distorted and saddened provoked into being someone I am not under any other circumstance, they will drain you, that’s what they want, for you to spend all your energy staying “calm” with every method under the sun untill you have nothing left to draw from in life and you break. I am now being told that because of them I am not allowed to exist as I am. I have to again sacrifice a part of myself to their debt. When you ask someone to feel it later, you get blunted, do it long enough and you get dissociated. You lose the ability to experience life fully, and think it’s normal, it was my anger that powered me to do something and start working on some form of repair, from a state of atrophy. I spent over 20 years everyday emotionally and physically dead at the expense of them, coping at the kitchen table, experiencing the best years of my life pass me by with no out, I spent every day, just about existing ona laptop for over 20 years on that kitchen table expending every emotion and energy to not reacting to them, not feeling that anger that would eventually help me break through.
This article has been a total game changer for me because it explains something that happens to me that I couldn’t make sense of before. I must admit though, rather than thinking of stopping a plane taking off (because planes are supposed to take off and it’s entirely appropriate that they do) I find the statement ” I’m having an emotional reaction” is like defusing the emotional bomb that’s about to explode. This, combined with the daily practice is a life saver because you can bet that all the destructive stuff that explodes outwards during an episode of emotional dysregulation is based of fears and resentments that haven’t been brought to light by us. I laughed when you said that the more urgent it feels to say something during a deregulated state, the more likely it is that it’s best not to say it there and then! Thank you Anna for such wonderful resources 🙏
I dysregulated at work today. I had to assert changes to my week for next year. I was petrified of having the discussion, The conversation was more 1 way from me, it wasnt open to discussion and had tone of anger & no tolerating. He is a good manager he said lets think about it. I watched this article and your talk with “therapy in a nutshell”. I focussed on keeping my aeroplane on the ground. That helped tonnes and all your techniques with breathing, sitting etc. I was able to go back and further discuss (2 way this time) and we got creative with solutions. I have managed to keep a good relationship post horror discussion & find a happy medium for us both in the next year. So thank you. I found no other helpful articles so thank you. For existing, for being here, for saying that 🙂
I wish mental health help was more easily accessible. You always have to book a psychiatrist or therapist through a 3rd party (multiple visits to a general doc before being referred.) I wish I was able to just have every mental health test done to finally figure out what’s wrong with me. I’ve had suicidal thoughts since I was extremely young, like 5 or 6 years old. Medicine, no matter what it is, doesn’t help. Weed helps, but I’d be fired if anyone found out I use thc. I feel so stuck.
This article might save my marriage. Three years of me trying to get a counselor to hear me tell them that THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS has been a huge waste of money. They can’t imagine the man sitting with me on the couch could be capable of abuse. But he becomes a different person. Sometimes when he just perceives an offense. When I have no idea what I said or did. Or didn’t say or didn’t do.
I wish in the past I had others to share stuff with. But now, I can see how deeply focusing on feelings or feeling too much can send us reeling, me reeling. I no longer know how I’d react to others as I now have so few to uh no relationships, but I do “get” the sense of dysregulation from acquittances. Landlord was /has been rude and noted internally I started losing it. More meditation. Needed. I do some self talk to calm me down. That prevented me from sending a text tinged with hurt and resentment. Told myself in talk down that it was not worth it — to spiral out emotionally. Cold shower!! Great idea. I do think writing could help ( it used to send me off the deep end of overfeeling) and meditating AND PHYSICAL working out. Still wish I had someone to “tell” things to sometimes, to share. Thanks again for your great tools!! Spot on Anna.
My cptsd ruined most of my teens and 20s. In my later 20s and now into my early 30s I’ve come to manage it better. But there is no area of my life that it hasn’t harmed in some way. I wish I would have had someone spot what was going on with me early on. When I look back I see the glaring red flags like neon lights in the dark. I don’t understand why no one could spot them. I was involved with some therapy. I guess being misdiagnosed bipolar could have affected that. As it did getting actually antidepressants instead of lithium. Depakote. Seriquil. And so on. I spent years trying to figure out what was wrong with me. It wasn’t until rehab trauma therapy that I learned so much more. I can say it gets better. You have to want it. You have to work hard for it. And be your own advocate. I went up against psychiatrist and fought for better medications. The right ones. I fought against the misdiagnosis. And I figured out how to help myself. Being told several times no one in the entire staff could take on such a case. Because on paper I look like a walking disaster. All the crazy trauma. Finally being given at least the basics of therapy after speaking to me in person but still being told we can only do so much. No one here is qualified to help you the way you need. But not being guided in the right direction. This helps me.
I’ve found Dialectical Behaviour Therapy really helpful in understanding my emotions, including how to discern them better, how to work out whether or not they’re justified after checking the facts, gauging whether or not they’re appropriate in terms of intensity, & knowing how to deal with them, including how to tolerate distress when they’re particularly strong & unpleasant. I’d highly recommend others who live with emotional dysregulation look into DBT-based therapy, or perhaps check out some DBT books or websites, if they’re interested in exploring new techniques which may improve their ability to manage strong emotions.
This doesn’t sound good, what is a normal person then suppose to do when their SO forgets their dinner date and cant’ be reached and is found sitting at home perusal TV? Is anger not suppose to be a response? That example needs to be expanded. You say it’s disregulation to be mad but why shouldn’t you be mad and pissed off? I get where maybe the line between normal anger & CPTSD disregulated anger is when you’re handing ultimatums & packing your things to run out the door but the initial anger of “where were you!” is valid for both parties (a normal person & someon with CPTSD disregulation) they tried to reach their SO and spent time being stood up. So can you explain where the line is for the disregulated issue and also what would a normal person do in that exact situation? Cuz anger and hard questioning them sounds legit and correct.
Dear CCF, is it possible to heal dysregulation that causes complete shutdowns (sleeping & only digesting soup blended like a smoothie) and other physical health problems? I meditate, had hypnotherapy, neurofeedback, Inner Child work, changed my nutrition, learned new skills, etc, but even on a birthday party with calm & nice people, panic attacks take over. I consciously know I’m safe and there’s no apparent (adult) reason. After having people around me I’m exhausted. I’m improving in baby steps, but would like to know if it’s possible to overcome this and get a good quality of life. 🙏🏼🌺 Angi
I guess I will try some of these techniques- the daily writing practice. The rest don’t apply as we went into this overreacting stage and broke up last week. Very calm conversation, I can only guess he was already over it. And I’m usually able to be reasonably calm, I speak in a bottom line, non emotional way when I’m hurt and he didn’t like that. Calmly broke up with me and I pretty calmly asked him to explain because I needed to understand why. I’ll have to be better prepared in case I meet someone else .
no. i realize that my emotional responses are a lot heavier than typical. i am logical enough not to act on those emotions. BUT! those emotions refuse to leave me, they make me extremely sad and emotional, so much so that it paralyzes me and for several days it is a monumental effort just to take a shower or get dressed, when I’m sad I CANNOT FUNCTION PROPERLY! WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THIS???
It’s called ADHD/Autism or Narcissistic personality disorder. They all have emotional dysregulation at the base of the disorder. I think there is to much overlap in naming things. How is HSP, by it’s own definition, not Autism as well. We don’t need terms out there that just describe a symptom of the disorder being addressed as it’s own autonomous disorder. You may address it in the article, in which case i apologize for this overlap.
My girlfriend and I just had a fight. And guess what? I think she’s right. Again. She’s the one who’s always right. I’m always the loser who’s always wrong. And it really pains me. I don’t even fully understand it. That’s why I’m here. She said it isn’t always about right and wrong and fault. Well, that’s not fair for her to say. For one thing, she does tend to fault or correct me. So as far as I’m concerned, she herself is interested in right and wrong and fault. You can’t fault the wrong person and say they think about fault too much. And besides, how is the concept “it isn’t always about right and wrong” supposed to make me feel better? I just expressed my pain and insecurity and jealousy about her always being right. You’re supposed to make the hurt person feel better. I would’ve done that for her, if she was always wrong in our history.. Do you understand what I’m feeling?
I just recently found you, but I also had been told about Autogenic Training, by my oldest son. There are free sessions on YouTube that last about 11 minutes, which I sometimes have to replay a few times to face the world. I also use BlueSky Hypnosis. It starts out audible, then goes subliminal for 8 hours. I have C-PTSD. Once triggered it can take me weeks to get back to “my normal”. I am old and it exhausts me. This year, 2024, I have already blocked three people from being able to contact me. I have always given people way too many chances. But I found that if I, finally, get the courage to say “No More” and they do it again, I am terrified. I am bawling right now thinking about it, feels like my heart beat shakes my body. Definitely have to isolate at times. It gets bad.
Where were you all my life? I’m in my early ’50s now while mid ’50s I must be honest. But anyway I have these outburst these anger that wells up in me for maybe not even that no reason sometimes. Except it has to be from some PSD from the past. Thank you for this article It gave me some insight on what might be going on and things I can do to maybe stop this. And maybe bring some normalacy into my relationship with my mother girlfriend coworkers etc. I thought I was just possessed or something I didn’t know. I just did not know where this anger and unpatient Ness if that’s a word towards people came from or is coming from. But yeah thanks again! Mike S.
I really like the topics that the fairy chooses to discuss. However there is a common thread that runs through her assessment and her examples.. that really put the blame on us. That because of some childhood trauma we are now dysregulated and the rest of the world is peachy keen and everybody Acts like Ward and June cleaver and we’re just getting bent out of shape for little or no reason. But the truth is other people are generally not innocent.. and this example of how your partner forgets that you’re having dinner and comes in the house feeling horribly guilty and everybody is okay with it except you.. this scenario is just not realistic. Generally speaking people don’t forget that you’re having dinner with family or friends or a party or whatever this situation is. And generally speaking most people would text them or call somebody way beforehand to remind them a dinner. If this partner has their phone turned off.. and you’ve been discussing this dinner I’m sure before today… And then is unreachable.. that’s being done intentionally.. and the Disney touch that the fairy often tosses in is that your partner now feels guilty and you somehow become the villain . It’s victim blaming. And that’s not good for people that have already been through so much. The best thing to do.. if you’ve been traumatized by people.. and you’re just not willing to be traumatized anymore.. is cut people that do this out of your life. Don’t deal with it. . Be alone. It’s been written throughout the ages since Rome that man doesn’t have many problems when he is alone.
I have the problem of being overwhelmed by fear and closing off completely when I get disregulated. I can’t speak, say what’s bothering me, or express what I want and need. I become completely frozen and paralysed. This has destroyed my relationships as I effectively dissapear from the relationship and operate a facade instead.
I’m tired of listening to you because everything you say is describing bad feelings and bad behavior and things that miss the mark. I don’t see any solutions except to try harder and be careful and… I guess you’ve got forgive people on your list but, please notice this —+ if you quit blaming them you don’t have to forgive them. Anyway the situation in this generation is bigger than both of us. This generational teachings down ancestral lines. This holds the human race in tribes and subgroups of various names and origins and numbers of genders.. The situation into which you were born or were “in” is just like whether it’s raining today or the sun is out or whether there’s an avalanche. It’s just what you have to deal with in your life. Some guy I know said something like, How you deal with the situation is what differentiates people, ie it’s up to you. I repeat you don’t have to forgive someone. if you think they should have done something that’s like saying the rain shouldn’t have happened today. It is what it is. Now, that’s religion. But that I mean it’s a choice I made about a way of looking at the world. Yes I understand, heresy to some. That’s why I called it religion. Religion is picking your set of assumptions or in the case of the patriarchal religions your story that you believe. (Just for one person’s information, you can do Buddhism be a Buddhist and not believe in any particular thing that happened ever. It’s all metaphor anyway. It’s just adult children who don’t admit it, even to themselves.
I just cry cry and cry too much people get irritated after one point . I cry in unimaginable places / situations and i can’t explain them why 🥺 I don’t want to make them feel irritated or hurt them or push them away but i don’t know why i keep crying again and again. Now they think i am over sensitive and weak …. I feel really sad about that . Woth your help i am trying to help myself but sometimes i really feel helpless and lonely. Feel myself as terrible person even after knowing i am loved . Its really complex . I want to get better really 🙏
That spiking thing is real… I often have the sensation, that i feel like i wanna explode and rip anything or anyone to shreds who even dares to think of getting on my nerve at that moment. …But simultaneously i feel numb. Totally weird. Though i luckily didn’t act out an overreaction like that since i was a child. (overreacting, screaming, drama.) It’s only internal and i never had an outburst like that in my adult life. Though i find that i still struggle with it, despite thinking i’ve been finally over it. (I even commented that on another article here) It’s only really unraveling now and i don’t really know how much there is left at this point. …Speaking of which… Is it actually helpful to confront that feeling, so i can train to deal with it better, progressively? I often play competitive articlegames which can be very triggering, which is part of the reason i also use them as a means of therapy and self-help. I find it helps me to simulate stressful situations and learn to adapt ways to control my internal state of emotion. What do you think of that approach?
I feel all these things but in the moment it’s as if I leave my body and can’t control what I feel or say. I just shut down and nothing goes in or out. It feels like I have so much to say but nothing to say all at the same time. I battle to take a pause and take a step back. I only remember my childhood from photos and snippets from when I was 13 years old or maybe 16 I don’t know. I can’t make decisions even simple ones, like when my wife asks what I want for dinner I’ll just say egg on toast I don’t want to be an inconvenience. And when even I am speaking it feels like I’m wasting peoples time and I just want my sentence to be over and done, so most times I just sit in silence. I think I need therapy but I do nothing 😐
Thank you! your timing is impeccable, I’ve been surrounded by triggers/triggering situations way too much lately, unavoidable unfortunately, I’m trying as much as possible when possible to remove myself from those situations as well as trying to have better “control” over what’s happening. Cramming as many of these your articles as necessary 🤣 a few on repeat like “calm your triggers, how to know you’re dysregulated, and how to heal” Thank you a million times
Write. Feelings, thoughts. Shopping lists, song lyrics. Things you need to do. It will bring your mind back to you. I know you don’t believe it. You don’t need to believe it. Evidence is plentiful. Give it a go. When you’re really distressed, sometimes getting quiet and writing stuff down is the way to restore your sense of ability.
I’ve been pretty good at not reacting, allowing myself the time before answering, but not always great at communicating I was taking that time and sim-lay not answered for half a day or maybe the entire day. In a way that was because I felt disrespected and my ego was hurt and I felt tired of being “Kind” because I felt the person didn’t really care about me, always withheld emotions, was all words no actions. The relationships left me confused as I was blamed for everything even though I only tried to communicate what was hurting me, and hoping to change the behavior (big mistake as people won’t change for you), in a way if I regulated myself I wouldn’t have took things so personally but in the grand scheme of things the person was very dishonest, trying to monitoring if I was daring others (we weren’t exclusive) while they themselves were sleeping with people and dating all the time. There is a fine line between regulating ur self and also acknowledging a pattern of behavior that just doesn’t work for you and it’s triggering. I feel that it’s an important point to make, as someone who is always taking the blame for things, analyzing what I’m doing wrong. Like if someone stood me up for dinner more than once but also responded to that mistake in a really apologetic and genuine way, plus showed up in the relationship in many other ways then it’s worth staying, if someone stood me up for dinner, apologizes but also doesn’t truly express themselves from a vulnerable real place, plus is inconsistent in many other ways, girl run.
After being on Paxil for almost 22 years, I recently have gone off of it. I had an experience that was very odd. I went to a race track, I was looking forward to it being an old gearhead. As the engines roared in the beginning of the night, my body had goosebumps from head to toe then I wanted to cry for about 15 minutes straight. I would qualify that as emotional dysregulation, would that be correct? Thank you for your articles!
This is why a lot of conflict I would have at work would go way over the top. No one else would seem to blow up like me. I would ask people why things wouldn’t seem to bother them. Now I know why I acted so crazy. I feel a little better. I have learned so much in 3 articles. Do u have one on how this trauma effects brain development? Thanksgiving for your info. You seem to be such a caring person but what do I know?Ha!
Well, easier said than done. Over regulation is an attempt to keep big feelings at bay but it makes me rigid and inflexible. I can overregulate anger most of the time but not anxiety especially in a social context. Once I am in a state of defence and hyper activation, my subcortical brain runs the show and there is almost no agency left there. So allowing is wiser than resisting. This top down clamping down on a visceral response is not effective because we cannot control our internal state with the mind ( prefrontal cortex ). We need to go to the body because that is where some access exists – breath, yoga, tapping, qi gong ect.
Hi Anna, just wanted to ask, does the dysregulation come after the emotional flashback? For me what you describe of having the huge wave of emotion that’s not appropriate to the situation feels like what my therapist has agreed is an emotional flashback, after this it can take me a few days sometimes to feel normal again, which is what I think would be getting dysregulated because of the flashback? Is that correct do you think? I do know I wake up feeling dysregulated too, never having had a flashback sometimes it’s just there for no reason.. Thanks for any info 😊💜
Recently I ran into the sister of a man who raped me 40 years ago, I couldn’t believe the emotional explosion, it was physically triggering Because of that experience, I got sober I hit a bottom and never went back. Do I need to do something, I never confronted him. I think he would deny it, but is it necessary to confront him to heal?
If I don’t feel my feelings, and go through them, I will not be able to grow and learn and recognize what is it that I need to work on with my therapist. I feel that people just do not know HOW to feel their feelings. As much as some people have no idea how to drink, and do not know the chemistry of their own body, that just get hangover after hangover. Please be careful with this type of straightforward advice, as some people will just repress their stuff further more, just to have it even worse when they implode. Thank you 🙂
Sometimes I see my cats sleeping peacefully on the bed (and even licking each other), ethereal orange creatures swaddled in the bed sheets, and they look so sweet and perfect that I start crying, and then I tell them, “you are the only good things in my life, how did I get so lucky to have such wonderful cats?” I can’t go out in public after that. I guess it’s time to man up…
What if they do this, they say you deserve a proper response but they aren’t thinking clearly and need time. But they take 2 plus week to reply or don’t at all. They assume on their timeline enough time has ‘passed’ for it to no longer be a topic. It is hurtful and I can’t possibly be more patient or understanding than I have been. I end up putting myself aside to abide him
Being stuck on a busy train with people shouting, talking loudly and having to hear every single persons conversation. The bright lights, smelly people is just torture to my senses and I feel the need to cry. The things suggested are not going to help. And sometimes having an outburst or crying is a good thing, holding it in is usually the problem