What is Emotional Dysregulation?
In the last blog post, we talked about the importance of emotional regulation to all aspects of our lives.
In this post, let’s find out what emotional dysregulation is and what we can do to learn how to regulate, so we can live a healthy life, emotionally, mentally, physically and even, spiritually.
Unpleasant and intense emotions are a natural part of life. You may feel anger, sadness, anxiety and these emotions are a universal part of the human experience. These emotions are not good or bad; they just are.
What happens if these feelings come too much, too quickly and just feel too difficult to manage?
Many of us experience emotional dysregulation. If you have real trouble regulating your emotions and getting back to ‘baseline’ after getting really anxious or angry, you may have emotional dysregulation.
What is Emotional Dysregulation?
Here is a great explanation (Cleveland Clinic):
Emotional dysregulation is a brain-related symptom that means you have trouble managing your feelings and emotions. It’s often a sign of conditions that affect your brain or differences in how your brain developed or works today. It’s usually not a serious condition except when severe. Many of the causes are treatable.
It’s a mental health symptom that involves trouble controlling your emotions and how you act on those feelings. To those around you, your emotions and reactions will seem out of proportion compared to what you’re reacting to. It’s similar and closely linked to executive dysfunction.
When you manage or regulate your emotions, you can steer and direct how you feel and react. Most people learn how to do this as children and develop it as they get older. It’s also a key part of being adaptable or resilient to challenges, learning and more.
Emotional Dysregulation may include:
-finding it challenging to deal with stress
-becoming easily frustrated by small inconveniences or annoyances
-mood shifts
-impulsive behavior
-persistent irritability or anger between outbursts
-high anxiety
-mania or hypomania
-trouble with emotions interfering with how you pursue goals and achieve desired outcomes
-being prone to losing your temper
-depression
-angry outbursts
-feelings of shame
-substance abuse
-self-harm
-suicidal thoughts/actions
Emotional dysregulation is also called affect dysregulation or just dysregulation. It’s when you can’t manage your emotional responses. It’s reacting instead of responding.
It’s difficult to self-soothe when you feel sad, angry or overwhelmed and hard to return to your ‘baseline’ or ‘normal’ (for you), after feeling these feelings.
With this emotional dysregulation, your nervous system becomes dysregulated and you may enter a ‘fight, flight, freeze or fawn’ response. This is how your body responds to threats. With emotional dysregulation, your body may enter these states even when there’s no real danger present. This can lead to trouble controlling your emotional responses, anxiety, depression.
Over time, this condition may interfere with your quality of life, social interactions, and relationships, personal, at work or at school.
Some people with emotional dysregulation try to decrease their distress with harmful behaviors:
-self-harm
-impulsivity
-substance abuse
-suicidal ideation or actions
SIGNS & SYMPTOMS of Emotional Dysregulation:
-anxiety
-severe depression
-high levels of shame and anger
-substance misuse
-high-risk sexual behaviors
-eating disorder
-self-harm
-suicidal thoughts or attempts
-extreme perfectionism
-conflict in interpersonal relationships
CAUSES of Emotional Dysregulation:
-1)Early childhood trauma.
These are traumatic events experienced during the early years of a person’s life. This is considered the most critical developmental period in human life.
-2)Child neglect.
This is a form of abuse by caregivers, that results in the deprivation of a child’s basic needs, including adequate supervision, health care, clothing, housing, as well as other emotional, physical, social, educational and safety needs.
-3)Traumatic brain injury.
This is a brain dysfunction caused by an outside force, often a violent blow to the head.
-4)Chronic low levels of invalidation.
This happens when a person’s thoughts and feelings are rejected, ignored, or judged.
This occurs more often than you may think, sometimes intentionally and sometimes, unintentionally.
If you feel that you may have experienced this invalidating behavior, it’s worth getting some professional help.
It seems that when you experience emotional dysregulations, there’s a reduction in certain neurotransmitters’ ability to function as “emotional brakes,” causing you to stay in a prolonged “fight or flight” response. In this state, your pre-frontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for emotional regulation, goes offline or is turned ‘off’ during times of heightened stress.
-5)People who are Neurodivergent. Emotional dysregulation may be common with ADHD: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and with autism spectrum disorder.
CONDITIONS related to Emotional Dysregulation: (WebMD)
-PTSD: this is often caused by witnessing or experiencing a life-threatening traumatic event. Symptoms may include: severe emotional dysregulations, flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, uncontrollable negative thoughts, emotional numbing and dissociation.
-Frontal lobe disorders: when the brain’s frontal lobes are damaged (ie: injury), it can cause emotional dysregulation and greater emotional sensitivity and reactivity and difficulty returning to a baseline emotional level (stable).
-Borderline personality disorder: this affects the way you think and feel about yourself and others, which causes problems in daily life functioning. It includes: self-image issues, difficulty managing emotions and behavior, and a pattern of unstable relationships.
-Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD): this causes repeated unwanted thoughts, obsessions, or urges to do something over and over again. This disruption of the thinking (prefrontal) part of the brain may cause significant emotional dysregulation.
CARE & TREATMENTS for Emotional Dysregulation:
It may include one or more of these:
-1)Counseling/Psychotherapy.
It may be CBT: cognitive behavioral therapy, which may combine: acceptance, mindfulness and emotional regulation.
It may be more psychoanalytic therapy or a combination of different therapies.
-2)Medications: antidepressants.
See a physician, so you can determine which antidepressant will work well for you. It can be well worth trying, if only for a little while, to help take the edge off.
-3)Diet & Exercise.
Counseling/therapy, medication, along with a healthy diet and exercise can be very helpful. In this way, you get enough nutrients and vitamins to help support your physical health, while supporting a healthy mood and self-care routines.
-4)Emotional regulation.
It helps to see a mental health professional, to help you reduce extreme reaction to emotional ‘triggers’ by teaching you better control and expression of your feelings. A combination of skill-building and interventions that are helpful in developing more consistent emotional stability are quite helpful.
-5)Underlying conditions.
Check with your doctor for any possible underlying physical illness, that may cause mood-altering behavior (ie: thyroid).
-6)Psychological tools/Supportive Care:
An experienced mental health provider/coach can help you to learn and practice practical psychological tools that promote more self-esteem, so that you can gain a greater sense of control over your emotions (ie: taking a new course, completing school, getting on-the-job training and new body/mind/brain habits).
Emotional dysregulation can not be self-treated.
If you don’t treat Emotional Dysregulation, you can have Complications:
When it’s moderate or severe, it can have major negative effects on your life. It can disrupt many areas of life including:
-friendships & relationships
-education
-career
-if it causes you to be aggressive or violent, this can lead to legal repercussions.
-some may engage in self-harm or suicidal behaviors.
Many of us have challenges with emotional dysregulation. It is strongly recommended that you get help from a mental health provider, and/or a healthcare professional, so you can get on the path to better emotional regulation, which will improve your life in so many ways: in relationships, at work and at home.
You are not alone! You deserve your best life!
Please feel free to reach out and contact me @www.gigiarnaud.com, for information, referrals……or more.
With smiles & love,
Dr Gigi
PS: Join me @www.gigiarnaud.com and BOOK your free clarity call. I look forward to meeting you.