How to Recognize When You Are Emotionally Dysregulated and Learn to Regulate Your Emotions
A post about Recognizing Emotional Dysregulation and How To Regulate Your Emotions.
In the last post, I wrote about Emotional Dysregulation and the Window of Tolerance. If you didn’t have a chance to read that yet, I recommend you start there before continuing with this piece.
I grew up in a household with two undiagnosed Autistic parents. They got married when they were 20 & 21 years old. I was born almost immediately afterwards. Neither of my parents grew up in a healthy environment, and neither of them were taught how to deal with their emotions. Raising children is stressful, and when my parents would get emotionally dysregulated they didn’t know how to deal with it. A lot of the sensory overload from kids just being kids would overstimulate them. One of my parents would react with intermittent rage episodes, while the other would withdraw & isolate, sleeping whenever possible to try to recalibrate their energy.
I don’t bring this up to air my family’s dirty laundry publicly, but I mention it because I never learned anything about how to deal with emotions, especially negative ones! It was common practice in my family to ignore boundaries (I didn’t even know what these were!) and force people to do things they didn’t want to do because that’s what “normal” people do. Everyone in my household just followed the expectations of society—ignoring their own needs—only later to explode/implode from being unable to sustain those expectations.
For a long time, I was only able to recognize negative emotions because a lot of times they came with violent actions that I wanted to avoid. I became hypervigilant to the tiniest movements or changes in voice or tone to try to anticipate when the explosive moments would occur. I didn’t have a clue what Emotional Dysregulation was or that there existed ways to regulate your own emotions. Through the examples I witnessed in my youth, I thought it was just common practice for people to shove all their feelings down inside until they could no longer be ignored. Once you were at max capacity, the resentments & unprocessed emotions would overflow into volatile episodes. After these incidents, there was never any acknowledgement of them either. There were no apologies, no seeking of forgiveness for any wrongdoing, because there was no admitting that what had happened was “wrong” in any way.
When I was in middle school and high school, I tried to get help with the situation. I reached out to numerous counselors and social workers and “authority” figures to try to get someone to care about what was happening in my house. Not only did this not help, I was punished repeatedly once my parents were contacted. Eventually, (after my “acting out” could no longer be ignored) I had a counselor at school I could talk to, and I saw a therapist elsewhere who diagnosed me with PTSD. Over the next twenty years, I saw many different mental health professionals off and on. Some of them were helpful; some of them were harmful. I acquired diagnoses of Clinical Depression and Anxiety Disorder, but if anyone ever brought up Autism Spectrum Disorder or Emotional (Dys)Regulation, I don’t recall it. I learned about them on my own beginning in my late 30s.
When I feel like torturing myself, I think about how my life could have been different if certain things had happened. A large one of these examples is when I ponder How would my life have been different if my parents knew about Emotional (Dys)Regulation? If they had the tools and resources to regulate themselves and passed them down to their children… It is but a foolhardy thought experiment because there is no real way to determine the answer. But now that I know about it, I can use the knowledge I’ve obtained to help myself, and I can share what I’ve learned with others in the hopes that it can help them too!
Step 1: Recognize when you are Emotionally Dysregulated
This is the hardest part for me. There are many times when I do not realize until way after the fact that something impacted my emotions, my mood, and my actions. I’ve found that the near-constant self-reflection I do will ultimately be able to get to the root of the matter, but it can take time to process A) What happened B) Why I reacted the way I did C) If that reaction aligns with my true feelings D) How I wished I had responded differently. Just like any new habit you are trying to form, it will take time and practice to refine this.
Some of the ways that help me reflect on my emotional state to practice being able to determine when I am emotionally dysregulated in the moment are also suggested recommendations for regulating your emotions:
Journaling: Even just keeping a daily log of activities without introspective entries can help you notice patterns. If every time you see your Grandmother you end up fighting with your partner, you’ll quickly notice that visiting your Grandmother is a trigger and your emotional dysregulation manifests in starting an argument with your partner on the ride home. (Real example from my life.) The habit of writing in a journal will also help you create space for reflection.
Meditation: I have to listen to guided meditations because if I leave it up to just my brain, I’ll be off on a tangent immediately without the ability to refocus on the outside voice speaking. When I meditate, my thoughts will wander. As I practice learning that thoughts aren’t facts and are just fleeting ideas ebbing and flowing in my head, I find it becomes easier to push out the ones I don’t want to focus on. When a thought keeps circling back, it can be a sign that I need to process something around it. Like if I keep thinking about how I was testy with my mom on our video chat because I got impatient and irritable when we were struggling with technology together, and she doesn’t actually deserve to be treated like that, I will eventually recognize that I can file that away for future reference to try to catch myself in the moment next time and not react like that. I can also apologize to my mom for the way I acted.
Talking with Friends: When you have a trusted confidant with whom you can be yourself, just conversing about your day-to-day existence can hep you process it. Sometimes your friend’s response will also help shine a light on the underlying issue you haven’t consciously recognized yet. One time when I was talking to my friend/coworker about how I just had to suffer and push through to accomplish something and be done with it, they were like, “I don’t know how you manage to do all that without any rest or accommodations.” That offhanded reply made something in my brain click when I realized that I don’t manage. I just ignore my own feelings and needs for the benefit of someone else and end up needing time & rest to recover. And then I thought, “Why don’t I allow myself rest and accommodations when I need them?” which has opened up so much for me that I will need to expand on this in a later piece!
Taking a Moment to Fill Your Needs: Whether you need to schedule in times to step away from your hyperfocus or just pivot on the spot when you realize you’re overstimulated, creating space for rest, hydration, and/or just doing nothing for a bit can not only give yourself a break but also give yourself time to check in to see how you’re feeling. I have multiple alarms throughout the day to help me remember to eat and drink water. Ensuring my base needs are being met consistently can help me avoid becoming dehydrated or hangry or otherwise negatively impacting my emotions. When I attend the monthly virtual hangout, I set an alarm to cue me on when to stand up as I’ve found that sitting for the entire time doesn’t work for my body, and when my body is struggling I am not as capable in regards to maintaining my mood, emotions, and energy with the group during this event.
Setting a Sleep Schedule: This is a real struggle for me. I currently go to bed around 2-3am, and depending on what I have on the calendar, I wake up between 9-11am. I know that with my nighttime meds, my body’s ideal amount of sleep is 9.5 hours, but you might have noticed that there is no way I am getting that with my current bedtime and wake-up times. My partner, on the other hand, consistently goes to bed around 10-10:30pm and wakes up at 6am. His body has become accustomed to that and in turn, his moods are more stable because he’s not sleep-deprived. While I will most likely never adhere to the hours he keeps, and I am unsure if I will ever keep a steady sleep schedule, I do still try to prioritize getting a full 9.5 hours on the days I can. When I don’t get enough sleep, it can greatly impact my mood, and if I am not getting enough sleep for an extended period of time, my quality of life definitely suffers.
Get Moving: I am still trying to prioritize movement in my life as it no longer comes naturally to me. Exercise as an activity has rarely been my first choice. Like, if I have the option between working out or writing or reading or watching something, I don’t often choose to get on the treadmill or go for a walk. As such, my life becomes sedentary. The real kick though is that when I am sedentary for too long, I can feel the energy build up inside of me. Usually this shows up as a sudden urge to rearrange or organize something while I simultaneously can no longer focus on whatever activity I was doing. However, I recently went through a couple months of Physical Therapy where I had to show up to an appointment once a week and do exercises on my own at home. During this time frame, I recognized that my body felt better and in turn, I mentally felt better too. To try to keep myself accountable to doing it on my own now, I try to remind myself that creating the habit of physical movement will help release the energy building inside me before it comes out in a way where I have less control in the outcome.
Seeking Help: This is where people will suggest Therapy. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is the one most recommended for Emotional Regulation. I’m fairly agnostic about therapy in the sense that I don’t know if it will help someone else, but I have learned a lot on my own on top of what I have gained through my previous therapies. It is possible that you will need to try different types and various people until you find someone that will help more than harm. I don’t subscribe to the belief that you have to go pay someone with a special piece of paper in order to work through your stuff, but I do know that when there is an outside person holding me accountable I’m more likely to keep doing the work that needs to be done on myself.
If you are really struggling with self-awareness, an inability to recognize your own feelings, emotions, and moods, and/or your actions when emotionally dysregulated are causing harm to yourself and others, it may behoove you to find someone with further training and experience that could guide you as you explore ways to change.
The crux of effectively enacting Emotional Regulation techniques is that there has to be some awareness of your emotions and acknowledgment when they are dysregulated. If you can get to that point, you can choose how you respond while actively avoiding previous harmful behavior. Easier said than done! I’ve found that I am better about recognizing my emotions in real time when I am not stressed out, but when I am already overstimulated it is easier to rely on the muscle memory responses I would prefer to avoid.
In my ideal life, I would Emotionally Regulate like this:
Something happens.
I recognize that I am having strong emotions as it is happening.
Pause the situation. (This part is not always possible, and if I am in an unsafe situation may not be advisable.)
Try to determine what emotions I am having…
…and why I am having them.
Validate my thoughts and feelings about the situation. (It is normal to have heightened thoughts and feelings in times of dysregulation, but when I am actively regulating my emotions, I get to choose how to respond instead of allowing my unwanted behaviors to hold dominion.)
Decide what actions are warranted to achieve my desired outcome.
In situations where I am unable to Pause, I may not be able to regulate my emotions until a later time, but if I can actively try to channel my emotions in a way that lessens harm to myself and those around me, I will still consider it to be an improvement over just allowing myself to react impulsively.
In future posts, I will be sharing specific techniques for Emotional Regulation exercises and activities. They overlap with the Somatic Trauma Healing I have been exploring.
Thanks for joining me on this journey!
~The Overstimulated
