Do you feel like you get lost in your emotions? If you've been told by people that you have big
emotions or you seem to react emotionally more than what's normal, today, I want to talk about
emotional dysregulation. Emotional dysregulation is a component to many of the mental illnesses
that people struggle with such as bipolar or maybe borderline personality. However, this emotional
dysregulation which I’m going to refer to as ED, not to be confused with erectile dysfunction.
When you struggle with emotional dysregulation, it basically has several components and although you
may see them accompanying a mental illness, sometimes they just happen, and culture can
influence. Let's face it, many people in Italy would be thought to have big emotions. They talk
with their hands. They talk a lot. Many times, when they talk, spit will come out. They get
very engaged with their conversation. They seem to use their verbal skills more. Whereas, if you
grew up in japan or one of the Asian countries, you may be quieter, more polite-minded. Maybe you
resist talking or talking loudly. So, this can be a culture thing and it's important you know that
because you don't want to cast judgments on someone, especially if you're online dating or
Zoom dating or something. Whatever that is, you really need to be with them and see how they
react, but these are some symptoms that you may have it and the reason it's important to diagnose
it is if you have it, you know something's wrong and people don't gather to you very
much. They may be a little standoffish or intimidated. They're trying to take in your
emotions. If you have emotional dysregulation, you oftentimes are so lost in your emotion that you
can't make sense of things. You're confused and that's why it's important to know if you really
have it. So, angry outbursts you can go from being fine to a rage in a matter of seconds,
breaking into tears often. This is a very common one and one that can be mistaken for other things,
but it's important that if they have other components besides this one,
freaking out all the time and being called too dramatic, accusing, blaming people of things
before you have the facts, breaking things when you're upset, not just feeling sad but feeling
suicidal, feeling abandoned by others all the time because others may abandon you because they don't
know how to deal with your emotions, lashing out at others before you can stop yourself,
feeling abandoned by others. As I said, oftentimes, because you did overreact
or people say you overreacted feeling misunderstood by those around you,
so you feel lonely. A lot of times, if you have this illness, your mood swinging rapidly in ways
other people find confusing and this is one of the main problems. Socially, this starts affecting you
because others don't know what's going on. It's important that we understand that if it's part
of a mental illness, you can get it medicated. You can get it medicated anyway, but it's not always
advised and if you have this, you may wonder what caused it. Maybe you don't remember having
it at a certain age. You remember developing it at a later age due to something else. Well,
these are the things that can cause it. It does things some people think that it's biological. So,
there would be some chemical thing that happened to you in utero that you were born with this.
You could have had a birthing trauma or there could have been a medication that your mother
took or something that would have caused it. It could be a result of the way you were parented.
Sometimes, when parents are avoidant or toxic or abusive, that child will grow up
being overly emotional with everything and the reason is they no longer have a safe boundary of
what's appropriate or what's not childhood trauma as well. As you know, any kind of other trauma
for example, head injuries. If you have a concussion, many times, it can turn into
this. When I had my cerebral aneurysm that busted in 2003, they watched me for this. They warned
me about this because whenever you have any kind of assault to the brain, it makes sense that you
could also follow with this with your emotional center not being under your control anymore.
What happens to the person who has it? This is what usually brings them to therapy. They have
dramatic and exhausting romantic relationships. They're unable to have good friends. They have a
low self-esteem. As I told you, they struggle with loneliness. They oftentimes have money problems
because they get too emotional at work, so they can't work. They can't function if somebody
says something to them that catches them off guard. They'll stew and think about it all day.
Criminal charges or incarceration, suicidal thinking or self-harm.
Many of the self-cutters that you see or you may be dating, they have this emotional dysregulation
and I’m talking about it once again because it's a component of other possible mental illnesses,
but it doesn't get treated as such because many times, it's lumped in with the disorder and that's
unfortunate because this is a separate entity and just talking to the person can really help. Talk
therapy in fact works for this quite well. If the person is motivated to go and talk to a therapist,
you may be wondering which mental illnesses does it mostly align with? I’m going to go
through the most common ones, but once again, I want to caution you that it can exist on its own
as well and can be something medical that you add. Let's face it, if I would have gotten this from my
cerebral aneurysm, I wouldn't have had any. There was nothing that happened to me up to that point,
so that would have caused it. The medical cause I still could have treated with therapy though it
aligns closely with borderline and personality disorders and I think that if you're aware of
that and this being one small component of that, getting this ED under control may be worth your
while because it may be the part that's giving you the most trouble with that emotional or that
mental illness classification attention deficit hyperactive disorder once again that could have
been caused by something that happened in utero, but it's still important that if you're aware of
this, you take responsibility and get the help you need. Post-traumatic stress syndrome, if you
saw you were almost killed, or you saw someone else killed or something happened to your child
when your child was young. That totally just scared you for life. These things can make
you overreact, especially in that situation or a situation that is resembling it, smells like it,
or the sounds are like it. It tends to go hand in hand with addictive disorders as well. So,
alcoholics, drug addicts. Many times, they'll overreact. I know alcoholics.
They'll talk about a mean drunk. That's because they can't control their emotions and therefore,
they get abusive. They get loud. They're mean. They're caustic and they hurt a lot of people,
so other issues that can be connected to ED, but aren't necessarily. So, bipolar disorder,
depression, eating disorders. Many times, when you're getting treatment for eating disorders,
it's like a whole onslaught of emotional dysregulation. You're so upset, and you just
overreact everything. It's because you're gaining control and finding out what's underneath that
starving and sleep problems. So, what do you do if you have this or you're suspicious?
I would go to my physical doctor first. I would talk to them. I would get have them get me in with
a psychologist. A psychologist can test you. They can assess you. They can see what you're
going through at that point. Let them help you get a psychiatrist so you can get medicated or
just continue with therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy can work with this, so you don't have to
let this problem destroy your life, but you do need to take responsibility and get help.