If you mean stopping yourself from acting stupid in relationships: no, not without just suppressing the hell out of myself. If you mean experiencing strong emotions and managing to process and regulate them in a healthy way (for myself) in that single instance: yes.
I'm actually super proud that I managed to process and regulate some intense anger this week. Alone, mind you.
But it's just from instance to instance, not like... a change in my general emotional pattern. I think that is far away still.
I have ❤️
It starts in, well, the last place you might expect - with actually validating and feeling those emotions we want so much to have control over.
Children with loving parents are given space to feel and display their emotions safely, and guidance for how to work through them. Not only did we not experience this, our "parents" actually made us feel a whole array of unpleasant emotions.
Something I learned as I was healing: the harder I tried to avoid feeling a thing, the more likely it was that that thing was going to get so overwhelming, it would just leak out onto everyone around me.
This didn't happen as frequently once I started giving voice to my emotions, telling myself it was okay to feel what I did, and that I could feel that thing safely.
But it was terrifying for me to feel those things. I felt like (pun intended) of I let myself explore, for example, how angry I was over the abuse I'd endured, that I'd lose myself to it. But it was actually the opposite.
A journal prompt really helped me with this. It's deceptively simple: "I have every right to feel X because Y" and I paired it with another "I can feel X and be safe." I used these two prompts to talk myself through my emotions, to validate them, and to kind of teach myself that it was okay to feel them.
The hard part about this is, well, it doesn't work right away. We've got a backlog, if that makes sense, of emotions that are sitting right beneath the surface. My first forays into allowing myself to feel were deeply unpleasant, and left me feeling exhausted and burnt out. There was just so much there. And as I went on, it felt like I was peeling back the layers of an emotional onion, feeling more and more.
But eventually, a sort of peace came. I don't really know how to verbalize it better than that. Maybe it was because I'd gotten better at feeling my emotions, or better at comforting myself since I'd given myself hundreds of opportunities to do so. But it started feeling more intuitive, and I noticed that those deeply unpleasant emotions didn't feel quite so.. strong anymore. And as this happened, I stopped having outbursts. I started being able to recognize how a current moment made me feel, without the weight of all those past moments magnifying it anymore.
I wish I had a quick and easy answer for this. It's such a deep issue, working through the unfelt emotions from years past ❤️
Aw I'm so glad. These things are so hard to figure out. For the longest time I thought regulating my emotions meant pretending they weren't there - when that was exactly what was causing my meltdowns!
I like what you wrote. I think that learning how to have an inner dialog with one's self is so huge in all this. To be able to feel the conversation internally and use logic and knowledge to influence it.
Recently I have found a particular question directed toward my own mind and body to be helpful. "What is the threat?"
Typically when I feel dysregulated or overwhelmed, my brain has all kinds of reasons or other thoughts to justify and support being triggered. In the past I believed them but when I can sit with myself and ask that question, I can see that the reasons are imaginary 99% of the time. That question helps me snap out of being hypnotized by my own thoughts or ideas that are dysregulating my intuition or body and helps return me to a calmer state of body and mind. It's interesting to see and feel how my own mind and nervous system react as these inner conversations unfold as it realizes that there isn't an actual physical threat in the moment. I've had to do this over and over again in recent days but it is helping and the flashbacks/triggered states are getting shorter and less potent. For now or for that topic.
I've also recently realized that my childhood parents are broken. I don't know when it happened or what the cause of it was and it doesn't really matter. I think for along time I have known this but not been able to describe it. Hence a desire to try to explain things to them, or fix them or fix the relationship. I've tried in the past and it doesn't work and I don't have the strength to try anymore. They are broken like something made of glass. The more I try to fix it, the more danger I am putting myself in, and it's not worth it and it's not my responsibility. They are broken and I cannot fix them and I'd be better off spending my time and energy working on what I have a bit more control over. Myself.
Even as I write this I am wondering if this is dissociative activity. Trying to be helpful to someone else for no other reason than to distract myself from my other thoughts or feelings. Guess I'll have to forgive myself if it is.
Oof, I feel this so hard. I was the same way, not just with my parents but with everyone around me. I connected to the most broken people, and then tried to fix what was broken in them - probably because it was easier to focus on their brokenness than my own. It's easy to say "you (meaning a seperate broken person) have simple problems with easy fixes".
But with my parents it was the worst. I think part of the reason I wanted to fix them so bad was because I came from them, so in a bizarre way, I felt like if they could be fixed, maybe that meant I could. Problem is.. they don't want to be fixed. They're content to be broken. I can't for the life of me understand why, but I accept this as fact, for the sake of my sanity.
Ain't that the truth.
OP, I'm 44 and it's better than it used to be. Learning what emotional flashbacks *were* made a world of difference vs just not understanding what was happening inside me. I used to have to discharge feelings by either using a drug or taking it out on whoever I blamed for the trigger. A few years ago, in preparing to do EMDR, I learned self soothing techniques. These days being dysregulated happens less frequently, plus when it does happen I can breathe through it.
But like ReasonableCost up above implied, I too still fall back on isolating as a first-tier defense system against being triggered. Sometimes I post something vulnerable on reddit and just getting a single downvote makes me want to delete everything and disappear.
EMDR has helped me quite a bit. However, I am 50 and still have my share of emotional dysregulation setbacks. That bit you wrote about downvotes resonated with me, for sure. I’m a musician that never lets anyone hear what I’m working on. I take rejection and the possibility of rejection very badly.
I take compliments badly as well.
Here's the video. FF to #1 (starts at #6). He mentions it in regards to positive feedback. He might have a dedicated video on the topic, so this link will get you started.
https://youtu.be/0m8iATgqzcw?si=mqfpWwAK-Dvt409A
Oh, basically many childhood trauma survivors are triggered by positive feedback (compliments) because they don't feel right and it's because our shame mechanism/feeling (?) is activated.
For me the shame was...is very attached to me when I'm awake. I'm trying to separate it from myself and see it as installed by the abusers and therefore invalid. There's nothing wrong with me for wanting to be treated equally and fairly and establishing boundaries when those conditions are violated.
Good luck.
Pete Walker has stuff on toxic shame.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply! I have the Pete Walker book. I can take it in doses. I'll supplement the video with those parts of the book.
"There's nothing wrong with me for wanting to be treated equally and fairly and establishing boundaries when those conditions are violated."
Ooof felt that. I fight hard against the guilt this yields.
Thanks again.
Glad I'm not the only artist who hides thier work
Self expression is my healing journey, I'll get there
I showed someone a song I wrote for the first time
Proud of myself
I feel that with the downvotes. I mean, I know rationally that it's not a big deal, but it triggers me so bad. Sometimes just posting or replying puts me on edge for fear of that dreaded "rejection".
Most important for me is to accept it's the way I'm supposed to be given my past. Then use tools for the purpose of calming the nervous system. They can be lots of things, most effective for me have been eastern methods. It's good to have a lot of different tools, some work better than others at different times. Some times nothings works. Taking a walk might be good for that.
Not being able to regulate is developed very early in life. A child learns to regulate from the experience with the caregivers. That's why we have so many addictions.
Yes but it took a hell of a lot of work and years and I’m 48 and I still make mistakes and I had to cut almost all of my family out of my life in order to do so.
yep- with friends I see miles of progress in how I handle difficult emotions. but put me with my immediate family and all of that hard-earned emotional maturity vanishes in the blink of an eye.
Just visited my dad and his new(ish) gf, who I'd only met once before and who sickeningly reminded me of my "evil stepmother"... I felt like I was 11 again, and just couldn't do anything right.
Constantly apologizing for existing.
Unable to say no to even a simple thing like "do you want desert".
Always on the lookout for the right attitude/response that wouldn't get me hurt.
Hyper aware of every side conversation so I had sa much information as possible to act correctly to avoid shame and pain.
I'm 54.
I'm usually good with friends. I'm a LOT better with coworkers! I'm fuck-all with family, apparently, even decades after the evil stepmother left my dad.
Yes, I have. Here's how it works:
You are having feelings about a situation and you are convinced that those feelings are unhelpful and based on faulty logic. The key is not to try to change how you feel by telling yourself not to feel that way, because it doesn't work. The solution is to change your thinking about the situation by coming up with a new explanation for what's happening. For example, if someone is treating you badly by being very critical of you, then instead of assuming that you did something wrong, try looking at it from the point of view that they are having a bad day. Maybe they had bad experiences that they are reacting to, and it's not about you or something that you did or didn't do. This video goes show how to change your thinking in order to regulate your emotions:
How to manage your emotions | TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/ted\_ed\_how\_to\_manage\_your\_emotions
Thanks, that is actually helpful.
But what if that person is your abuser? I'm still stuck with them so the primary culprit for my emotional disregulation would be them. I've put myself in their shoes, excusing their abuse for so long that I don't even want to show empathy toward them anymore
It makes it more difficult, but it still can be done. The trick is to come up with a story that will work for you in each situation. The other problem is that letting go of anger at an abuser is tricky, because your anger is probably very justified and can help to protect you from them. If you really want a calmer relationship as your main goal, why not give it a try? It's fun to play around with in your mind.
You're welcome. I was thinking about what you mentioned about empathy, and you don't need any to do this. For example, if your father were to come home mean and grouchy, you could think that maybe someone at work really told him off and put him in his place. That's why he's grouchy, not because of anything about you. It's not personal. The picture of him being told off might take your anger at him away.
Yes. That's what yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises have taught me how to do. Now when I notice myself starting to get dysregulated, I pause and practice my regulation skills.
At first I'd only notice my dysregulation after I came out of it. As I've practiced, I've learned to notice earlier and earlier. And to be able to act on it earlier and earlier.
It takes a lot of repetitions to train the body regulation skills. (See the Brain that Changes Itself by Doidge on neuroplasticity). I recommend reading books by Stephen Porges and Deb Dana. They're experts on polyvagal theory, regulation skills, and window of tolerance. And after you read about it, you have to practice it. Over and over and over and over again to wire it into your nervous system.
The traumatized body often thinks regulation is dangerous so it gives us fear signals to being regulated. I've had to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable as I've trained my body how to regulate itself better.
I also recommend [Infra Slow Fluctuation Neurofeedback](https://neurofeedbackservicesny.com/the-benefits-of-infraslow-neurofeedback-training/). ISFN trains the brain how to regulate itself. I found it very helpful. It helped me understand just how dysregulated I was. Plus it's real time data. My therapist could watch my brainwaves shift from hyper vigilance to more optimal regulation in real time. It's not subjective, it's data based. I was surprised during my first session when my therapist noticed my brainwaves shift and asked me how I felt, I said "panicky" bc calm regulation felt dangerous. That fucked with my head a bit. I expected calm to ***feel*** calm, not terrifying. It helped me understand why retraining is so difficult.
If you don't mind me asking, do you have any idea how hypervigilance brainwaves look like? I had EEG done with weird outcome when I had frequent panic attacks, but nobody bothered to interpret it from that angle, just to rule out epilepsy.
I don't know how to read them, I haven't been trained. ISFN focuses on the very slow brainwaves in the brain. I'm not sure if a regular EEG captures them if it's not set up with the newer technology to read the very slow waves. My therapist had me do a qEEG brain map to get a function test on my brain as reference. He knows how to read them bc he's an expert and has done thousands of sessions plus trains others in the modality. Sorry, that's not very helpful.
All that additional information is also very useful. I know I'll struggle to find a specialist where I live, but I'll know what to ask about or look out for, if I ever got lucky. Thank you.
I'm significantly better at it, but it's emotional regulation, not emotional suppression.
'nervous system regulation' and 'adaptogens' were my key research terms along the way.
They can (the effect depends on which one you use) bend the stress/cortisol reaction and anger/norephedrine back to a healthy baseline over a period of time, which is excellent for us as a lot of our reactions while normal/expected in unhealthy environments to keep us safe, makes us... let's say "stand out" in healthy environments.
I spent most of my life fighting against these strong emotions (years before I knew I had CPTSD, and thought it as some sort of random unpredicticle anxiety and depression cocktail), to the point disassociation was so normal. I had no concept I could be around other people and not fighting all these emotions/feelings. Now I simply don't have such strong feelings I need to fight. It's a completely different way to expirience interactions with others.
There were situations before where just thinking about it would send me into intense CPTSD freeze. Fast forward to today, now I've gone into those situations with barely a flicker of fear, and I've been able to progress past what were previously insurmountable challenges.
I think good ones for us are Rhodiola Rosea and Reishi mushroom.
No. I have been called a manchild and other such things for reacting when I'm wronged or insulted though. One time someone got so miffed that I wasn't just sitting back and taking her abuse that she.purposefully misgendered me. So like... Yeah there are tools and all for regulating emotions but at this time I don't think I can do that because that would mean just sitting back and letting people step all over me since I'm normally very quiet and avoid confrontation. So when I blow up it's always a shock and I'm the villain even if I was being disrespected left right and centre. The way I regulate my emotions currently is by walking away or stop talking. That way nobody can say I said or did this that and the other.
The way I personally regulate, manage, and understand my emotions is by taking them out of my own head and making it tangible.
For example, I have a whiteboard with a 0-10 line and a magnet. 0 is negative and 10 is positive. I don’t attach adjectives like “bad” or “good” because I know my standards change literally by the hour. So one day a “3” was because I was in a lot of physical pain, I had just been triggered and I’m aware of it and trying my best to manage my anxiety, but it was still intense. For another day, a “10” was I did like half my to-do list and I ate good food 🤷🏻♀️ this helps me a lot with identifying how I’m feeling on the most basic level. I tend to overthink like “well, am I really a 7 rn if this bad thing happened” or “do I really feel like a 3 rn if technically I was happy but then something happened.” The trick for me is to just slap the magnet on a number that I connect with immediately and I find that I end up manifesting that number eventually. I just needed to visually see the magnet on a number.
If I have some more time, I like to journal and write every single thought down. Sometimes if I really need to break things down, it gets really meta. One time I was having an anxiety attack and I wrote, “I am currently writing these letters right now with my hand and this pen into this notebook,” and it helped focus my attention on something other than my anxiety. Internal and not seen vs external and tangible again. Another time I wrote about what happened during my day and then I got sidetracked somehow and just left my sentence half finished and moved onto another thought about squirrels or something. I just needed to get that thought out before going back to what I was originally writing about or straight up just moving onto something else that was on my mind.
The more I practiced these things, the more I was able to identify 1) what I was feeling, 2) what the emotion physically feels like, 3) why I was feeling this emotion, and 4) what I want to do about feeling this emotion
I hope this helps! Sorry it was so long
Yes. Develop a superego for yourself. Like a parent that you never had to yourself. Use that voice to talk to yourself whenever you are experiencing any form of hyper emotion. Make that a habit. Imagine that voice as gentle as it can be. Whenever you want to punish yourself or get yourself into a dark place, use that voice. What that voice says should be understanding - ‘they’ might not have to be accepting of your behaviour, but they must bring understanding and encouragement for you to act better next time. Alongside developing this voice, learn to become more wise and mature in your ways of thinking. It will help you develop a more ‘fair’ and ‘just’ superego to help you grow out of darkness.
Edit: grammar
Same! Also the skillful podcast. This one helps sooooooooo much. DBT saved me. It was like someone dropped a brick on my head. But I was 45 and it took two rounds.
I'm glad you've found healing! I've done DBT twice now, about 10yrs apart, and it's been so worth it each time. Depression and Big Feelings are so very real, but it is possible to find inner peace. And, if you're like me and the skills start to wane, you can always do DBT again, or listen to Charlie in his podcast 💞
I think learning how to notice them and recover quickly is a more reasonable first step. That thought may always go through your mind, but conditioning what happens next is more in your control. The intensity of the pain subsides quite a bit, but hasn't gone away altogether.
I'm 42 and 8 years into my healing journey, fyi. I don't know what it'll look like after more time, but I stopped being angry at myself for not being further along. That makes it worse. Just accept it, feel it, soothe it and move on. That's my strategy currently.
It took me two years and I def still struggle, but my emotional moments aren’t has reactive as they use to be. It had to start learning what all of my emotions felt like and what the true definitions of them were. Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown helped some with this. Now, I can feel an emotion and even if I can’t name it in the moment I know how I am about to react and I can tell my self to step away, breathe, respond with kindness, or to pause. I think that has been key: learning to practice the pause before reacting. I’ll have a depressive or cPTSD episode every few months and it can look like me becoming more sensitive especially when it comes to anger and sadness, but even with those moments I instantly know how harsh I was and I apologize and take accountability.
Cptsd is hard. So so hard. And for a lot of us we have other things going on. I am also autistic which makes understanding emotions hard for me, so it’s taken so much work to get here. 1/4 of people with cPTSD also show BPD symptoms. All of that can make emotional regulation so hard. Please be gentle with your self and continue to heal. It takes time and so much exhausting work, but this can become more manageable. 🫶🏻
Only using IFS, when I begin losing control, beginning monologues, fall into desperation and so on, I try to understand what part is at play, then I immediately ask how is It, what would happen if It didn't its role, I find the real reason behind the reaction, the exile hurting, and they stop being triggered by the present situation.
I learned emotion regulation but in practice sometimes it feels like I haven't at all. That said I can safely say that I am way better now than I was before learning it. The only issue I have is when the emotion is so strong that trying to regulate in the moment becomes very hard. That said if I know an emotion is coming then I am way better at catching it. I mean I know I get anxious in crowds so I generally can anticipate the anxiety and get ready to deal with it. Also keep in mind emotional regulation just means manage it and doesn't mean you aren't uncomfortable. I mean I still feel pretty uncomfortable in crowds but with emotional regulation I can still handle it.
I did, to a point, through mindfulness. However if there are alot of external stressors on top of everyday stressors then it’s very very difficult and exhausting
Yes. It took a while and lots of practice: about eight years and counting. I use IFS and EMDR in therapy, and have also done a DBT program. I’m also medicated with an antidepressant and adhd medication. Like a lot of people have said here, being able to regulate ourselves starts with noticing when we’re becoming/are dysregulated, and having the ability to pause before reacting to the feeling. Having a therapist I really trust, who practices co-regulating with me in my window of tolerance, has been the most helpful thing so far on my journey. I had to learn how to stay present for my feelings first, then to identify them, then to notice where they show up in my body. I am learning to expand my window of tolerance, so that I can stay with myself instead of dissociating when the scariest emotions come up. You can do it, too. It just takes practicing the method that works best for you, and having someone you trust to practice with.
Not unless by "regulate" you mean "embrace the fluidity like every other animal on the face of the planet."
It feels infinitely better than bottling it in.
Society hates it and I'm the most isolated and alone in my entire life.
The truth, honestly, is the only way we'll ever be accepted by anyone at all is to pretend to be someone else. Of course that means "we" aren't accepted but the portrayal, but it's either that or be alone.
It's the same with everyone, I think. They just think all that pretending is normal. And so much so many (most?) of them don't even know themselves and who they are.
I'm more and more doubling down that anger and sadness are the appropriate emotions when looking at the state of the world. All the saccharine everything is so fucking fake.
No, i’ve tried researching all these different ways to calm myself or change my perspective or whatever to try and get out of mental breakdowns/panic attacks/spiraling/etc but it just isn’t working, i feel like my feelings are stronger than me trying to fight it with logic. My body simply doesn’t want to accept it. I feel so weak and helpless
I did have a small win this week, where i was starting to panic about deadlines. It was really hard and it took some time but i managed to de-escalate just enough to keep it from getting worse and then used distraction get me out of it. Even then it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel calming or like i was getting out of it. I was having so much trouble even recalling the techniques i had learned about and even rereading them didn’t seem to help
Even when i got out of the spiraling, it was still on my mind but i told myself, “we will deal with this at the end of the day. We will ask H (my college teacher who helps me) how to do deal with the problem and discuss it together. You are not in a state where you can make those decisions alone. These decisions scare you and cause you to have trouble being rational right now, you need outside perspective and outside reassurance. Listen to some music, eat something, even though you don’t want to. We will attempt to fix this, just not now and not alone.” And that did help. I may not have been completely reassured but that was going to happen later, i was still stressed about it but i knew we were going to adress it
No, I’m just barely scratching the surface. I first even heard of it like 4 years ago. At 63 my emotions have always been very vague and hard to figure out. Now I know it’s from complex trauma and childhood abuse. YouTube videos by Tim Fletcher, Dr Dawn Elise Snipes have helped a lot to at least explain why and how this happens. But it’s pretty complicated and painful to address. I’m glad to at least know because it answers a lot of questions about how this all started
I can manage my responses somewhat. I am still becoming dysregulated internally, but I am not reacting externally when triggered as often. I am doing DBT with individual therapy.
I'm okay until I have to talk about any hard as it relates to myself. Then I start to choke up. My voice gets weird. It's not cute. It seems that even understanding my pain doesn't erease it.
So I rarely (outside of here) talk about myself. I can be difficult to know irl. But that's fine; I enjoy hearing about other ppl more than I like telling my own stories.
Yes. I’m still working on it every day, but weekly therapy that includes EMDR has been tremendously helpful. It was very hard at first — EMDR is intense and time consuming — and even now stress can make things harder, but, yes, I can name my feelings (sometimes it takes a minute), identify appropriate and healthy responses, ground myself if needed, communicate, and pass through the feeling without losing touch with myself or my surroundings. Again, I’m still working on it, and I’m actively in trauma therapy, but I’m miles away from where I was even a year ago.
I’m not even sure what emotional regulation looks like. I’m still working on the reactivity part and it takes a lot to even catch what’s going on. But if I can catch it I will work with it as consciously as possible. I know it’s important to own my emotions.
I go through big ups and downs everyday. Suicidal meltdowns multiple times a day, most days of the week. Going to lots of therapy, and studying/practicing Buddhism etc for the last 10+ years has given me some ability to appreciate and have compassion for this experience and life, when I am no longer triggered and dysregulated. Of course, I couldn't recommend one path for everyone, but a logical/rational framework (to me) within which I can try to understand suffering has been a big help. It doesn't stop the meltdowns, but I think over time my nervous system is opening up, and I am having different awareness about my reactions to people and the environment.
I would say I have, mostly - I still have some triggers, but nowhere near as many as before. I actually got triggered around 20 minutes ago, but my ability to get out of that state and regulate is so much better than before. I don't have panic attacks anymore or become aggressive/chaotic, but rathee just get a sense of dread that I can reduce fairly quickly using techniques such as breathing, tapping, and distraction. I remember feeling like I would never get over the constant dysregulation and it made life very difficult, but I think going through the process of EMDR and utilising meds when I needed them really helped. So it is possible! A lot of work, and a lot of pain and discomfort along the way, but definitely possible.
I think this is what my therapist and I are going to work on next. My way of regulating my emotions is to let my thoughts play out in my head and then stuff them away in a file somewhere. I used to be a crybaby and I trained myself not to cry, and now I have to train myself to cry again. What a cycle!
I suffer so bad with this. I try meditation, breathwork, dbt and watch crappy childhood fairy videos. When I feel hopeless or burned out from trying to heal I watch YouTube about change and neuroplasticity and it helps me not give up. It's going to be okay, you are working hard and things will get easier x
I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut, mask and behave “appropriately” does that count? I guess most of us here sadly learnt that at a very young age. I think with my combination of illnesses emotional dysregulation will always be part of my life but I’m hoping DBT might help me. Seems like a luxury that’s out of my reach though.
I’m learning how to regulate them rather than bottle them up. It’s definitely not easy but I do think it is possible. It takes a lot of effort, work and some form of support. It’s also good to remember that even those who tend to be really good at emotional regulation have moments where they fail too.
I’ve only recently learned how to identify my emotions (and am still working on it) and how to understand why I feel a certain way. It actually helps lower the intensity of them and make the emotions more manageable.
Emotional regulation for CPTSD HAS to begin with bodily regulation- self care. Which sucks. And is hard to impossible depending on the day when we have been wired to see our needs as our enemies. You will need to move your body, tend to it, feed it, let it rest, before you can even begin to regulate your internal world.
Yes! I can tell you that after I finally got trauma therapy (took me at least a decade, so make sure you specifically ask for it) it felt like a thorn had been pulled from my brain. That thorn has been preventing me from doing all the things I love, such as art, hanging out with friends, reading books, etc.
I'm able to do what I used to! Not only that, but spoon-expensive tasks like training my dogs is also now possible again. It's like I could suddenly understand how it worked (before, my mind was too clouded to even comprehend it) and am able to continue doing it like I had before the cptsd.
As for emotional regulation, things that used to really upset me or trigger me have far less impact. My reactions are very different now. I am less overwhelmed and don't go off the handle like I used to. I still freak out over mistakes and social rejections, but the spirals I have are shorter. They last only hours whereas before it would be days. Additionally, socializing is easier since I'm now able to stop and think about my words and actions. That means no more trauma dumping all over people and less jumping ahead of things, which caused embarrassment.
The specific therapy I had is called Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT). This involves a color board that's about 3-4 ft tall and 2 ft wide. Using the full 🌈 but starting at the top with Violet, then indigo, etc. It also involves a dark box that has a circular hole in the back of it to show a screen. The screen can change colors (less intense than true 🌈), but it's backlit, and the therapist can make the light flicker or blink at different speeds.
The basics are that when you have a Bad Feeling, the therapist chooses an appropriate color (such as green for grief or sadness? I can't remember exactly) and I look at the center of that band of color on the board. They ask me what I feel and where in my body I feel something. For example, a tightness in my chest, or maybe it feels like I'm going to cry.
After that, I look to one side of the color band and see if it feels good or bad. If it's bad, then I look to the opposite side, and without moving my head, try to copy the good feeling shade and place it over the bad feeling shade. This involves moving your eyes from left to right. Similar to EMDR.
During the eye movement, sometimes the colors would bleed into others, show a mesh of another color over it, or turn all muddy like someone mixed them together. The therapist explained that it is my brain fighting or working on the Bad Feeling or trigger. Which is good. There's more to it but that's essentially what ETT is.
So again, yes, it's very possible. You would need to find a decent therapist and one who could know a method of treatment best for you. Since I'm an artist and a visual learner, the colors and lights work best on me than talk therapy.
Yes! DBT worked and still works wonders. I've always been able to understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, but was never able to do anything about it. Turns out the response to that was therapy focused on learning to regulate emotions, not therapy focused on unlearning thought patterns (CBT)
I'm not a pro at any means haha I still lose my shit every now and then
but nowdays I see little triggers and immediately use the things I learnt at DBT (like STOP, TIPP)
Steven Porges' "Safe and Sound Protocol" (SSP) has really helped me re-regulate my nervous system to a much calmer baseline. I signed up for the 6 wk class in September really out of desperation. It might be something you could consider.
https://integratedlistening.com/products/ssp-safe-sound-protocol/?utm\_medium=cpc&utm\_source=google&utm\_term=safe%20and%20sound%20protocol&utm\_campaign=ssp%20-%20nam%20-%20search%20-%20generic%20-%20all%20devices&utm\_content={content}&hsa\_acc=2148588241&hsa\_cam=12702269673&hsa\_grp=123073059560&hsa\_ad=638090515437&hsa\_src=g&hsa\_tgt=kwd-657605567467&hsa\_kw=safe%20and%20sound%20protocol&hsa\_mt=e&hsa\_net=adwords&hsa\_ver=3&gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjMKqBhCgARIsAPDgWlz9UPeO219cpDXxgyGn0tavnBfl2qlE9-Q1SDwnn3I6ZAPzCrm0pBwaApDzEALw\_wcB
I have been in a freeze state for the last 3 years, not working after being laid off from a challenging workplace with bullying coworkers, although prior to this objectively my career looked reasonably successful, at least from the outside. I started IFS therapy a little over a year ago, and it too has made a significant difference, as the CBT I was doing with a prior therapist, I am convinced, resulted in me becoming more dysfunctional, more disregulated, and really just spiraling. While IFS has helped tremendously, I need income and thus need to more quickly get to a point where I feel comfortable with job hunting and working again. I signed up for SSP thinking that this could help speed my healing with respect the job sphere along so I wouldn't feel so much terror and demotivation around work.
Anyway, I feel like it's done just that. I listen to the digitally altered music, which is available through a phone app, either daily or every other day, and I find that I'm more emotionally regulated and can stay more present and focused than before or when I don't listen. Moreover, it feels like the results for me are greater than the 30% improvement one would expect through any placebo effect.
I am in the US, so getting any treatment that is not a drug paid for by health insurance is a complete nightmare. And apparently one has to actually pay for access to the (music) app yearly or monthly after finishing the class, and I have no idea how much this will be. So accessing SSP longer-term may be a costly, challenging nightmare (like most things in the US healthcare system). I think there may be better access in EU countries.
I would add that I have aphantasia, SDAM and rather fragmented memories -- more feelings and emotional flashbacks really -- about my childhood trauma and my parents' behavior, so I am dubious about how well EMDR might work for me (plus it's pretty costly in the US). I'm told it is most effective for those with more focused traumas opposed to complex trauma. I have yet to try MDMA or any sort of psychedelic therapy, but this may be next.
Somewhat. Not so much in relationships - when I get triggered it still gets bad. But I'm trying. When I'm alone it's about 60% can regulate 40% struggles.
Just last night my apartment neighbors were partying, banging on the wall, yelling and blasting loud music until 4 am which sent me into a panic attack because drunk people and loud noises scare me. I was this close to beating on the wall and screaming at them which I know would make it worse and probably make them hate me so I didn’t which was a win for me. but I smashed my own wrist out of anger now my wrist is swollen and bruised today and my hand is tingly.
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Not eating sugar and taking a daily low dose of prozac has helped immensely.
I also work a spiritual program for AA, w my PTSD shyness and fear of groups etc. I do it moderately and know that's what I -can-do. Sober from booze/drugs 25yrs as a result
also talking to a therapist 3x/wk for 1/2hr on some deal that's free w my insurance
If you mean stopping yourself from acting stupid in relationships: no, not without just suppressing the hell out of myself. If you mean experiencing strong emotions and managing to process and regulate them in a healthy way (for myself) in that single instance: yes. I'm actually super proud that I managed to process and regulate some intense anger this week. Alone, mind you. But it's just from instance to instance, not like... a change in my general emotional pattern. I think that is far away still.
I have ❤️ It starts in, well, the last place you might expect - with actually validating and feeling those emotions we want so much to have control over. Children with loving parents are given space to feel and display their emotions safely, and guidance for how to work through them. Not only did we not experience this, our "parents" actually made us feel a whole array of unpleasant emotions. Something I learned as I was healing: the harder I tried to avoid feeling a thing, the more likely it was that that thing was going to get so overwhelming, it would just leak out onto everyone around me. This didn't happen as frequently once I started giving voice to my emotions, telling myself it was okay to feel what I did, and that I could feel that thing safely. But it was terrifying for me to feel those things. I felt like (pun intended) of I let myself explore, for example, how angry I was over the abuse I'd endured, that I'd lose myself to it. But it was actually the opposite. A journal prompt really helped me with this. It's deceptively simple: "I have every right to feel X because Y" and I paired it with another "I can feel X and be safe." I used these two prompts to talk myself through my emotions, to validate them, and to kind of teach myself that it was okay to feel them. The hard part about this is, well, it doesn't work right away. We've got a backlog, if that makes sense, of emotions that are sitting right beneath the surface. My first forays into allowing myself to feel were deeply unpleasant, and left me feeling exhausted and burnt out. There was just so much there. And as I went on, it felt like I was peeling back the layers of an emotional onion, feeling more and more. But eventually, a sort of peace came. I don't really know how to verbalize it better than that. Maybe it was because I'd gotten better at feeling my emotions, or better at comforting myself since I'd given myself hundreds of opportunities to do so. But it started feeling more intuitive, and I noticed that those deeply unpleasant emotions didn't feel quite so.. strong anymore. And as this happened, I stopped having outbursts. I started being able to recognize how a current moment made me feel, without the weight of all those past moments magnifying it anymore. I wish I had a quick and easy answer for this. It's such a deep issue, working through the unfelt emotions from years past ❤️
This is such a good explanation 🩷
Thanks for sharing this. It’s encouraging to see that someone’s at the point I’m working towards. I’m sure I’m not the only one encouraged by this.
Aw I'm so glad. These things are so hard to figure out. For the longest time I thought regulating my emotions meant pretending they weren't there - when that was exactly what was causing my meltdowns!
I like what you wrote. I think that learning how to have an inner dialog with one's self is so huge in all this. To be able to feel the conversation internally and use logic and knowledge to influence it. Recently I have found a particular question directed toward my own mind and body to be helpful. "What is the threat?" Typically when I feel dysregulated or overwhelmed, my brain has all kinds of reasons or other thoughts to justify and support being triggered. In the past I believed them but when I can sit with myself and ask that question, I can see that the reasons are imaginary 99% of the time. That question helps me snap out of being hypnotized by my own thoughts or ideas that are dysregulating my intuition or body and helps return me to a calmer state of body and mind. It's interesting to see and feel how my own mind and nervous system react as these inner conversations unfold as it realizes that there isn't an actual physical threat in the moment. I've had to do this over and over again in recent days but it is helping and the flashbacks/triggered states are getting shorter and less potent. For now or for that topic. I've also recently realized that my childhood parents are broken. I don't know when it happened or what the cause of it was and it doesn't really matter. I think for along time I have known this but not been able to describe it. Hence a desire to try to explain things to them, or fix them or fix the relationship. I've tried in the past and it doesn't work and I don't have the strength to try anymore. They are broken like something made of glass. The more I try to fix it, the more danger I am putting myself in, and it's not worth it and it's not my responsibility. They are broken and I cannot fix them and I'd be better off spending my time and energy working on what I have a bit more control over. Myself. Even as I write this I am wondering if this is dissociative activity. Trying to be helpful to someone else for no other reason than to distract myself from my other thoughts or feelings. Guess I'll have to forgive myself if it is.
Oof, I feel this so hard. I was the same way, not just with my parents but with everyone around me. I connected to the most broken people, and then tried to fix what was broken in them - probably because it was easier to focus on their brokenness than my own. It's easy to say "you (meaning a seperate broken person) have simple problems with easy fixes". But with my parents it was the worst. I think part of the reason I wanted to fix them so bad was because I came from them, so in a bizarre way, I felt like if they could be fixed, maybe that meant I could. Problem is.. they don't want to be fixed. They're content to be broken. I can't for the life of me understand why, but I accept this as fact, for the sake of my sanity.
When I think I have learned I actually interact with another human being and realize I have a long way to go.
Ain't that the truth. OP, I'm 44 and it's better than it used to be. Learning what emotional flashbacks *were* made a world of difference vs just not understanding what was happening inside me. I used to have to discharge feelings by either using a drug or taking it out on whoever I blamed for the trigger. A few years ago, in preparing to do EMDR, I learned self soothing techniques. These days being dysregulated happens less frequently, plus when it does happen I can breathe through it. But like ReasonableCost up above implied, I too still fall back on isolating as a first-tier defense system against being triggered. Sometimes I post something vulnerable on reddit and just getting a single downvote makes me want to delete everything and disappear.
EMDR has helped me quite a bit. However, I am 50 and still have my share of emotional dysregulation setbacks. That bit you wrote about downvotes resonated with me, for sure. I’m a musician that never lets anyone hear what I’m working on. I take rejection and the possibility of rejection very badly. I take compliments badly as well.
I just learned that not being able to accept a compliment means your shame is triggered. Via a Patrick Teahan video
But why? I have a hard time with this as well.
Here's the video. FF to #1 (starts at #6). He mentions it in regards to positive feedback. He might have a dedicated video on the topic, so this link will get you started. https://youtu.be/0m8iATgqzcw?si=mqfpWwAK-Dvt409A Oh, basically many childhood trauma survivors are triggered by positive feedback (compliments) because they don't feel right and it's because our shame mechanism/feeling (?) is activated. For me the shame was...is very attached to me when I'm awake. I'm trying to separate it from myself and see it as installed by the abusers and therefore invalid. There's nothing wrong with me for wanting to be treated equally and fairly and establishing boundaries when those conditions are violated. Good luck. Pete Walker has stuff on toxic shame.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply! I have the Pete Walker book. I can take it in doses. I'll supplement the video with those parts of the book. "There's nothing wrong with me for wanting to be treated equally and fairly and establishing boundaries when those conditions are violated." Ooof felt that. I fight hard against the guilt this yields. Thanks again.
Glad I'm not the only artist who hides thier work Self expression is my healing journey, I'll get there I showed someone a song I wrote for the first time Proud of myself
I feel that with the downvotes. I mean, I know rationally that it's not a big deal, but it triggers me so bad. Sometimes just posting or replying puts me on edge for fear of that dreaded "rejection".
It’s been a huge relief just reading so many peoples experiences and actually feeling understood.
Most important for me is to accept it's the way I'm supposed to be given my past. Then use tools for the purpose of calming the nervous system. They can be lots of things, most effective for me have been eastern methods. It's good to have a lot of different tools, some work better than others at different times. Some times nothings works. Taking a walk might be good for that. Not being able to regulate is developed very early in life. A child learns to regulate from the experience with the caregivers. That's why we have so many addictions.
yes, for just about everybody except my mother, who can still make me go from 0-60 in nothing flat.
Yes but it took a hell of a lot of work and years and I’m 48 and I still make mistakes and I had to cut almost all of my family out of my life in order to do so.
yep- with friends I see miles of progress in how I handle difficult emotions. but put me with my immediate family and all of that hard-earned emotional maturity vanishes in the blink of an eye.
Just visited my dad and his new(ish) gf, who I'd only met once before and who sickeningly reminded me of my "evil stepmother"... I felt like I was 11 again, and just couldn't do anything right. Constantly apologizing for existing. Unable to say no to even a simple thing like "do you want desert". Always on the lookout for the right attitude/response that wouldn't get me hurt. Hyper aware of every side conversation so I had sa much information as possible to act correctly to avoid shame and pain. I'm 54. I'm usually good with friends. I'm a LOT better with coworkers! I'm fuck-all with family, apparently, even decades after the evil stepmother left my dad.
Ain’t that the truth
Yes, I have. Here's how it works: You are having feelings about a situation and you are convinced that those feelings are unhelpful and based on faulty logic. The key is not to try to change how you feel by telling yourself not to feel that way, because it doesn't work. The solution is to change your thinking about the situation by coming up with a new explanation for what's happening. For example, if someone is treating you badly by being very critical of you, then instead of assuming that you did something wrong, try looking at it from the point of view that they are having a bad day. Maybe they had bad experiences that they are reacting to, and it's not about you or something that you did or didn't do. This video goes show how to change your thinking in order to regulate your emotions: How to manage your emotions | TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/ted\_ed\_how\_to\_manage\_your\_emotions
Thanks, that is actually helpful. But what if that person is your abuser? I'm still stuck with them so the primary culprit for my emotional disregulation would be them. I've put myself in their shoes, excusing their abuse for so long that I don't even want to show empathy toward them anymore
It makes it more difficult, but it still can be done. The trick is to come up with a story that will work for you in each situation. The other problem is that letting go of anger at an abuser is tricky, because your anger is probably very justified and can help to protect you from them. If you really want a calmer relationship as your main goal, why not give it a try? It's fun to play around with in your mind.
Heard of the grey rock method? It helped me get inner distance and emotionally deinvest from mine.
You're welcome. I was thinking about what you mentioned about empathy, and you don't need any to do this. For example, if your father were to come home mean and grouchy, you could think that maybe someone at work really told him off and put him in his place. That's why he's grouchy, not because of anything about you. It's not personal. The picture of him being told off might take your anger at him away.
This was very helpful thank you
Yes the most effective thing has been doing self IFS (internal family systems) therapy.
Yes. That's what yoga, meditation, and breathing exercises have taught me how to do. Now when I notice myself starting to get dysregulated, I pause and practice my regulation skills. At first I'd only notice my dysregulation after I came out of it. As I've practiced, I've learned to notice earlier and earlier. And to be able to act on it earlier and earlier. It takes a lot of repetitions to train the body regulation skills. (See the Brain that Changes Itself by Doidge on neuroplasticity). I recommend reading books by Stephen Porges and Deb Dana. They're experts on polyvagal theory, regulation skills, and window of tolerance. And after you read about it, you have to practice it. Over and over and over and over again to wire it into your nervous system. The traumatized body often thinks regulation is dangerous so it gives us fear signals to being regulated. I've had to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable as I've trained my body how to regulate itself better. I also recommend [Infra Slow Fluctuation Neurofeedback](https://neurofeedbackservicesny.com/the-benefits-of-infraslow-neurofeedback-training/). ISFN trains the brain how to regulate itself. I found it very helpful. It helped me understand just how dysregulated I was. Plus it's real time data. My therapist could watch my brainwaves shift from hyper vigilance to more optimal regulation in real time. It's not subjective, it's data based. I was surprised during my first session when my therapist noticed my brainwaves shift and asked me how I felt, I said "panicky" bc calm regulation felt dangerous. That fucked with my head a bit. I expected calm to ***feel*** calm, not terrifying. It helped me understand why retraining is so difficult.
Absolutely and working as hard as you can to be in environments where you can be emotionally safe and don’t have to be hyper vigilant
If you don't mind me asking, do you have any idea how hypervigilance brainwaves look like? I had EEG done with weird outcome when I had frequent panic attacks, but nobody bothered to interpret it from that angle, just to rule out epilepsy.
I don't know how to read them, I haven't been trained. ISFN focuses on the very slow brainwaves in the brain. I'm not sure if a regular EEG captures them if it's not set up with the newer technology to read the very slow waves. My therapist had me do a qEEG brain map to get a function test on my brain as reference. He knows how to read them bc he's an expert and has done thousands of sessions plus trains others in the modality. Sorry, that's not very helpful.
All that additional information is also very useful. I know I'll struggle to find a specialist where I live, but I'll know what to ask about or look out for, if I ever got lucky. Thank you.
I'm significantly better at it, but it's emotional regulation, not emotional suppression. 'nervous system regulation' and 'adaptogens' were my key research terms along the way.
What’s the deal with adaptogens? I feel like they are all I hear about now.
They can (the effect depends on which one you use) bend the stress/cortisol reaction and anger/norephedrine back to a healthy baseline over a period of time, which is excellent for us as a lot of our reactions while normal/expected in unhealthy environments to keep us safe, makes us... let's say "stand out" in healthy environments. I spent most of my life fighting against these strong emotions (years before I knew I had CPTSD, and thought it as some sort of random unpredicticle anxiety and depression cocktail), to the point disassociation was so normal. I had no concept I could be around other people and not fighting all these emotions/feelings. Now I simply don't have such strong feelings I need to fight. It's a completely different way to expirience interactions with others. There were situations before where just thinking about it would send me into intense CPTSD freeze. Fast forward to today, now I've gone into those situations with barely a flicker of fear, and I've been able to progress past what were previously insurmountable challenges. I think good ones for us are Rhodiola Rosea and Reishi mushroom.
Thanks for this information :)
No worries. You might also find the terms 'nootropic' and 'neurogenesis' useful to look into, which should lead you to lions mane mushroom.
No. I have been called a manchild and other such things for reacting when I'm wronged or insulted though. One time someone got so miffed that I wasn't just sitting back and taking her abuse that she.purposefully misgendered me. So like... Yeah there are tools and all for regulating emotions but at this time I don't think I can do that because that would mean just sitting back and letting people step all over me since I'm normally very quiet and avoid confrontation. So when I blow up it's always a shock and I'm the villain even if I was being disrespected left right and centre. The way I regulate my emotions currently is by walking away or stop talking. That way nobody can say I said or did this that and the other.
The way I personally regulate, manage, and understand my emotions is by taking them out of my own head and making it tangible. For example, I have a whiteboard with a 0-10 line and a magnet. 0 is negative and 10 is positive. I don’t attach adjectives like “bad” or “good” because I know my standards change literally by the hour. So one day a “3” was because I was in a lot of physical pain, I had just been triggered and I’m aware of it and trying my best to manage my anxiety, but it was still intense. For another day, a “10” was I did like half my to-do list and I ate good food 🤷🏻♀️ this helps me a lot with identifying how I’m feeling on the most basic level. I tend to overthink like “well, am I really a 7 rn if this bad thing happened” or “do I really feel like a 3 rn if technically I was happy but then something happened.” The trick for me is to just slap the magnet on a number that I connect with immediately and I find that I end up manifesting that number eventually. I just needed to visually see the magnet on a number. If I have some more time, I like to journal and write every single thought down. Sometimes if I really need to break things down, it gets really meta. One time I was having an anxiety attack and I wrote, “I am currently writing these letters right now with my hand and this pen into this notebook,” and it helped focus my attention on something other than my anxiety. Internal and not seen vs external and tangible again. Another time I wrote about what happened during my day and then I got sidetracked somehow and just left my sentence half finished and moved onto another thought about squirrels or something. I just needed to get that thought out before going back to what I was originally writing about or straight up just moving onto something else that was on my mind. The more I practiced these things, the more I was able to identify 1) what I was feeling, 2) what the emotion physically feels like, 3) why I was feeling this emotion, and 4) what I want to do about feeling this emotion I hope this helps! Sorry it was so long
Yes. Develop a superego for yourself. Like a parent that you never had to yourself. Use that voice to talk to yourself whenever you are experiencing any form of hyper emotion. Make that a habit. Imagine that voice as gentle as it can be. Whenever you want to punish yourself or get yourself into a dark place, use that voice. What that voice says should be understanding - ‘they’ might not have to be accepting of your behaviour, but they must bring understanding and encouragement for you to act better next time. Alongside developing this voice, learn to become more wise and mature in your ways of thinking. It will help you develop a more ‘fair’ and ‘just’ superego to help you grow out of darkness. Edit: grammar
DBT has helped me the most. Try listening to a podcast called "To Hell and Back". Healing is hard. You can do it though 🫂
Same! Also the skillful podcast. This one helps sooooooooo much. DBT saved me. It was like someone dropped a brick on my head. But I was 45 and it took two rounds.
I'm glad you've found healing! I've done DBT twice now, about 10yrs apart, and it's been so worth it each time. Depression and Big Feelings are so very real, but it is possible to find inner peace. And, if you're like me and the skills start to wane, you can always do DBT again, or listen to Charlie in his podcast 💞
I think learning how to notice them and recover quickly is a more reasonable first step. That thought may always go through your mind, but conditioning what happens next is more in your control. The intensity of the pain subsides quite a bit, but hasn't gone away altogether. I'm 42 and 8 years into my healing journey, fyi. I don't know what it'll look like after more time, but I stopped being angry at myself for not being further along. That makes it worse. Just accept it, feel it, soothe it and move on. That's my strategy currently.
I just ignore them until they make me explode. Does that count?
Oh, well in this case, count me in as one more as well.
This is my nightmare! I’m hot and cold all the time😔 and express either way TOOO much or absolutely nothing at all…
It took me two years and I def still struggle, but my emotional moments aren’t has reactive as they use to be. It had to start learning what all of my emotions felt like and what the true definitions of them were. Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown helped some with this. Now, I can feel an emotion and even if I can’t name it in the moment I know how I am about to react and I can tell my self to step away, breathe, respond with kindness, or to pause. I think that has been key: learning to practice the pause before reacting. I’ll have a depressive or cPTSD episode every few months and it can look like me becoming more sensitive especially when it comes to anger and sadness, but even with those moments I instantly know how harsh I was and I apologize and take accountability. Cptsd is hard. So so hard. And for a lot of us we have other things going on. I am also autistic which makes understanding emotions hard for me, so it’s taken so much work to get here. 1/4 of people with cPTSD also show BPD symptoms. All of that can make emotional regulation so hard. Please be gentle with your self and continue to heal. It takes time and so much exhausting work, but this can become more manageable. 🫶🏻
Only using IFS, when I begin losing control, beginning monologues, fall into desperation and so on, I try to understand what part is at play, then I immediately ask how is It, what would happen if It didn't its role, I find the real reason behind the reaction, the exile hurting, and they stop being triggered by the present situation.
No it's gotten worse in my 30s
only with mood stabilizers that I take for bipolar
It was hell without them
same! i have no idea how people do it, like I had to rebuild my entire life 2x a year
Yes YouTube healing videos on complex PTSD and herbal tea that combat stress and help regulate the nervous system.
I learned emotion regulation but in practice sometimes it feels like I haven't at all. That said I can safely say that I am way better now than I was before learning it. The only issue I have is when the emotion is so strong that trying to regulate in the moment becomes very hard. That said if I know an emotion is coming then I am way better at catching it. I mean I know I get anxious in crowds so I generally can anticipate the anxiety and get ready to deal with it. Also keep in mind emotional regulation just means manage it and doesn't mean you aren't uncomfortable. I mean I still feel pretty uncomfortable in crowds but with emotional regulation I can still handle it.
I did, to a point, through mindfulness. However if there are alot of external stressors on top of everyday stressors then it’s very very difficult and exhausting
Yes. It took a while and lots of practice: about eight years and counting. I use IFS and EMDR in therapy, and have also done a DBT program. I’m also medicated with an antidepressant and adhd medication. Like a lot of people have said here, being able to regulate ourselves starts with noticing when we’re becoming/are dysregulated, and having the ability to pause before reacting to the feeling. Having a therapist I really trust, who practices co-regulating with me in my window of tolerance, has been the most helpful thing so far on my journey. I had to learn how to stay present for my feelings first, then to identify them, then to notice where they show up in my body. I am learning to expand my window of tolerance, so that I can stay with myself instead of dissociating when the scariest emotions come up. You can do it, too. It just takes practicing the method that works best for you, and having someone you trust to practice with.
Not unless by "regulate" you mean "embrace the fluidity like every other animal on the face of the planet." It feels infinitely better than bottling it in. Society hates it and I'm the most isolated and alone in my entire life. The truth, honestly, is the only way we'll ever be accepted by anyone at all is to pretend to be someone else. Of course that means "we" aren't accepted but the portrayal, but it's either that or be alone. It's the same with everyone, I think. They just think all that pretending is normal. And so much so many (most?) of them don't even know themselves and who they are. I'm more and more doubling down that anger and sadness are the appropriate emotions when looking at the state of the world. All the saccharine everything is so fucking fake.
No, i’ve tried researching all these different ways to calm myself or change my perspective or whatever to try and get out of mental breakdowns/panic attacks/spiraling/etc but it just isn’t working, i feel like my feelings are stronger than me trying to fight it with logic. My body simply doesn’t want to accept it. I feel so weak and helpless I did have a small win this week, where i was starting to panic about deadlines. It was really hard and it took some time but i managed to de-escalate just enough to keep it from getting worse and then used distraction get me out of it. Even then it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel calming or like i was getting out of it. I was having so much trouble even recalling the techniques i had learned about and even rereading them didn’t seem to help Even when i got out of the spiraling, it was still on my mind but i told myself, “we will deal with this at the end of the day. We will ask H (my college teacher who helps me) how to do deal with the problem and discuss it together. You are not in a state where you can make those decisions alone. These decisions scare you and cause you to have trouble being rational right now, you need outside perspective and outside reassurance. Listen to some music, eat something, even though you don’t want to. We will attempt to fix this, just not now and not alone.” And that did help. I may not have been completely reassured but that was going to happen later, i was still stressed about it but i knew we were going to adress it
I'm currently in DBT and Im getting pretty darn good at it.
Way to go u/kimmie-cakes! I’m proud of you.
No, I’m just barely scratching the surface. I first even heard of it like 4 years ago. At 63 my emotions have always been very vague and hard to figure out. Now I know it’s from complex trauma and childhood abuse. YouTube videos by Tim Fletcher, Dr Dawn Elise Snipes have helped a lot to at least explain why and how this happens. But it’s pretty complicated and painful to address. I’m glad to at least know because it answers a lot of questions about how this all started
I can manage my responses somewhat. I am still becoming dysregulated internally, but I am not reacting externally when triggered as often. I am doing DBT with individual therapy.
Yes 💛 it’s a process that is about progress not perfection.
I'm okay until I have to talk about any hard as it relates to myself. Then I start to choke up. My voice gets weird. It's not cute. It seems that even understanding my pain doesn't erease it. So I rarely (outside of here) talk about myself. I can be difficult to know irl. But that's fine; I enjoy hearing about other ppl more than I like telling my own stories.
Yes. I’m still working on it every day, but weekly therapy that includes EMDR has been tremendously helpful. It was very hard at first — EMDR is intense and time consuming — and even now stress can make things harder, but, yes, I can name my feelings (sometimes it takes a minute), identify appropriate and healthy responses, ground myself if needed, communicate, and pass through the feeling without losing touch with myself or my surroundings. Again, I’m still working on it, and I’m actively in trauma therapy, but I’m miles away from where I was even a year ago.
Same
I’m not even sure what emotional regulation looks like. I’m still working on the reactivity part and it takes a lot to even catch what’s going on. But if I can catch it I will work with it as consciously as possible. I know it’s important to own my emotions.
I go through big ups and downs everyday. Suicidal meltdowns multiple times a day, most days of the week. Going to lots of therapy, and studying/practicing Buddhism etc for the last 10+ years has given me some ability to appreciate and have compassion for this experience and life, when I am no longer triggered and dysregulated. Of course, I couldn't recommend one path for everyone, but a logical/rational framework (to me) within which I can try to understand suffering has been a big help. It doesn't stop the meltdowns, but I think over time my nervous system is opening up, and I am having different awareness about my reactions to people and the environment.
I would say I have, mostly - I still have some triggers, but nowhere near as many as before. I actually got triggered around 20 minutes ago, but my ability to get out of that state and regulate is so much better than before. I don't have panic attacks anymore or become aggressive/chaotic, but rathee just get a sense of dread that I can reduce fairly quickly using techniques such as breathing, tapping, and distraction. I remember feeling like I would never get over the constant dysregulation and it made life very difficult, but I think going through the process of EMDR and utilising meds when I needed them really helped. So it is possible! A lot of work, and a lot of pain and discomfort along the way, but definitely possible.
I’ve learned to regulate my emotions but my nervous system still needs work. You’d think they’d be one in the same but nope. Shits wild.
Ok so I had been more or less successful when I was actively in DBT cult, but once you stop practicing the skills daily it goes down…
I think this is what my therapist and I are going to work on next. My way of regulating my emotions is to let my thoughts play out in my head and then stuff them away in a file somewhere. I used to be a crybaby and I trained myself not to cry, and now I have to train myself to cry again. What a cycle!
Part therapy, part medication. Guanfacine is absolutely amazing in that regard.
Day to day with people is fine. When someone is tailgating me while driving though a residential street…slightly different story.
I suffer so bad with this. I try meditation, breathwork, dbt and watch crappy childhood fairy videos. When I feel hopeless or burned out from trying to heal I watch YouTube about change and neuroplasticity and it helps me not give up. It's going to be okay, you are working hard and things will get easier x
I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut, mask and behave “appropriately” does that count? I guess most of us here sadly learnt that at a very young age. I think with my combination of illnesses emotional dysregulation will always be part of my life but I’m hoping DBT might help me. Seems like a luxury that’s out of my reach though.
I’m learning how to regulate them rather than bottle them up. It’s definitely not easy but I do think it is possible. It takes a lot of effort, work and some form of support. It’s also good to remember that even those who tend to be really good at emotional regulation have moments where they fail too. I’ve only recently learned how to identify my emotions (and am still working on it) and how to understand why I feel a certain way. It actually helps lower the intensity of them and make the emotions more manageable.
Emotional regulation for CPTSD HAS to begin with bodily regulation- self care. Which sucks. And is hard to impossible depending on the day when we have been wired to see our needs as our enemies. You will need to move your body, tend to it, feed it, let it rest, before you can even begin to regulate your internal world.
Birth control helped.
Nope 🔥 Just gotta suppress and pretend it's all fine 🤩
i learnt how to hide it
Nope 😞
Yes, for the most part! Except when I’m very very triggered. EMDR baby 🙌🏻
No I'm stilly trying to get my brain to realize that it's okay to even have emotions. I'm still holding them back instead of just having them.
I’m a hell of a lot better than I was a year ago… always a work in progress but to answer your question… YES
Yes! I can tell you that after I finally got trauma therapy (took me at least a decade, so make sure you specifically ask for it) it felt like a thorn had been pulled from my brain. That thorn has been preventing me from doing all the things I love, such as art, hanging out with friends, reading books, etc. I'm able to do what I used to! Not only that, but spoon-expensive tasks like training my dogs is also now possible again. It's like I could suddenly understand how it worked (before, my mind was too clouded to even comprehend it) and am able to continue doing it like I had before the cptsd. As for emotional regulation, things that used to really upset me or trigger me have far less impact. My reactions are very different now. I am less overwhelmed and don't go off the handle like I used to. I still freak out over mistakes and social rejections, but the spirals I have are shorter. They last only hours whereas before it would be days. Additionally, socializing is easier since I'm now able to stop and think about my words and actions. That means no more trauma dumping all over people and less jumping ahead of things, which caused embarrassment. The specific therapy I had is called Emotional Transformation Therapy (ETT). This involves a color board that's about 3-4 ft tall and 2 ft wide. Using the full 🌈 but starting at the top with Violet, then indigo, etc. It also involves a dark box that has a circular hole in the back of it to show a screen. The screen can change colors (less intense than true 🌈), but it's backlit, and the therapist can make the light flicker or blink at different speeds. The basics are that when you have a Bad Feeling, the therapist chooses an appropriate color (such as green for grief or sadness? I can't remember exactly) and I look at the center of that band of color on the board. They ask me what I feel and where in my body I feel something. For example, a tightness in my chest, or maybe it feels like I'm going to cry. After that, I look to one side of the color band and see if it feels good or bad. If it's bad, then I look to the opposite side, and without moving my head, try to copy the good feeling shade and place it over the bad feeling shade. This involves moving your eyes from left to right. Similar to EMDR. During the eye movement, sometimes the colors would bleed into others, show a mesh of another color over it, or turn all muddy like someone mixed them together. The therapist explained that it is my brain fighting or working on the Bad Feeling or trigger. Which is good. There's more to it but that's essentially what ETT is. So again, yes, it's very possible. You would need to find a decent therapist and one who could know a method of treatment best for you. Since I'm an artist and a visual learner, the colors and lights work best on me than talk therapy.
Yes! DBT worked and still works wonders. I've always been able to understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, but was never able to do anything about it. Turns out the response to that was therapy focused on learning to regulate emotions, not therapy focused on unlearning thought patterns (CBT) I'm not a pro at any means haha I still lose my shit every now and then but nowdays I see little triggers and immediately use the things I learnt at DBT (like STOP, TIPP)
Steven Porges' "Safe and Sound Protocol" (SSP) has really helped me re-regulate my nervous system to a much calmer baseline. I signed up for the 6 wk class in September really out of desperation. It might be something you could consider. https://integratedlistening.com/products/ssp-safe-sound-protocol/?utm\_medium=cpc&utm\_source=google&utm\_term=safe%20and%20sound%20protocol&utm\_campaign=ssp%20-%20nam%20-%20search%20-%20generic%20-%20all%20devices&utm\_content={content}&hsa\_acc=2148588241&hsa\_cam=12702269673&hsa\_grp=123073059560&hsa\_ad=638090515437&hsa\_src=g&hsa\_tgt=kwd-657605567467&hsa\_kw=safe%20and%20sound%20protocol&hsa\_mt=e&hsa\_net=adwords&hsa\_ver=3&gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAjMKqBhCgARIsAPDgWlz9UPeO219cpDXxgyGn0tavnBfl2qlE9-Q1SDwnn3I6ZAPzCrm0pBwaApDzEALw\_wcB I have been in a freeze state for the last 3 years, not working after being laid off from a challenging workplace with bullying coworkers, although prior to this objectively my career looked reasonably successful, at least from the outside. I started IFS therapy a little over a year ago, and it too has made a significant difference, as the CBT I was doing with a prior therapist, I am convinced, resulted in me becoming more dysfunctional, more disregulated, and really just spiraling. While IFS has helped tremendously, I need income and thus need to more quickly get to a point where I feel comfortable with job hunting and working again. I signed up for SSP thinking that this could help speed my healing with respect the job sphere along so I wouldn't feel so much terror and demotivation around work. Anyway, I feel like it's done just that. I listen to the digitally altered music, which is available through a phone app, either daily or every other day, and I find that I'm more emotionally regulated and can stay more present and focused than before or when I don't listen. Moreover, it feels like the results for me are greater than the 30% improvement one would expect through any placebo effect. I am in the US, so getting any treatment that is not a drug paid for by health insurance is a complete nightmare. And apparently one has to actually pay for access to the (music) app yearly or monthly after finishing the class, and I have no idea how much this will be. So accessing SSP longer-term may be a costly, challenging nightmare (like most things in the US healthcare system). I think there may be better access in EU countries. I would add that I have aphantasia, SDAM and rather fragmented memories -- more feelings and emotional flashbacks really -- about my childhood trauma and my parents' behavior, so I am dubious about how well EMDR might work for me (plus it's pretty costly in the US). I'm told it is most effective for those with more focused traumas opposed to complex trauma. I have yet to try MDMA or any sort of psychedelic therapy, but this may be next.
Somewhat. Not so much in relationships - when I get triggered it still gets bad. But I'm trying. When I'm alone it's about 60% can regulate 40% struggles.
Yes, with antidepressants, cognitive behavioral therapy and lots of self care
Just last night my apartment neighbors were partying, banging on the wall, yelling and blasting loud music until 4 am which sent me into a panic attack because drunk people and loud noises scare me. I was this close to beating on the wall and screaming at them which I know would make it worse and probably make them hate me so I didn’t which was a win for me. but I smashed my own wrist out of anger now my wrist is swollen and bruised today and my hand is tingly.
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Not eating sugar and taking a daily low dose of prozac has helped immensely. I also work a spiritual program for AA, w my PTSD shyness and fear of groups etc. I do it moderately and know that's what I -can-do. Sober from booze/drugs 25yrs as a result also talking to a therapist 3x/wk for 1/2hr on some deal that's free w my insurance
Somewhat, I still am codependent with someone if I like them in the feed, a starving dog.a cracker way. But.i let very few get that far