By Alanna Hilbink

If you or a loved one experiences a lot of changes in mood or has trouble managing emotions, you may be dealing with emotional dysregulation. This term isn’t exactly one we hear a lot, so you may be wondering, What is emotional dysregulation? Learning about it, its symptoms, and what it can be indicative of, can help you find the right support for mental health and recovery.

What Is Emotional Dysregulation?

Emotional dysregulation is marked by big emotions that are disproportionate to a given situation. You may be overwhelmed by situations, by your responses to them, or by your feelings themselves. At other times, you may not be able to identify your emotions or their sources. Other symptoms of emotional dysregulation include the following:

• Mood swings
• Frequent anger, frustration, or irritation
• Impulsive choices or actions
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Substance use
• Behavioral addictions

Your emotional dysregulation can also get in the way of you connecting with others or holding jobs. It can even culminate in violence toward people, things, or yourself.

Our Willow House and Gentle Path at The Meadows Executive Director, Scott Davis, explains that those living with emotional dysregulation don’t have “a sense of calm,” and may appear to consistently look for “outside control of something,” whether with a person or situation. “They also tend to have attunement issues,” Davis says. “And when you talk about attunement, it means that everything happens at extremes.”

When you struggle with emotional dysregulation, things are out of balance, and that imbalance can get in the way of your health, happiness, and ability to live your life as you’d wish. And as you do your best to find equilibrium, you may turn to outside sources of control like drugs or alcohol, or to compulsive behaviors like eating disorders or sex addiction.

Emotional Dysregulation and Your Mental Health

Emotional dysregulation may look like a lot of other mental health concerns.  Davis reports that when it comes to dysregulation, “It’ll typically get labeled as borderline personality disorder or bipolar; it may be labeled in all these different ways.” While emotional dysregulation can be a sign of these or other mental health issues like ADHD and PTSD, it can also be a standalone mental health concern or a cause of, rather than symptom of, issues like substance abuse and addiction.

What Causes Emotional Dysregulation?

We aren’t all the same. We have different brains, different chemical makeups, and different childhoods and life experiences. And all of these contribute to our mental and physical health. When it comes to emotional dysregulation, you may be genetically and biologically more sensitive to emotions, or you may develop a dysregulated nervous system over time.

In her course, “DBT in Practice: Mastering the Essentials,” Dr. Stephanie Vaughn teaches that “We are born more or less sensitive emotionally, and that is not something that can be necessarily changed. That’s something that is part of your genetic makeup. That alone is not enough to cause difficulties … When you have a person who is biologically born to be emotionally sensitive, and you have them in an environment in which they don’t fit, the transactions that happen over time lead to emotion dysregulation due to the reinforcement patterns that occur.”

There is nothing wrong with being more sensitive or having bigger emotions than others, but when these emotions are invalidated throughout life or when they are complicated by other mental health concerns, problematic patterns and dysregulation can occur.

Emotional Dysregulation Treatment

The first step in addressing emotional dysregulation is an in-depth, professional assessment. This helps identify any co-occurring mental health issues and allows you to be matched with the treatment specialists and recovery plan that will work best for you. This plan will likely involve behavioral therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). In fact, one of the main goals of DBT is teaching emotion regulation skills.

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook explains, “Emotion regulation skills will help you cope with your reactions to your primary and secondary emotions … You can’t always control what you feel, but you can control how you react to those feelings. These are some of the most important techniques to learn in dialectical behavior therapy.” DBT is effective for treating people with bipolar disorder and more serious emotional and mental health issues, and it can also be effective treatment for more generalized emotional dysregulation.

DBT, CBT, and holistic practices like mindfulness can help you find emotional balance while also exploring underlying and co-occurring concerns such as depression, relational issues, or addiction. Here at The Meadows, we offer comprehensive, personalized treatment plans that include these and other proven, evidence-based modalities for mental health and recovery. Learn more about finding health, healing, and balance. Reach out to us today.