What is it called when you cant handle emotions?

In the opening paragraphs, some quick answers to this question are:

Emotional dysregulation
Poor emotional regulation

Difficulty regulating emotions

These terms refer to a difficulty in managing strong emotional responses. A person who struggles to handle emotions may feel frequent, intense mood swings or emotional outbursts. Their reactions may seem out of proportion to the triggering situation. This impairment in modulating emotions can significantly impact daily functioning and relationships.

Table of Contents

What causes problems regulating emotions?

There are various factors that can contribute to struggles with emotional regulation:

Brain differences – Some research suggests that differences in certain brain regions involved in emotional processing may play a role.
Trauma – Experiencing childhood abuse, neglect, or other trauma can affect emotional development.
Mental health conditions – Conditions like borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and depression often involve emotion regulation difficulties.

Substance abuse – Chronic substance abuse may worsen emotional control problems.
Poor coping skills – Never learning healthy strategies for dealing with emotions can lead to dysregulation.

Both biological and environmental factors likely interact to cause problems with regulating emotions for any given individual.

What are some signs of poor emotional regulation?

There are many possible signs that someone is struggling to manage emotions, including:

Rapid, exaggerated emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation
Intense, frequent mood swings

Feeling emotions very intensely, even minor triggers provoke enormous reactions
Taking a long time to recover or calm down from emotional reactions
Outbursts of anger, crying, agitation

Difficulty participating in daily life or relationships when emotional
Avoiding situations or people due to difficulty managing emotions
Impulsive behaviors when overwhelmed (e.g. reckless spending, substance abuse, self-harm)

Withdrawing or isolating oneself when having strong emotions

The more signs present, the greater the emotional regulation deficit may be. These signs usually persist over time rather than being occasional.

What mental health conditions involve emotional dysregulation?

Some mental health conditions strongly associated with emotional regulation difficulties include:

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) – Chronic emptiness, intense anger, mood swings, and impulsivity are key features. Self-harm behaviors may be used to try to regulate emotions.
Bipolar disorder – Manic or depressed mood episodes can reflect poor emotional control. Mood stabilizers help regulate emotions.
Anxiety disorders – Excessive worry, panic attacks, and other anxiety symptoms often tie into emotional regulation problems like fear of negative emotions.

Depressive disorders – Those with severe depression may have flattened emotions and withdraw from life due to inability to cope with regular emotions.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – Trauma can cause a lasting impact on emotional regulation, seen in flashbacks, hyperarousal, and avoidance.
Autism spectrum disorder – Many with ASD have alexithymia challenges identifying emotions and exhibit meltdowns from emotional overload.

Treatment for the underlying disorder can improve emotional regulation abilities.

What are some healthy ways to improve emotion regulation?

Some beneficial strategies and skills for better handling emotions include:

Cognitive reappraisal – Reframing emotional situations in more positive ways.

Mindfulness meditation – Bringing nonjudgmental awareness to emotions helps accept and tolerate them.
Distress tolerance – Learning to calmly endure distressing emotions without reacting negatively.
Stress management – Using healthy stress relievers like exercise, leisure activities, and social support.

Communication skills – Talking about feelings productively can help process emotions.
Balanced lifestyle – Self-care through proper sleep, healthy diet, maintaining routines, etc.
Counseling – Working with a mental health professional provides guidance in implementing emotion regulation skills.

Mastering these abilities takes time and practice but can greatly improve emotional health. Support groups also provide a venue for sharing effective coping strategies.

When to seek professional help for emotional regulation problems?

It’s advisable to seek mental health treatment if:

You struggle managing emotions on a regular, ongoing basis.

Your reactions are severely impacting your ability to function in school, work, relationships, or other parts of life.
You have symptoms of a mental health condition like depression or bipolar disorder that involves emotion dysregulation.
You frequently use risky behaviors like substance abuse, reckless behavior, or self-harm to try to cope with emotions.

Your emotional outbursts are resulting in harm to yourself or others.
You just feel like you cannot get control over your emotions on your own.

A psychiatrist, psychologist, or counselor can help assess if an underlying condition is contributing to your difficulties regulating emotions. Therapy and medication, if warranted, can help manage symptoms. Developing healthy coping skills is also a key focus of treatment.

What type of therapy helps with emotion regulation?

Some therapeutic approaches with evidence for improving emotion regulation abilities include:

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – Focuses on shifting cognitive distortions that may worsen emotions and learning coping skills.
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) – Heavily emphasizes distress tolerance, emotional awareness, mindfulness, and interpersonal skills.

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) – Uses mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based practices to manage emotions.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) – Can help process traumatic memories that may be impacting emotions.
Interpersonal therapy – Works on communication and relationship skills that can benefit emotional regulation.

Finding a therapist well-trained in these evidence-based approaches is recommended. Group therapy also offers support in dealing with emotions. Working with a therapist can help determine which approach may be most beneficial for your specific needs.

What medications help with emotional dysregulation?

There are no medications that specifically target emotional dysregulation itself. However, certain medications help manage underlying mental health symptoms that may improve one’s ability to regulate emotions, including:

Antidepressants – SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics, and MAOIs are used for depressive and anxiety disorders.

Mood stabilizers – Lithium, valproic acid, carbamazepine, and lamotrigine are used for bipolar disorder.
Antipsychotics – Aripiprazole, risperidone, and olanzapine may reduce mood swings, impulsivity, or aggression.
Anti-anxiety medications – Benzodiazepines like lorazepam may provide short-term relief of anxiety episodes.

Beta-blockers – Propranolol helps with rumination and physical symptoms of anxiety.

Medications need to be carefully managed by a psychiatrist. They are not sufficient alone and work best in combination with psychotherapy for improving emotional regulation abilities.

What self-help strategies help improve emotion regulation?

Some self-help techniques that can assist with gaining control over emotions include:

Identifying triggers for emotional reactions and finding ways to minimize or avoid these triggers when possible.
Using calming strategies like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and meditation when feeling emotional escalation.
Exercising regularly for natural mood boosting and stress relief benefits.

Developing healthy internal self-talk scripts to use when you catch yourself having irrational, emotion-provoking thoughts.
Keeping a feelings diary to improve emotional awareness and notice patterns in your emotional responses.
Reducing stress through healthy work-life balance and self-care activities like sufficient sleep, relaxing hobbies, etc.

Eliminating or limiting alcohol and drug use that worsens emotional reactions.
Learning better communication skills to express emotions productively instead of suppressing or inappropriately unleashing them.

Implementing just a few of these strategies and building on them over time can lead to noticeable improvements in tolerating and controlling difficult emotions.

When are emotion regulation problems considered a disorder?

There is no distinct emotional dysregulation disorder diagnosis. However, significant, persistent difficulties controlling emotions that interfere with functioning cross the threshold into disorder territory when:

The problems are pervasive, occurring across different situations and relationships.
They cause significant subjective distress or negatively impact quality of life.

Risky behaviors develop as a dysfunctional way to cope with emotions.
Relationships, work performance, or self-care are hampered by the degree of emotional dyscontrol.
Symptoms meet diagnostic criteria for conditions like borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder that include emotion dysregulation components.

Meeting with a mental health professional can help determine if emotion regulation difficulties have progressed to a clinical disorder requiring diagnosis and formal treatment.

What is the difference between regulating emotions and suppressing emotions?

Regulating emotions involves being able to recognize, manage, and constructively express emotions. Suppressing emotions is an attempt to ignore, avoid or dampen emotions without actually processing them in a healthy manner.

Regulating emotions reduces emotional distress long-term. Suppressing prolongs distress.

Regulating allows experiencing emotions fully while handling them well. Suppressing avoids experiencing emotions.
Regulating improves resilience and coping abilities. Suppressing increases likelihood of eventual outbursts.
Regulating benefits relationships by enabling emotional intimacy. Suppressing harms relationships with emotional avoidance.

Regulating provides insight into your own feelings. Suppressing dismisses self-understanding.

Learning adaptive ways to regulate emotions helps foster emotional and psychological well-being. In contrast, chronically suppressing emotions tends to be maladaptive.

What techniques help kids better regulate emotions?

Some healthy strategies for improving emotion regulation skills in children include:

Lead by example – Model constructive ways of handling feelings.
Label emotions – Help children learn to identify different emotions.
Validate their feelings – Avoid dismissing their emotional reactions as invalid.

Set healthy limits – Redirect inappropriate emotional outbursts while allowing some safe emotional expression.
Explore alternative behaviors – Brainstorm more positive ways they could react to strong emotions.
Use stories and role playing – Make emotional regulation lessons engaging and interactive.

Teach relaxation methods – Practice simple mindful breathing or imagery activities when anxious.
Reward progress – Praise their use of recommended strategies for handling emotions.

Developing these abilities early provides a foundation for lifelong healthy regulation of emotions.

Conclusion

In summary, the inability to effectively regulate emotions has many possible causes and involves brain differences, mental health conditions, trauma, or lacking coping skills. Signs like exaggerated emotional reactions, impulsivity, or avoidance behaviors indicate difficulties controlling emotions. Developing skills through counseling, group support, mindfulness practices, communication strategies, and medication in some cases can help improve regulation of feelings. A combination of professional treatment and self-help techniques offers the best chance at gaining mastery over emotions that have become dysregulated.