I can’t deal with my emotions!

Everyone deals with strong emotions, especially negative ones.  This could be dealing with a disappointment at work or breaking up with a partner. You are not alone in these experiences and how they may make you feel out of control.

Strong emotions can come up even when something small happens. For example, if someone is playfully sarcastic with you, it may remind you of how your mom always responded to you with sarcasm.  And she didn’t take you seriously. So you become extremely angry.

It can be really hard to pause and acknowledge these things.  Especially when you’re balancing other things in life, like relationships, friendships, a job, and health, to name a few. But learning how to manage your emotions is always possible.

What does not dealing with my emotions feel like?

Triggers are events that happen that make you feel big emotions, even if the big emotion might not fit the event.

For example, if you hear a loud explosion, like fireworks, and feel extreme terror, this feeling may not match the situation because the fireworks are unlikely to harm you. But, if you experienced an explosion that put your life or others’ lives in danger, then fireworks could be a trigger for the terror you felt during that explosion.

Sometimes, it can be hard to pinpoint what you’re feeling if it’s been a long time since you felt your emotions or if you tend to push them down.

Thinking about the example above, maybe feeling the terror was so scary that now when you hear fireworks, you don’t know why you’re reacting so fearfully because you’ve pushed the emotions so far away. It makes sense to do this when an emotion feels too painful or we need to bury the emotion so we can get through the situation, day, etc.

When we don’t deal with our emotions, we might:

•  Express anger when you actually feel sad.
• Cry over something small, like being unable to find your shoes before work.
• Say something you don’t mean to your partner, children, or loved ones.
• Feel very irritable and don’t know why.
• Experience more anxiety, depression, sadness, or shame than normal.

Long periods of just reacting to your emotions or stuffing them down can make it difficult to start to identify when and why you’re feeling things so strongly, but not impossible.

Strong feelings are sometimes not just experienced in the mind, but also in the body. For example, you may experience sweating, muscle tension, fatigue, exhaustion, upset stomach, and more. You may also experience various sensations and feelings that carry weight, like grief, sadness, loss, and disappointment.

Some possible mental health conditions that can make people react strongly to different things are depression, anxiety, PTSD, complex PTSD, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder. 

How can I deal with my emotions?

It can be easy to get lost in the past or in the space of reacting. But learning your personal red flags—like more irritability, crying at small things, or saying things you don’t mean—can help you identify the big feelings and get back into a calmer mindset.

Remember, even if you react in a way you don’t want to, we have the power to learn from our mistakes and react differently moving forward.

Here are some ways we can do this:

• Sometimes when you experience big emotions, it can be helpful to break bigger emotions down into smaller ones to think about when you are calmer. Name what you’re feeling. Then ask yourself, what else? You might discover that you’re experiencing several different emotions.
• It can also be helpful to look back from an objective viewpoint that might make it easier to see what emotions are underneath the big feeling. Once you’re out of the big emotions, consider what led you to feel that way.
• It also might be a good idea to ask a trusted person if you’re reacting in a way that makes sense to the situation. You can say, “Does this sound like a reasonable reaction to you?” Getting perspective from someone you trust can help you validate your feelings or realize that you are experiencing something deeper.

Ultimately, it’s important to have compassion for ourselves and others during this process. Finding a safe space to let out your emotions can help. This could be in the privacy of your bedroom, bathroom, journal, with a friend, outside, or by crying, screaming, or yelling.

It may be helpful to ask yourself, “How might the people around me be impacted by how I manage my big emotions? How might they/I experience the aftermath?” And use these questions to figure out a way to move forward. If you still find it difficult to manage big feelings, you may find that reaching out to a therapist or joining a support group could provide perspective to help you deal with your emotions.