Emotional Dysregulation: What To Do About Your Big Feelings
- Terri Kern, Clinical Counselor
- 1 day ago
- 10 min read
Emotional dysregulation isn't a new concept; throughout history people have gone through hard stuff and felt rattled. This all feels different.
If you're going into the December holidays feeling unsettled this article is for you!
What's In This Article
What Is Emotional Dysregulation?
Understanding the “Why”: It’s Not a Character Flaw
A New Mindset for Change: The Power of “And”
When Problems Hit: Your Four Options
Building Your Emotional Toolkit: An Overview of DBT Skills
Your First Step: Get Curious with a Daily Mood Chart
Conclusion: Radical Compassion and Radical Responsibility
Frequently Asked Questions About Emotional Dysregulation
As of the date of this writing, I don't remember such a stressful time for people. Life was pretty hectic pre-COVID. Unlike anything any of us have seen before, the plague of the novel SARS-CoV-2 shut us all down for a while.
Some people did really well and made the best of that downtime. For other people, fear, anxiety, and conflict OVER EVERYTHING turned a peaceful-ish life into a living hell. In patients specifically diagnosed with Long COVID, emotional concerns are prevalent. I've been diagnosed with Long COVID and it slapped me down hard at the end of 2022 into 2023. My brother died, then my mom died, and I spent about three really hard months keeping my train on the track while coping with a damaged lung, COPD, and brain fog.
Five years post-COVID and research indicates a substantial rise in emotional dysregulation. In the first year of the pandemic alone, the global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by 25%. The number one complaint I hear day after day is the emotional toll all of this is taking on our bodies and souls.
What is Emotional Dysregulation?
For many, life feels like a complicated and exhausting relationship with emotions. We are often taught to control, tame, or simply ignore what we feel. When a wave of sadness, anger, or anxiety hits, the default reaction is to fight it, judge ourselves for having it, or numb it entirely.
This constant internal battle is draining, and it rarely works. Over time, it can leave you with the profound sense that you are fundamentally failing at being human.
This is the hidden struggle of emotional dysregulation. If this experience feels familiar, you are not alone, and there is a more effective path forward. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, offers not a set of vague affirmations but a practical, skills-based "instruction manual" designed specifically for people who experience incredibly intense emotions. It provides a blueprint for making real changes while acknowledging just how difficult that work can be.
This article will explore some of DBT's core concepts, offering a more compassionate and effective way to approach our inner lives. To begin, we must first understand what emotional dysregulation actually is and, more importantly, where it comes from.
Understanding the 'Why': It's Not a Character Flaw
Before we can change our relationship with our emotions, we must first understand their origins. This is a critical strategic step, because understanding removes self-blame and shame—two of the biggest obstacles to growth. DBT's Biosocial Theory provides a powerful, non-judgmental framework that explains that intense emotionality is not a character flaw, but rather an understandable outcome of two interacting factors.
The first part of the theory acknowledges a biological reality: some people are simply born with a higher degree of emotional vulnerability. This means they are more "sensitive to emotional stimuli," experience emotions "much more often," and with greater intensity—feelings can "hit like a ton of bricks." Once an emotion is triggered, it is often "long-lasting," taking much more time to return to a calm baseline.
This biological sensitivity becomes a problem when it meets an "invalidating social environment." This is an environment that consistently fails to understand a person's emotions, telling them that their feelings are "invalid, weird, wrong, or bad." It might ignore emotional reactions, punish expressions of feeling, or offer dismissive platitudes.
Imagine the impact of shouting, "There's a fire!" only to be told, "You're overreacting. What's wrong with you? There's no fire." When your perception of reality is constantly denied, you learn to doubt your own experiences and may even begin to invalidate yourself.
These two factors are "transactional," meaning they influence and escalate each other over time. A biologically sensitive person expresses a big emotion; the invalidating environment punishes or dismisses it; and the person's emotional response escalates further in an attempt to be seen and understood.
This cycle, repeated over and over, makes it progressively harder to learn how to regulate feelings effectively. With this compassionate framework for why big feelings happen, we can now explore a new mindset for how to approach changing them.
Want to learn more about how to better manage your emotions? Check out our free program, Emotional Regulation Basics.
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A New Mindset for Change: The Power of 'And'
Before learning specific skills, it is critical to adopt a foundational mindset that makes those skills effective. DBT is built on a philosophy that balances profound compassion with practical responsibility. This core dialectic—the power of "and"—allows us to hold two seemingly opposite truths at the same time, creating a powerful engine for change.
"You are doing the best you can, AND you need to do better." This assumption is the heart of DBT's approach. The first half, "People are doing the best they can," is an act of radical compassion. It dismantles shame by acknowledging that all behavior is caused.
At any given moment, your actions are the result of a "multiplicity of causes (genetics, biological skills, environmental events, consequences of previous behavior)." This perspective suggests that if you could have done better, you would have. The second half, "People need to do better, try harder, and be more motivated to change," is an act of radical responsibility. It prevents acceptance from becoming an excuse. It validates the real need for growth and affirms that a better, more skillful life is possible.
"It may not be your fault, but it is your problem to solve." This principle builds directly on the Biosocial Theory and clarifies the crucial difference between blame and responsibility. The theory shows that you did not cause your biological sensitivities or your early environment; as the handout states, "People may not have caused all of our own problems." This is the "not your fault" part.
However, the life you have today is yours to navigate. The responsibility for making it better is yours alone. The handout continues, "but they have to solve them anyway." This isn't a harsh judgment but a practical one. It encourages a shift from backward-looking blame, which keeps us stuck, to forward-looking, practical problem-solving.
Adopting this mindset of compassion and responsibility sets the stage for the next logical step: making conscious, skillful choices about how to handle problems when they arise.
Facing a Problem: You Have Four and Only Four Options
When you're overwhelmed, it can feel like you are trapped with no way out. DBT cuts through this feeling of being stuck by providing radical clarity. According to "General Handout 1A," when life presents you with a problem, you have four—and only four—options. Understanding these paths transforms a moment of overwhelm into a moment of conscious choice.
Solve the Problem: Change the situation... or avoid, leave, or get out of the situation for good.
Feel Better About the Problem: Change (or regulate) your emotional response to the problem.
Tolerate the Problem: Accept and tolerate both the problem and your response to the problem.
The fourth option, Stay Miserable, is analyzed with striking simplicity: it is the outcome when you use no skills. Most of us don't consciously choose misery, but in the absence of an active, skillful choice—to solve, feel better about, or tolerate the problem—misery becomes the default outcome.
This reframes inaction not as a passive state of being stuck, but as the result of not choosing an alternative. This profound shift from seeing misery as something that happens to you to seeing it as the result of an unmade choice can be a powerful motivator to intentionally pick a more effective path.
These four options provide the high-level strategy. The next step is to fill your toolkit with the specific skills needed to execute the first three.
Building Your Toolkit: An Overview of Essential Skills
Having a strategy is one thing; having the tools to implement it is another. DBT skills training is organized into four modules, each a set of practical tools designed to help you solve, feel better about, or tolerate life's problems effectively. These skill sets are the "how-to" for living a more regulated and intentional life.
Mindfulness Skills: To focus attention, notice what is going on within and outside yourself, and learn to observe and experience reality as it is, be less judgmental, and live in the moment with effectiveness.
Emotion Regulation Skills: To understand, name, and change painful emotions while reducing your vulnerability to becoming overly emotional and increasing your overall resilience.
Distress Tolerance Skills: To tolerate and survive crisis situations without acting impulsively or making things worse.
Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills: To get what you want and need, say no to unwanted requests, and resolve conflicts in a way that maintains your self-respect and others' liking and respect for you.
While learning and mastering these skills is a journey, the first step is always the same: building awareness of your own internal world.
Your First Step: Get Curious with a Daily Mood Chart
Moving from abstract understanding to real-world application can feel daunting. The most accessible first step is to simply start paying attention. Change begins not with judgment or force, but with non-judgmental observation. The "Daily Mood Chart" provided in DBT handouts is a simple yet powerful tool for this practice.
The purpose of the chart is to help you record disruptive emotions and begin to identify the patterns surrounding them: the environment, the triggers, your initial reactions, and any coping skills you used. It guides your self-reflection by asking you to notice a few key things:
Approximate Time Affected: When did the emotion occur?
Affecting Emotion: What was the primary disruptive emotion? (The chart includes an "Emotions Bank" with examples like Angry, Anxious, Sad, Worried).
Other Emotions: What other feelings were present?
What Is Happening?: What was the context or situation?
Identified Trigger & Initial Reaction: What set the emotion off, and what did you feel or do right away?
Effective Coping Skill Used: Did you try a skill to manage the emotion? If so, what was it?
The goal of this exercise is not to be perfect or to judge what you find. It is simply to build awareness. This practice of observation is the foundation upon which all other skills are built.
Conclusion: Radical Compassion and Radical Responsibility
Emotional dysregulation is not a personal failing or a character flaw. It is an understandable, though painful, outcome of the transaction between a person's biological vulnerabilities and their social environment. The profound wisdom of Dialectical Behavior Therapy is that it provides a path forward that does not require you to deny this reality.
Instead, it teaches that profound growth comes from holding two truths at once: radical compassion for yourself and radical responsibility for your choices. You can fully accept your history and the intensity of your emotional world without shame. At the same time, you can recognize that you hold the power to learn new skills, make different choices, and build a life that feels more stable, meaningful, and authentic.
What might change if you fully accepted that you are doing your best, and that you also have the power to solve the problems in front of you?
Comment below or write to me and let me know!
Frequently Asked Questions About Emotional Dysregulation
1. What exactly is emotional dysregulation?
Emotional dysregulation means having a hard time managing your emotions—how you feel them, how strongly you feel them, and how you express them. It’s more than just “feeling a lot.” It’s when your emotional response is out of proportion to the situation and starts causing real problems in daily life.
People who experience emotional dysregulation often have:
High sensitivity: They pick up on emotional cues quickly.
High frequency: Emotions show up often and easily.
High intensity: Feelings hit hard.
Long duration: Emotions take a long time to settle.
When emotions feel bigger or last longer than the situation calls for, they can lead to conflict, impulsive behavior, or trouble functioning.
2. Why does emotional dysregulation happen?
DBT explains emotional dysregulation through the Biosocial Theory, which says it develops from the interaction between biology and environment.
Biological vulnerability
Some people are simply born with a more sensitive emotional system. They feel emotions more quickly, more intensely, and for longer.
Invalidating environments
When a sensitive person grows up in an environment that ignores, criticizes, or minimizes their feelings, they don’t learn how to understand or regulate emotions. Instead, they learn to doubt themselves, suppress feelings, or react intensely.
Over time, the combination of high sensitivity + invalidation creates patterns of dysregulation that show up in adulthood.
3. How does emotional dysregulation show up in daily life?
Emotional dysregulation affects thoughts, behaviors, and day-to-day functioning.
Internal experiences
Rumination and replaying situations
Cognitive looping (thinking in circles)
Feeling empty or disconnected
Intense shame
Behavioral patterns
Impulsive choices
Letting mood dictate behavior
Avoidance of hard tasks or emotions
Rigidity and trouble adapting to change
Functional impairment
Frequent conflict in relationships
Difficulty starting tasks
Feeling “stuck” even when not in crisis
4. How have COVID-19 and Long COVID affected emotional regulation?
The pandemic created the perfect storm for emotional dysregulation.
Loneliness and isolation
Research showed that loneliness increased emotional distress and made regulation harder. Feeling lonely doesn’t just hurt emotionally—it weakens our ability to cope.
Long COVID
Long COVID symptoms like fatigue, brain fog, and mood swings drain emotional resources. Many people experience dysregulation similar to other post-viral illnesses.
Trauma and chronic stress
High-risk groups experienced PTSD symptoms at much higher rates during the pandemic. PTSD keeps the body in “high alert,” making emotional regulation extremely difficult.
5. What are the first steps to managing emotional dysregulation?
The goal isn’t to shut down emotions—it’s learning how to understand and work with them.
Step 1: Know your four options
When facing an emotional problem, you can:
Solve the problem
Change how you feel about the problem
Tolerate the problem without making it worse
Stay miserable (the option we want to avoid)
Step 2: Do a Chain Analysis
A Chain Analysis breaks down what happened before, during, and after an emotional reaction so you can understand it clearly and choose different actions next time.
It includes:
Describing the problem behavior
Identifying the trigger
Naming vulnerability factors
Mapping thoughts, feelings, and urges
Noting consequences
Identifying where a skill could have helped
Creating a prevention plan
Making a repair plan if needed
This process turns chaos into clarity.
6. What if I understand the skills but still can’t use them?
Many people know the skills but can’t apply them when emotions run high. This is called functional stagnation—you’re stable, but stuck.
Signs of this include:
Being able to explain skills but not use them
Struggling to start or follow through on healthy actions
Ongoing rumination despite insight
Stability without progress in daily functioning
This isn’t a personal failure. It often means the current level of care isn’t enough. Some people need a more structured or intensive treatment setting that provides:
Hands-on support
Real-time coaching
In-person accountability
Recognizing this need is a sign of readiness for change—not defeat.