Impaired emotion regulation

The core essence of impaired emotion regulation function is the failure of the physiological and psychological compensatory mechanisms originally used by individuals to identify, accept, and adjust emotions. It is neither a moral problem of "glass heart" or "poor personality", nor is it a small problem that can be cured by "tolerating it" or "thinking a little more". It is a dysfunctional state between ordinary mood swings and clinical mental disorders that requires precise intervention. According to the 2023 mental health survey data of the workplace population of the Chinese Mental Health Association, the detection rate of this problem among people in high-pressure industries has exceeded 37%.

In the second half of last year, I received a visit from a 32-year-old Internet operator named Zhang Lin. She was previously known as the "emotional calmer" in the company. She could reconcile cross-department conflicts with a smile. She could change the plan overnight without even complaining when a project exploded. Last year, the Double Eleven promotion was successful for 2 consecutive years. One day, she suddenly "collapsed": She burst into tears in front of the whole team when her subordinate wrote down the wrong activity data, she sat at her workstation crying for half an hour after watching a 10-second short video of a stray cat, and her friend invited her to eat hot pot. She was just thinking about going out to socialize, and her hands were shaking when she had to deal with small talk. Her family members advised her that "it's just that she's tired, just take a couple of days' rest." She herself felt that she was being too pretentious, so she took three months to undergo an evaluation. As a result, her emotional regulation function was moderately damaged, and even her basic ability to calm down her emotions was temporarily lost.

What many people don't know is that the ability to regulate emotions is first of all a "physiological skill": the amygdala in our brain is an emotional alarm, and it will sound the alarm immediately when encountering a stimulus. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for applying the brakes and will judge whether the stimulus is worth responding to and to what extent it should be responded to. When you stay up late for a long time, have high pressure, or have hormone fluctuations (such as pregnancy and menopause), the energy supply to the prefrontal lobe will drop off a cliff, just like the brake fluid of a car you have driven for ten years has leaked. It's not that you don't want to step on the brakes, but that the hardware can't keep up, and it doesn't work no matter how hard you step on it. This is also the view most often mentioned by physiological psychiatrists: Many times, losing control of your emotions is not at all due to your poor willpower. You must first get enough sleep and supplement the nutrients you need. If necessary, use some mild slow-release mood regulators to restore the function of the prefrontal lobe first, and then other interventions will be effective.

But not all problems can be solved by sleeping. The psychoanalyst-oriented counselor I worked with last week also talked about how many of the clients she received had impaired emotional regulation. They used to be notoriously "good-tempered": they would swallow their grievances on their own, digest their emotions on their own, and even dare not express their happiness too much for fear of being ostentatious to others. To put it bluntly, you treat emotions as a scourge. Every time you have emotions, you suppress them, just like inflating a balloon. Every time you inflate it, you don't let it go. It seems that nothing is wrong. When it really reaches the threshold, even if you just blow on it lightly, it will explode. Last year, she had a visitor who was a middle school class teacher. She had never been angry with a student in her ten years as a class teacher. Last year, when she was leading the graduating class of junior high school, a student passed a small note in class. The moment she walked over to pick up the note, she suddenly collapsed. She squatted on the edge of the podium and cried for ten minutes without stopping. Later, I found out through conversation that during that time, her father was hospitalized and had to go to the hospital. The rebellious child was fighting against her every day. Her husband was away on business for a long time and couldn't help. She carried all the emotions by herself. As soon as she saved up that little piece of paper, she burst the dam.

Interestingly, different schools of thought have quite different opinions on how to repair damaged regulatory functions. The CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) school that is more familiar to the public now recommends "emotion labeling training": every time you feel emotional, don't scold yourself "Why did you lose control again?" first stop and express the emotion specifically - "I am angry now because my boundaries have been offended" "I am anxious now because this matter is beyond my control." With such a simple label, repeated practice can bring the out-of-control emotions back to a controllable range. However, counselors of the humanistic school are particularly opposed to the term "training". They think that your emotional regulation was impaired because you pushed yourself too hard. Now you have to force yourself to "practice regulating your emotions". Doesn't it make you more tired the more you do it? They even suggest that you simply allow yourself to lose control: cry when you want, lose your temper when you want, refuse directly if you don’t want to socialize, and don’t force yourself to be an “emotionally stable adult.” When your emotional fluidity returns, your regulatory function will naturally be restored. To be honest, in the cases I have seen, both methods are effective: a product manufacturer came to visit and marked emotions every day, and he returned to normal within three months. ； There was also a designer who came to me and simply let it go. If he didn’t feel well, he would take time off to watch stupid dramas and eat junk food at home. He didn’t use any adjustment methods. After two months, his condition was better than before.

Oh, by the way, there is another pitfall that many people step on: they think that impaired emotional regulation function is a "sickness", and it must be completely returned to the previous state of "not out of control at all" to be cured. In fact, this is not the case at all. Last year, our studio conducted follow-up visits to 200 people who had recovered. 82% of the people had higher emotional sensitivity than before the injury even after they fully recovered. In the past, they might be able to hold back their grievances, but now they will speak out on the spot. In the past, staying up all night for a week was fine, but now staying up all night will make them depressed. Many people will be anxious at first, thinking that they have become "vulnerable". In fact, if you think about it from another perspective, isn't this just because your body has finally learned to send you signals? In the past, you didn't even know it hurt, and you carried it until you collapsed. Now, if you feel a little uncomfortable, you know to rest, which is not a bad thing.

I had dinner with a doctor from the City Jingwei Center a while ago, and he said that everyone's attitude towards emotional problems now is exactly the same as the attitude towards colds decades ago: they think that coughing twice is not a disease, so they hold on to it until the fever turns into pneumonia before they are willing to go to the hospital. In fact, impaired emotion regulation function is just a "little cold" signal sent by your emotions to you. There is no need to be ashamed or bear it hard. Take a break when you need to, and ask for help when you need help. It is much more cost-effective than delaying the remedy until a serious problem occurs.