Hey everyone here 👋
I’ve been wondering: how do you handle cases, when you get overwhelmed with emotions to the state, that you simply cannot focus on anything but that emotion? I hate that feeling, because it really makes me to feel sick with just being emotional.
My take is that I usually just break from a situation, take an hour or two, and try to stim myself with something else: a game, a movie, something like that. Though, sometimes I don’t have a time space to do it: I need to be gathered and focused here and now, with no space for wiggling.
Distraction, suppressing, or numbing can work temporarily, to really process your emotions is better.
Breathe in deep. Close your eyes. Feel into your body. Every emotion manifests physically as well: tension, tingling, tremors, heat, etc. Stay with the physical sensation. Breathe into the sensation. Express the physical feeling through sound and movement.
Other options:
- Beat up a pillow
- artistic expression: music, painting, writing
- journal
- cup your hands to close your mouth and scream
- dance to music that fits your emotion
tl;dr actually feel and express your emotion for a bit
It isn’t always instant-relief, but helps a lot in the long run: Have time to think without being blasted by media. A walk, run or biking without music, any workout without music (or video; for me working only in an outside workout park or my home, not a gym with all the noise and people), work in the garden, simple work like painting a wall, again, without music.
Dr. K also strongly advises this, and it works for me, but I understand that understimulation can be hard for some. He says that it also helps with poor dreams and nightmares, as the brain gets a chance to process stuff. If we don’t let it, it gets its chance anyway - at night. And it will take it, leading to poor sleep with additional problems and possibly increased ADHD symptoms the next day.
had this during exams and such.
take a step back, check if the intensity of the emotion is warranted and let it wash over you, extreme emotions tend to be short lived.
i was not about to die, even if my brain suggested that, and it had to relent after me being still alive after 5 minutes sitting right there before my tasks.
my problems started when i would ‘feed’ those emotions by fantasizing about the impending catastrophe or giving in and acting on them, by fleeing the class room for example.
i guess this would be harder in a social encounter, but the first step is allways realizing that an emotion is to intense, once that’s done its easier to return to reason and not instinct.
tl;dr :
- realize that emotion is there
- experience the emotion
- move on.
took me a lot of therapy to start at step 1 and not going from step 2 to “do a stupid thing you’ll regret in 5 minutes”
Great advice. There’s a book called The Practice of Embodying Emotions with tons of science backing up the basic advice of: let emotions take up as much of your body as you can, which helps them process and release faster.
researching CBT, cognitive-behavioral-therapy, don’t make this weird!, will yield tons of material, but that’s a journey best undertaken with someone you trust.
I’ve found that it’s better for me sometimes not to distract, rather to do nothing and let whatever emotion happen (like another commenter suggested).
Emotions, like everything that goes on in my head, are electrochemical in nature. Sometimes there’s an external trigger, but sometimes there’s not. Letting unexpected or over-large emotions happen and pass has made me more comfortable with that occurrence, so the next time it happens, it’s a bit easier.
Yeah, if it’s really bad in a particular situation, I’ll distract, but it’s less to avoid the emotion and more to give myself something to hold on to during the flood.
Can confirm this is a much better approach than distraction, which tends to simply delay the emotion to a later point in time. That later point in time tends to be bedtime!
My issue is that if I don’t keep them in check, I can just rage out on people, and will just regret of it. Hence the distraction, to prolongue the emotion in time, and to make the emotion intensity curve less steep.
I agree with the other commenters that distraction is, in the long term, not helpful. It’s a survival tool or coping mechanism, it’s not a real strategy.
You might want to look into DBT (dialectical behaviour therapy) if you have the opportunity to see a therapist. Its main focus is helping people with intense emotions to handle their feelings as they happen, which was great to learn because CBT and other therapies I’ve tried feel antithetical to how my brain works and it was
hardimpossible to build the skills necessary to see much improvement because forming habits is so difficult for me. It’s generally used to treat people with BPD and PTSD but I really like the approach for ADHD.I have a DBT skills workbook now that I can’t afford a therapist anymore and it’s still helpful, so that could also be an option if you aren’t able to go to therapy. These things should be talked about with a professional to get the most benefit in the shortest amount of time, but you can still do some self-help work on your own.
In fact, I’m willing to loan OP a PDF of some DBT worksheets, etc. Drop me line, and good luck! Put in the work, trust the process, all that. You got this. 🤘🏼
If I can’t leave work because important meetings I can’t get out of, I’ll go sit in the car and breathe, or excuse myself to the bathroom if I have to (including going to another floor sometimes) and try a quick grounding exercise like rainbow grounding or the one where you visualize a warm light filling you from first your toes, then calves, then knees, so on and so on. I can usually hold myself together afterward until the end of the day, but I know I will be falling apart that evening. I will prep the honey to pick up pizza or order DoorDash and plan on playing Playstation.
I lie down, put my headphones on and listen to an asmr video. Usually a 30-45 minute one because I know I’m going to fall asleep at some point. 80% of the time I usually feel better afterward.
