Emotional Dysregulation and My Life With Schizoaffective Disorder

My emotions don’t make sense to me sometimes. They sound foreign – instructions for how to act and respond that are written in code. They build and crash down on me like a tidal wave. And someitmes I can’t even identify what they are. They warp and bend and dance until they all look the same to me, and I don’t like what I see. Even happiness and excitement can become overwhelming and trigger negative feelings or even symptoms for me until I want to scream. This emotional dysregulation has played a key part in my life with schizoaffective disorder, and, looking back, it’s been around long before my diagnosis. But, despite its powerful impact and the fact that many people on the schizophrenia spectrum struggle with emotional dysregulation, it seems like it’s often overlooked.

My struggles with emotional dysregulation can lead to me lashing out.

I will never forget standing in the middle of my bedroom surrounded by books and upended furniture. I sat down right where I was standing and cried. It was several months into my schizoaffective disorder diagnosis, and my struggles to manage my emotions, which began in childhood, had only worsened. I was home alone, and my emotions were running through me like boiling water. There were no major decisions to make at that time. There were no deadlines to be met. But the stress and confusion of life became white hot agitation and I couldn’t hold onto it anymore.

I knew it was an overreaction.

I didn’t mean to knock the bookcase over. But knowing that my response was exaggerated as compared to the response others may have had only made it worse. Down went the other bookcase, and then a desk. When the tears came, they brought guilt with them. I hadn’t intended to dismantle my bedroom. But, even with doing that, I still didn’t feel like I understood or could manage my emotions any better than I previously had.

This emotional dysregulation influences so many things that I do.

Any emotion is fair game for my mind. Even positive things happening can lead me to a tear-soaked breakdown. What others may view as a minor stressor quickly grows to a crisis for me. And as my stress level climbs, my ability to sort through, identify, and manage my emotions fades more and more. I feel like I’m surrounded by a thick black smoke and I panic, feeling a feral need to escape. It is in these moments that I lash out at those around me. I don’t mean to, but I can’t always see what’s around me when I’m wrapped up in that smoke.

Emotional dysregulation has had a hand in triggering pretty much every major depressive and psychotic episode I have had, including my initial psychotic break. It’s the reason I left scars on my body and the reason I considered ending my life. My relationships and my health have both suffered because of it. But on the outside, I appear fine, though perhaps a bit dramatic. In fact, at one point I even had myself fooled.

Tears spring to my eyes with little warning at seemingly random times and this has been a pattern in my life for years.

Both myself and my psychiatrist chalked my short crying spells up to depression. But when my psychiatrist made the decision to reevaluate my diagnosis, thinking that perhaps it was depression with psychotic features, we realized that, in general, I don’t experience any symptoms of depression on a regular basis unless connected to a psychotic episode in standard schizoaffective disorder fashion. The trigger of my tears was actually stress. And even minor stressors could make me cry.

It’s not that I don’t try to regulate my emotions, I just don’t do it well.

Even from a young age, I found myself at a complete loss for how to manage my emotions. I was often called dramatic because my responses to things didn’t match that of others. But once I recognized the disparity, the awareness only served to make things worse. I ruminate, try to suppress it, and pretend it’s not real. All the while thinking that the same stressful things that I’m dealing with would improve for others, but never for me. Even things like self-love, breaks in bad luck streaks, and the ability to relax are all for others in my eyes, and I feel like they will never be achievable for me. Logically, I can recognize that my reactions are extreme and I know when situations cannot really be compared. But it remains stuck in the back of my mind, trapped behind the emotional dysregulation.

So what do you do?

It’s still hard. I am both proud of my progress and embarrassed that I need social skills training. But, if I can slow down, and especially if I have someone with whom I can discuss priorities, sometimes I can rearrange my emotions into shapes that make more sense. I can remodel my stress, trimming away a touch of the excess, though never quite all of it. Sometimes taking breaks helps, but, at other times it just serves as more time for my stressful thoughts and the muddy mix of emotions to skip in circles in my head. There is no perfect system. In fact, my needs when it comes to the regulation of my emotions can change by the minute.

The process is frustrating for myself and can be for those around me. But I think what has helped the most is when those around me are able to recognize that, for me, my responses are real. They are not an exaggerated cry for attention. They are not me being intentionally dramatic. In actuality there’s not a lot of choice in the matter. I can’t stop the stress from starting. But with time and support and a personalized plan to improve my life skills, I can begin to learn how to transform my emotional dysregulation into emotions that I can begin to understand.