Is There Any Way Off This Emotional Roller Coaster?
The good news is that yes, there are ways off the roller coaster of emotions. Here are some good ways to work on getting off the roller coaster.
One of the most important things to do is when having a lot of emotional highs and lows is learning to do calming strategies when anxiety is high such as grounding or soothing your senses and using energizing strategies when feeling sad or low such as movement, exercising, or dancing etc.
Find things that increase feelings of safety in your life. Emotional highs and lows often relate to not feeling safe and flight, flight, freeze, or shut down reactions happening. This means you are living in a survival response. This can be simple things like an alarm at your home or having pepper spray when out and about.
Recognize your triggers is also important so that you can either prepare for them or plan to soothe yourself after being around them.
Reaching out for help from your support system when you need it is also helpful. If you do not have a strong support system, you could think about ways you could strengthen it by spending more time with others and nurturing your connections. Feeling supported helps us a lot when we are struggling.
Addressing the past hurts that are contributing to your reactions is key as well. It is important though that you not rush into this and do it when you are feeling able to cope with this after developing coping skills to help with any issues that come up. This may mean therapy or alternative means of healing. Specifically, if you choose therapy, this likely will mean an approach like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy) or somatic approaches as talking about trauma is often not enough. Body memory needs to be processed as well.
I hope this information helps you find some ways to get off the roller coaster. If you decide to pursue therapy as a way to address the past hurts and current struggles, I hope you are able to find a therapist that is a good fit for you in Eureka, CA. This may include weekly therapy or doing Intensive therapy to have more healing in less time by doing therapy for longer periods of time such as 3 or 6 hours at a time. If you are still feeling stuck, please feel free to call me at (707) 954-7060 for a free 15 minute consultation. I’d be happy to hear about what is going on for you and to help direct you to the right person to help you. If you are looking for anxiety counseling, depression counseling, or trauma informed counseling, you can read more about how I help here. If you want to know more about my intensives, you can read more about them here.