Why Do I Feel Like I’m On An Emotional Roller Coaster?

Have you ever felt like you were on an emotional roller coaster of anxiety and depression with extreme highs and lows? It can feel like a repeated pattern of panic and heaviness or shut down, so many refer to it as the roller coaster they want to get off of. There is also a reason why this keeps happening that is important to know about.

Why Does This Keep Happening To Me?

The highs often include what we call hyperarousal. This is something that is hard to define as we all experience it differently. It may include your heart beating faster than normal, difficulty catching your breath, feeling dizzy or light headed, shaky, trembling, sweaty, or tense. The reason it is hard to cope with this feeling is you are outside your “window of tolerance” or the space in which we cope well and process information. Above this window is anxiety and panic feelings and below it is a feeling of low energy, low motivation, not wanting to move, feeling shut down, and lethargic. This low is called hypoarousal.

What can be really hard to cope with is when both happen which is often the case and is what creates the roller coaster feeling of going high with anxiety and panic and then crashing into exhaustion and feeling shut down.

This is also often made harder by past traumas or hurtful experiences as this tends to shrink your window of tolerance smaller and smaller with each new trauma so you feel less and less able to cope with stressful situations than you used to. You may even get frustrated with yourself and wonder why you cannot cope with it like you used to.

So What Can I Do To Get Off This Emotional Roller Coaster?

The good news is there are things you can do that will help such learn techniques such as mindfulness, grounding, or how to increase your energy in your body. These techniques will help you stay in your window of tolerance so you can function better and you can even learn to widen your window back out so you can cope with more things. This often involves experiential activities. These are also good things to ask a therapist about when you do your initial consultation so you can find out if they know the approaches to help you with this as some may specialize in this and others may not.

I hope this helps you better understand the emotional roller coaster of anxiety and depression we sometimes go on and gives you some ideas on how to find the right therapist for you in Eureka, if you are ready to take that step. 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.