Handling Difficult Thoughts and Feelings
Neurodivergent girls and women often struggle with emotional regulation, which is a fancy way of saying the ability to handle difficult thoughts and emotions.
Our emotions come from thoughts, and our thoughts tend to jump very quickly to extreme conclusions, so our feelings are very strong, and we tend to overreact. For example, when you get a negative comment on a test, you might quickly think that you always forget things, then get angry at your teacher for pointing it out and making you feel bad. Or you’re no longer needed to help somewhere, and you automatically think you must have done something wrong and ask those you love for reassurance too many times.
It may be hard, but with practice we can learn to control our thoughts better so our emotions don’t get so high, and we can respond rather than react to the situation. Here are a few tricks you can practice taken from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy that actually work for me:
Plan ahead. Explore what situations make your emotions intense and the thoughts that lead to those emotions. Then, you can plan on the best strategies to use in that situation and have what you need with you (like headphones). A therapist can be helpful with this process.
Remove yourself from the situation if you’re feeling like you will overreact. Have a list of quick coping skills you can use to get to a place where you can strategize on how to respond best. My top two are meditating and listening to a song. I have a specific playlist for this purpose labeled “calm.” Some people find splashing themselves with hot water or a few minutes of intense exercise helps.
Give yourself time to think of the right solution to the problem before returning to the situation. If you can, distract yourself for a few minutes. Have some go-to distractions. I like to talk to my parents or friends about something unrelated to the problem or watch a short TV episode.
Learning new skills is challenging, but I believe in you.
Have a wonderful day.