work dysregulation boss rant

[Kara.]

I'm having problems with my boss (surprise!!) and I feel terrible. I wish I could be easier and more regulated. Instead I overreact, create problems... My reactions are so disproportionate sometimes and boss said that I can be in trouble. I feel terrible and scared. Then I compare myself with others, the classy regulated others, which makes me feel even more inadequate. Then I hate myself intensely and then I want to end it all. I won't. I have to face it. I don't want to. I want to hide under my duvet. 

 

 

[Data]

I wish I could be more regulated also.  The key though is not fighting against your emotions; just go with them and manage them.  If you feel sad, angry, thats ok - there is no such thing as a bad emotion.  All of these things have their place.  Its how you deal with it that matters.  

People will often tolerate the occasional disproportionate reaction because they know its not normal behaviour for you - they can see that you have good times, when you are nice and kind to others.

 

What is quite difficult is that some of us feel a generalised anger, it sounds like you suffer from this problem Kara, when you say that you compare yourself to others and feel bad.  The danger is that this generalised anger spills out and you end up punishing people for it.  I have been guilty of this also.  

When you say you are comparing yourself to others, you are comparing your perception of yourself to your perception of others.  Perceptions are not always accurate.

Anyway, I have tried to advise but I am not always good at these things myslef, really I just wanted to let you know that I have been heard .

 

[Kara.]

Thank you Data. You have helped me already just by reading and taking time to reply.

You are right. I do have generalised kind of permanent anger and it does spill out. Oh I hate it so much! What do you do to control that generalised anger? I just want someone to stop it. 

What do you do to your generalised anger Data? How do you manage?

Thank you for the hug! Hugs back to you.

 

[addy2]

I'm sorry Kara I don't have much advice I'm never know how to regulate myself. One thing I learnt from dbt is that its ok to have emotions and its better to allow them than suppress them, we used to do a thing where we had to ask ourselves is the intensity of the emotion warranted, like if I'm angry should I be or should it be at this level, if the answer is no then we were given coping skills to try to deal with it, if it is warranted then it was suggested we confront it, or sometimes we just had to accept it was that way and nothing we can do can change it its called radical acceptance I sometimes finds it helps me to just say its crap now and I cant change it but i can try and help myself feel better about it. Sorry if it sounds all over the place, I hope your ok, hugs xx

[Saharah Blue]

Kara,

It is interesting to run across this thread today because I was just taking time to talk about this sort of thing with my brother last night. I was talking about using a stratgey that involves retraining my brain to pause before I react and turn this to a response.

It starts with taking random times throughout the day to stop or pause and take in something good around me in my present moment. Learn to linger on the feeling for 5 seconds at time, until it starts to become more habit, then when the emotions need regulating have a default pause position of pause where I can not respond until I can make an appropriate moment to fully process.

It has been a very complex process of learning how to set down my emotions and pick them back up again more skillfully. So, like literally pressing pause on the music and then resume. For instance if I had the low level simmer going on at work, I would make time to take a break and go for a short walk and the interruption of my activity would help me calm the rage, I would be able to see that I was struggling at work and keep in the back of my mind that I needed to shy away from small talk and even maybe leave a bit early. Then after work I would know that if I did not take the time to pick up or process some of the struggle I would be just pushing to far beyond reach and making things harder than they had to be.

For me being overwhelmed is the best time to interject self care it eases my burden.

Sah

[Kara.]

Thank you addy. I understand what you are saying. For me, many times it feels that the emotion is warranted so I think that my judgement really is affected by my emotions. I think that this may be linked with my narcissism in which I feel that things should happen in a certain way in order to meet my own needs. It's so hard because when I'm not in that state, then I feel ashamed for having thought and behaved in a disproportionate way. I will look into DBT coping skills though. I have done and even printed stuff but when I am in that state I'm s righteous that I don't think that I am in the wrong at all.

Saharah thank you for your ideas. Maybe I should also try to train my brain to take and feel good things. I default position is certainly suspicion, anger and a rooted feeling that I don't deserve good things. I think that I need to take better care of me but also of others. 

I'm scared of my week at work as I will need to try to resolve things. Part of me feels ok with it and part of me wants to trash the place down. And it's the latter that scares me and makes me want to give up. It's so powerful. I will have to get to know what this part of me wants and really control it. I want to be a better person. 

Thank you again. Hugs for both.