Changing Emotions

2/25/2018

The following is a guest article written by a parenting and mental health blogger who has had both experience in the mental health field and also felt personally impacted by her own changing emotions. I hope you feel inspired by her story to begin opening up and sharing your own story with others. #mentalhealth #quotes #quoteoftheday

|As a therapist and mental health blogger I spend a lot of time exploring the emotional aspects of peoples lives and if there is one thing I have learned from this experience it's that emotions rarely stay fixed. Our emotional landscape is always changing and may be influenced by the events in our lives, the chemistry make-up inside our brains, and so many different aspects of our lives.

Since this ever-changing emotional landscape that we live through can impact our lives quite a bit, it can be beneficial to have outlets to express and explore these emotions and to also find ways to cope with any negative impacts of the experience of negative or difficult emotions. Sharing your story through the written word can be one way to share your emotional experience with others.

The following is a guest article written by a parenting and mental health blogger who has had both experience in the mental health field and also felt personally impacted by her own changing emotions. I hope you feel inspired by her story to begin opening up and sharing your own story with others

Wrae Sanders

Wrae is a parenting & mental health blogger in Louisville, KY. She has a BA in Clinical Psychology and a decade in mental health work experience. When she is not writing, she enjoys reading, true crime podcasts, and movies. She is married and has three children.

Changing Emotions

I have struggled to maintain an even keel of emotions for years. I don’t even remember where I got on the roller coaster but sometimes I would like to get off, walk away and keep walking through life. I have realized it isn’t that easy. Three kids (and its resulting hormonal changes), thyroid problems (resulting in a partial removal in 2017) and life events will make any woman’s emotions go all over the place.

Thankfully, I am in therapy - two years and counting. I entered therapy after the death of a very close friend. Jake’s death changed me forever - I literally felt like my world had shattered. I became angry and mean, hurting his younger brother and my friend, Jordan, in the process. We still don’t speak, but I am finally okay with this. Through therapy, I have developed coping skills and other ways of dealing with my issues besides lashing out at others. I’m even learning how to communicate with my husband in better ways.

What contributes to emotional changes?

There are many factors, but these are the ones I consider to be the biggest factors:

Hormones
Women have all kinds of hormonal changes. These can change due to our menstrual cycles, thyroid issues (I have hypothyroidism due to my surgery, and let me tell you, that has contributed to a lot of changes, even with medication.), stress, and other things.

Support
If we lack a good support system to help us out with the daily things, stress kicks in and this is not good at all- for us or those around us. We tend to lash out at those closest to us. We don’t want to - but it happens, and sometimes more than we care to admit.

Lack of self-care
I have written a lot about self-care because I am a huge fan of it. (My therapist and I have had many talks about this.) I’m not talking about bubble baths and retail therapy, even though those are fun. I’m talking the basics, like eating well, brushing your teeth, and maintaining your health, both physical and emotional. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of those you are responsible for. Also, you don’t feel very good about yourself when you don’t smell too great and have been wearing the same sweats for four days. Take that shower. It may help clear your mind a little.

Life events
We can’t control many of the big things that happen to us, even if we see it coming - people in our lives get sick, unfortunately, they die. We lose our jobs. Our cars break down. Our best friends move across the country. What we can control, however, is our response to it. I fell into a deep, dark spot in my life after Jake’s death- my drinking got way out of control and for months, I barely left my house. I eventually came back out of my shell and rejoined my life.

Lack of coping skills
I had to develop new coping skills because my old ones stopped working. This tends to happen sometimes. Now, if I am stressed, sad, angry, etc., I will sit with an adult coloring book, listen to a podcast, watch a funny movie, or just talk to a friend or my husband. Not using a coping skill can make your emotions spiral.

How do you to try to rein in your emotions? Do you know what makes your emotions change swiftly?

I would like to say a huge thank you to Wrae for sharing her story and insights about going through these emotional changes in her life. As Wrae mentioned, there can be so many different reasons for emotional changes to occur in life, and equally as many ways to feel supported to to cope through difficult times.

I encourage you to share your own story in the comments below if you feel comfortable, or perhaps take some time to write your experience in a journal or speak to a support person. Experiencing difficult or changing emotions is normal and inevitable in life, but choosing how we respond to the impacts of these experiences is up to us.