Why do I feel my emotions so intensely?

Why do I feel my emotions so intensely?

In my previous blog When emotions go from 0-100 I looked at what happens when emotions get big really quickly and how DBT can help. In this blog I look at why people have intense emotions…

We all experience emotions and some of us experience them more intensely than others. We all have the friend or it may be ourself that reacts more to situations and then there are those that under-react…so are they dramatic or tough as old boots? Neither is a particularly pleasant way to describe how someone experiences the world and their emotions.

It’s not bad to have intense emotions

It is just part of who people are. Some people do experience emotions that come on suddenly, hang around for longer and it takes time for them to settle…

Being emotionally sensitive isn’t the same as being unable to regulate your emotions. Some people experience emotions very intensely but have learned ways of managing them effectively.

This is not necessarily a bad thing– it can also mean that someone is fiercely loyal and loving. The difficulty is when the emotions are so intense that they completely take over and prevent you from living a full and meaningful life.
So how come some people can tolerate emotions more effectively than others?

A biological Sensitivity

For some people they are born with a sensitivity to emotions.
You can see this in any playground – when a child gets knocked over – one may scream and shout that they have been pushed and be angry at the injustice of it. Yet another child may just pick themselves up and dust themselves off and go off an play in another part of the park – these two children could also be siblings.

The fundamental part of this is that we are all different, we all look different – why should we all experience emotions in the same way? We can’t and we don’t.

What do we know about the brain and emotions?

If we look at the neuroscience literature it suggests that there are differences in how brain systems involved in processing and regulating emotions respond such as the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus which are all linked to processing emotions. Some studies have demonstrated that these areas are activated differently when individuals are more sensitive to their emotions.

There is also research that looks at how these structures can change in early childhood as a result of experiencing adverse evens and this will be covered in another blog post!

So is my brain just different?

However, as usual this cannot be the whole story! On one side we have the biological sensitivity and on the other we have our environment. Sometimes, those with biological sensitivity are brought up in an environment where they are supported to understand and regulate their emotions and sometimes they are not.

Our brain responds to our environment, it is plastic and although it loses some of that plasticity over time, we still have a capacity to learn and change even as we get older – we can teach old dogs new tricks.

So how can DBT help?

At the core of DBT is mindfulness. Its threads run through all of the skills. It was said to me by a client recently – mindfulness is in everything – you need to be mindful really before you use any of the skills! It was a lovely moment of insight. Mindfulness helps us to be present and to notice. We need to notice that intensity, that swelling up of an emotion so that we can then make the decision on how to respond…to go with the behaviour that we always have – e.g. to shout and scream or to take a breath and decide who do I want to be in this moment. What kind of parent, employee, partner do I want to be…

Final thoughts

So if you are someone who feels your emotions intensely and you want to be able to reduce that intensity or respond in a different way – maybe DBT is something that you would like to know more about…feel free to give us a call or drop us an email to arrange an initial chat.