fitscapades
I went from successful specialist doctor in rural Australia to a homeless addict selling my body for drugs and almost dead to living in full recovery in a three story house 30 meters from the beach with my amazing gorgeous partner, my son, his son, our cat and dog. I am an addict in recovery, my story is quite unique and I didn't live it all only to have it untold as the dusts pass over my grave at the eventual end of my life. I want to give hope to addicts in pain, to their families who worry that true recovery is possible even when you are as bad as I was. I want to try to shift perception in the community that addicts are not a waste of time we are capable of recovery and are not lost causes. I have learned so much and gained so much wisdom walking this pathway to recovery it seems a shame not share this. The lessons I have learned are useful to everyone not just those challenged by addiction.
fitscapades
Taming Emotional Storms- emotional dysregulation and regulation
What if you could stop your emotions from hijacking your life? Michelle takes us on a raw, honest journey through her struggle with emotional dysregulation and the life-changing skills she's developed to break free from destructive patterns.
Michelle shares how she once had no concept that emotions could be controlled. When anger or distress hit, she'd let those feelings completely unravel, desperately seeking validation and often engaging in behaviors she'd later regret. Through recovery work and painful life lessons, she discovered the transformative power of emotional regulation.
With remarkable candor, Michelle details specific techniques that helped her master her emotional responses—from mindfulness practices that ground her in her body to simple questions that interrupt reactive patterns. She shares a revealing story about charging cables that once would have triggered a relationship-damaging explosion, but now represents a triumph of emotional management.
The podcast takes a particularly touching turn as Michelle discusses parenting her autistic son, whose emotional dysregulation mirrors her past struggles. This new challenge has become both a trigger and an opportunity for deeper healing and growth. She openly acknowledges her imperfections in this area while sharing strategies like the "alphabet game" that sometimes helps break the cycle of escalation.
Whether you're working on your own emotional regulation, parenting a neurodivergent child, or simply interested in personal development, Michelle's journey offers practical wisdom, vulnerable honesty, and hope for meaningful change. Her story reminds us that while we can't control others, mastering our own emotional responses transforms our relationships and our lives.
Follow the show and connect with Michelle on social media for more insights on emotional regulation, recovery, and conscious living. Be kind to everyone, namaste.
Welcome to Fitzcapades. My name is Michelle, and today I want to discuss emotional dysregulation for a couple of reasons. In my recovery, this is something that I worked on quite a bit and I'm not yet there yet, but I'm certainly a lot better than what I used to be. But now I have custody of my son back. He has got autistic disorder, or he's autistic, he has autism, and so he suffers from a lot of very angry meltdowns, and so I found that really challenging, because I've worked so very hard on my emotional regulation and he's completely dysregulated. So now I'm trying to understand the problem through the lens of autism, which is interesting sort of challenge to be met with. So yeah, so I'll start with just a description of my history. So I have ADHD and I for a while there even wondered if I had borderline personality disorder. I've not been formally diagnosed, so it's possible, you know. However, I've got to say that a lot of my borderline trays, so to speak, have settled down in recovery and also now I'm in a nice, stable and caring, loving relationship.
Speaker 1:I don't tend to act out like I used to, I guess act out. So, anyway, I guess. So in terms of emotional dysregulation, for the majority of my life I had no concept of the fact that you can actually reel in your emotions and control them. You know, like I'm a very emotional being and so I would get angry or sad or upset, just let those emotions unravel and to continue to display them and not reel them in until the you know, I guess, ultimate, I guess peak or conclusion of the episode or whatever. I just didn't know how to reel in my emotions and that was really problematic for me, like in the working environment, if something really upset me, like I had a disagreement or a conflict or something, I would get angry. If I felt like it was, I was, you know, unjustly dealt with and the issues would go round and round in my head circle. I couldn't stop the record playing and I would talk to everyone about it and I would be searching for validation that my point of view was right. I would desperately seek that and I'd talk to everyone just trying to get them on my side and I'm sure I made people go crazy with it, but I just couldn't. It was like replaying record and what I was seeking was validation that I was right, and of course that was something that I was seeking was, you know, yeah, validation that I was right, and of course that was something that I was never going to get, you know, and more later on in domestic situations.
Speaker 1:So I was in a relationship with a fairly narcissistic man who used to, when he got overly emotional, shut down and stonewall, and that was an awful situation because if there was conflict, of course I would get anxious and I would need validation and I wouldn't stop hammering him with my point of view, because my goal, because in my mind I could only see how right I was, you know, and I just felt so unjustly dealt with that he wasn't coming around to seeing things from my perspective and I would just hammer him and hammer him, and hammer him until he pretty much wanted to kill me. And I tried, I attempted to a couple of times. I mean, that's not funny actually, but yeah, anyway, um and so, um, uh, I guess what you don't realize when you're in that state is that you know your mind's ability to see that someone else's point of view might be right becomes skewed and your brain starts to collect all of this information you know from various different spots and interprets that as evidence to support your view. And then you get angrier and angrier and when you're in that state, you know it's like you can't even remember what you were looking at because your vision is so closed in and you you dissociate. You know it's like you're not present in the moment, you're somewhere else. You know you can't see what you're looking at and, yeah, that's because anger makes your vision close in and you're just not in control of your body at all.
Speaker 1:And you know it would lead to me doing some things that I was terribly ashamed of, like writing text messages that I was ashamed of, you know, emails, or saying things that I was ashamed of, or acting in crazy ways that I would invariably be ashamed of, because you're just so emotional and at that time you feel that acting in that manner is justified. You know, because your brain has convinced you of all these things. You know that have to be correct and you can't see it from reality. You can't see reality, um, uh, clearly you know. And so, um, when I was in this relationship with this narcissistic man, it was very much like, you know, uh, there would be a conflict and then I would want the conflict to be settled. I'd want him to see just how right I was. I would hammer him and he would shut down and then he would just really want to kill me and we had these massive arguments where it would end up even in the police attending. You know, it was just horrendous and it was just very, very ugly.
Speaker 1:And through having that relationship I realized a couple of things. Firstly, I never didn't want to keep going to that place, you know, because I hated the things that I did and I hated who I became and I realized that when you emotionally dysregulate you, it never ends in a good outcome. You know, you don't get what you want, you don't get heard and it just becomes really ugly. You know, yeah, I hated, like, like you know, and then you start to sort of resort to shit like protest behavior, you know manipulative things to try and get that person to feel sorry for you, because what I was seeking was validation and comfort. You know, like I was distressed and I want to be comforted. But that's just so stupid because if you're being horrible and and angry towards someone as if they're going to go, you know, come and give you sympathy. So it was all you know.
Speaker 1:I realised, I guess, that, yeah, things never went well, it was never productive. It was completely destructive. I hated who I became and also I mean it's not fun being in that state, and also like one of the things that you learn in recovery is that you the only thing that you control is yourself. Like you cannot control other people, places, things or events. You know you have no influence over that. And when you get into that state, you get angry and you start to do protest behavior, like to either make the person jealous or try and get them to come back to you or whatever. That's manipulative behavior. You're trying to sort of change someone, the way they behave, and you just simply can't. All you end up doing is behaving in a really ugly way, and I just didn't ever want to be that person anymore, and so it wasn't until recently that, doing a lot of reading around this, that I realized that actually you can, if you work really hard, learn to regulate your emotions, and in fact you must, for the very reasons that I just pointed out.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think for me now, if I start to feel angry, sometimes it's really hard. I'm not successful every time, but I don't tend to get angry much these days, and so the first thing that I do is I look at the situation and I assess whether I have any right to be angry. So, if we look at the function of anger, anger is a primitive thing. It's from when we were cavemen, you know. And if someone steps over your boundary or violates your boundaries in any way, it makes you become big and tough and raw, loud, you know, like a lion, and the idea of that is to, you know, scare people off. You know you've crossed my boundary, fuck off, sort of thing. You know, like a lion, and the idea of that is to, you know, scare people off. You know you've crossed my boundary, fuck off, sort of thing. You know.
Speaker 1:It's a very innate response, you know, um, and so there are two places that anger can be triggered from. One is a general uh, like a genuine uh, violation of your boundaries, and the second thing is thwarted expectations. All right, so that means you know, if you have unrealistic expectations of that other person and they fail to live up to your unexpected expectations, then you do not have a right to be angry. So that's the question that I often ask. If I feel that feeling of anger, I stop and I say, okay, what am I angry about? Have I really and honestly had a violation here. Do I have a right to be angry or not? Is it just that I was expecting too much of this person? I was being unreasonable, because if you follow your anger through and dysregulate, there's nothing worse than realising you know you had no right to carry on like that. You know it's just yeah, and then it's awful Like then you really realise that you've been a massive dickhead. You know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Still, if I do think that there's been a boundary violation, I still try to control my anger because if there's a boundary that's been violated, that's not the time when you're in that state to bring that up with that other person. It's not going to go well. You know you're going to attack the other. If they've got the tendency to become defensive, then you're not going to get the response that you desire, which is, if there's generally been a violation there and you care about that person, you want it to stop. You want it to not happen again. And so if you go with two guns barreling, blazing and there's a Mexican showdown and you're all aggressive and angry, then that person's not going to listen to anything you have to say. They're going to get their shackles up and be on the defensive straight away. So, even if it's such a violation and it's really a bad thing that this person has done, you need to rein it in.
Speaker 1:And I'll give you an example of this Like with my ex. Like he was working away and I was looking like, like so he had been on this dating site and I found his profile there and he was listed as single and I was so fucking angry, like I was like, oh, I was so angry and I couldn't contain my emotions and I like sent him this. Really, I waited until, like it was an appropriate hour in the day and I texted him and I did not. Yeah, it wasn't the right way to go about it at all, even though that's massively like a shit cunt sort of act, massively like a shit, shit cunt sort of act. Unfortunately, my poor timing and poor execution of sort of asking him about it led to me actually feeling like I was the one in the wrong at the end of the day and I regretted it. I regretted doing it, even though I was probably not 100% in the wrong. You know, what I should have done was actually just done a like a fake profile and set a date up with him and I'm just joking, no, but that was not not the right thing for me to do, you know.
Speaker 1:Um, so now in I've gotten angry at my current partner a couple of times and I'll give you one example and how I've managed it. So like, basically, I had bought, like seriously, about 10 charging cables for my phone, for phones, and then like like like 10 of the wall plugs as well, Like, and not the cheap ass ones, you know, like the ones from the survey that cost about 40 bucks right and sequentially they just kept going missing or becoming broken and I and it was just really fucking me off and and like there was one point where, like, both him and his son had no, had had no charger, even though I'd bought so many. And then I just went, I just went quietly up the shop and bought some more and I was like that's okay, you know I'm cool with that. But then it so happened on one night and it was like about the third time and I was furious. I'm like fuck, why don't you buy your own? Why am I having to buy all of these? You know I was pretty calm about it. You know the several first times that it happened. But this is really getting beyond a joke like why? Because he'd he'd asked to borrow the only charger that I had left, and I just didn't want to let that go into the void.
Speaker 1:And so what I did was I took a deep breath in instead of exploding, and I just went out to my car and I drove off and I took myself out of the situation and I said to myself do you really care about and love this man? Yes, I do all right now. Is this really such a big deal? No, it's actually not. In the whole scheme of things, do I really need to block? No, and then I thought about all the kind things that he does for me and you know, yeah, it's annoying, but I can live with it. And I said you do not want to continue to get angry, you know.
Speaker 1:And I did some self-regulating exercises like breathing and mindfulness and and, and by the time I got to the servo, I was like I am much more calmer now and I bought the charges again, a whole set for everyone, like, which was about $200, and then came back to the house and I gave my partner a big hug and a kiss and I said here you go sweet. Here you go, you know, schnoofy, I call him my schnoofy. Here you go, schnoofy, I've got your present, and one for your son as well and one for me as well, you know. And then later on I just would laughingly always refer to the black hole where the charges went, that I had no idea and I started to label my charges and, yeah, like, and that was, I was really proud of myself actually, because I, you know our olden days, time would have really exploded over that and we would have had a massive argument and it just wouldn't have been at all constructive in any way, you know. But you know it was hard, but it was validating to me that, you know, this is what I need to continue to do, particularly in this relationship.
Speaker 1:My son, on the other hand, I find that difficult because he completely dysregulates and I can see that this is something that I've worked so very hard to control and now it's being reflected back at me and I find that that makes me angry and you know I am, I don't have, I, I can't. I haven't gotten on top of that yet, but what I am doing is looking at a lot of autism stuff because I don't understand, understand how it is for someone who is autistic as to why they get so emotional. I mean, for me it's just been a lot of thoughted, unrealistic expectations through selfish thinking of an addict and potentially borderline as well, maybe, whereas working on becoming accountable for things and doing shadow work and looking deep inside myself at the stuff that I really don't like and addressing that and then working on emotional regulation. You know like that's how I've dealt with it. But the thing with autistic little people is that they can't identify their emotions and innately, I just find it so triggering because I find anger such an ugly state for people to be in and he does become quite nasty and it's hard to empathize with someone when they're in that state as well. But I'm really working so very hard to do that and I'm actually going to get some coaching from some specialists and how to manage that, so that will help with that. I identify that this is something. This is like my next challenge. It's almost like, yeah, my higher power has got these set lessons for me to learn in life, you know, and I'm determined to get them down pat. So it's almost quite fitting actually that this is something that I'm having to deal with now.
Speaker 1:So my son will become emotional and melt down just out of nowhere at the drop of a hat, and it could be for seemingly very trivial things, like he will misinterpret how someone says something to him as being nasty and then he'll come back as being really nasty towards that person, or he will get overstimulated with sensory stuff, or he will have a problem on the computer that he can't solve that I've got no fucking way of solving as well, because I mean he's like he's that bright with minecraft that he's actually doing, uh, like I don't know, all this stuff with mods, which no other kid around seems to know what he's doing. It's just that advanced, you know, um, so you can't solve that problem. Or transitions too. So transitioning between, like you know, like playing on the computer and having a bath or going to bed, that's always really tricky as well and he will just and he will like be inconsolable, like kicking the walls right and it comes out of rage, you know, and like it's really hard to get him to settle down. Like I try my best. Sometimes, if I'm triggered, I will yell and that's not helpful and I'm going to get help with not doing that, and other times, you know, I try and practice some mindfulness and sometimes that works.
Speaker 1:We do like this game where I go. If we go through the alphabet, starting with the letter A, you know, know what's the animal saying with a, or a food or a vegetable say with a, you go through the alphabet and that brings him back into the room. Or you know, say name three things in the room, or, you like, wiggle your left foot and tell me how, you know, the sheep feels against it, or something. What you're trying to do is stop that person dysregulating out of their body and getting carried away with the anger. If you can make them take notice of something else other than what they're angry about, um, then that I found that can be helpful. But it's not always the answer, you know, because sometimes he goes oh piss off, mom, I don't want to do the alphabet game. You're like fuck, you're doing the alphabet game, you know, like um. So yeah, I'm going to get some help with that, which will be massively good, because when I can't get him to settle down and he continues to spiral and I get triggered and I start to get frustrated and and my buttons get pushed and I explode, then it's just not good, you know, and I realise it, and at times I feel like I'm failing, you know, and that's why I'm getting help. So it would be interesting to see what the experts have to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess, as this is the beginning of my journey, learning about that aspect of emotional dysregulation, I can't comment too much on it because I'm pretty shit at helping him in these situations. Now I wanted to do was just, I guess, in more detail, before I finish, go over some of the ways that I learnt to control my emotions and not to dysregulate. So I really think the way you know, if I think back on my life, you know, I really think that I was supposed to be with my ex for very many reasons of learning, and one of them was the fact that he was a narcissist and so me being like, maybe more of a, more of a, like a um, um, anxiously attached person. So, if you know the attachment theory, there's different styles of attachment that we um adopt in certain relationships that are modeled around our relationships that we had with our parents. Um, funnily enough, I'm with a, with a normal someone with a normal attachment style now and I don't seem to exhibit these anxious sort of traits. But when I'm with a narcissist or this particular narcissist, then definitely I did display those sort of trays and I think that I was with him for a reason, because it was instrumental in me learning how to regulate my emotions.
Speaker 1:Because when you're with a narcissist or someone who's avoidant, you know, they just don't tolerate any type of bullshit, you know, and they don't do the there there's or anything like that. You know, if you try and garnish any type of sympathy with emotions, they don't, they don't respond, you know, and this was just perfect sort of environment for me to learn. So you know, I would do things like, you know, when we had an argument or something and I would start to, you know, text crazy things, you know, and power text him because he would do this thing. He worked away, he was like fly in, fly out, so he was working away and he would do this thing where if we were having an argument he would just shut down, he wouldn't take my calls and he'd put his phone on do not disturb. And that for me as someone who needed validation and some sort of resolution with any conflict, was like intolerable. You know. That made me even more like needy and I'd do crazy things, like write these really long text messages that I just couldn't leave them alone. And so when I became aware that, like so, it was him that really made me aware how ugly my behavior was, you know, because he just wasn't having a bar of it.
Speaker 1:And then so later on, when I was working the steps and I had a sponsor, I used to vet everything with her. You know like I would run the situation this is before I got better sense of judgment I'd run the situation by her and go, you know, wow, this is so unfair. And she would go like, michelle, he just wants his alone time, you can't like. She would really bullshit, check me and go like, yeah, no, you can't go texting him. This is just crazy, baby, you're not going to get what you want. And she would really bullshit, check me and go like, yeah, no, you can't go texting him. This is just crazy behavior, you're not going to get what you want. And she would say you cannot influence other people, places or things. You can only change how you behave and what you're doing now is not going to get the desired outcome.
Speaker 1:So I'd have a chat with her and I just realized, yeah, I'm really upset at the moment, but I can't like texting him and stuff is not going to lead to any sort of resolution, so I need to just go and concentrate on something else. And I would, and I'd literally put my phone in another room, out of sight, and I would ban myself from checking, even if you, to see if he'd gotten back to me. I would just leave in another room and I'd get on with my day and I'd come back to it at the end of the day when I was a bit more calmer. You know, but that was really challenging for me because you know this guy, he so being a narcissist, he would give me no validation whatsoever. That's what I would desperately seek.
Speaker 1:He had a history of infidelity and so he used to contact hookers and things like that, and all of this was just and all I wanted was to be perfect and live up to what I thought to be the perfect partner for him to be enough. And he just kept on withdrawing his emotions. So it was kind of perfect for me, a perfect learning experience. I must say emotions, things. So it was kind of perfect for me, a perfect learning experience. I must say, um, and yeah, I reckon I was with him for a reason to learn all these lessons, uh, that I take with me into the current relationship, which is with a much more beautiful not more which a beautiful man, you know, who I hope will be my life partner, and I don't want to fuck that up. So, yeah, I was with that person for a reason. I can see that so clearly now, you know.
Speaker 1:So now, like I don't have it completely master, but if something, if I'm angry at something in my toolbox, so that's what I do I ask myself do I have a right to be angry? And then I practice all these different methods to try and calm down. So one of them is like mindfulness I'll take myself to the beach or something and just sit there and just try and get into my body and, you know, notice things like the wind and how that feels against my skin, or how the sun feels against my skin, and all these different sensations which will bring me back into my body and calms me down. The alphabet game actually, I used that when I was in jail, when I was in isolation and I was so bored and I was going through the alphabet trying to think of different pharmaceuticals, like real drugs, not street drugs, for every single letter of the alphabet. So I don't tend to use that to calm down, but I use it with my son and I think it's probably better to, honestly, if you're using it, um, not on yourself, but on someone else, um, deep breathing, um, and just really trying to, once I can calm myself down, bringing then only then, when you're not emotional, can you use your frontal lobes and cognitive processes to reason out the problem. But you can't do that when you're angry, because all that will happen will be your brain will grab bits of information from everywhere and as supportive evidence to the reason why you should be so angry, and you only get angrier and angrier. So you should only try to be reasoned out or think about the problem once you're calm again. Yeah, so breathing exercises or, like, I've got um a lot of swinging seats and I find it's really soothing to sit on a swinging seat. I'm sitting on one now.
Speaker 1:Um, for my nervous system and, yeah, in recovery too, I've learned a lot about my autonomic nervous system, which has been like mind opening, because, being someone who is addicted to stimulants, of course you know I thought that the more up you were, the better. But in fact, what I had was probably an imbalance and by switching on my parasympathetic nervous system. That's worked well for me in a lot of arenas, particularly lifting weights and things like that too, because I was finding that doing an exercise like thrusters and things like that I'd find really uncomfortable, and what I worked out was that I was trying to breathe at the wrong time because I was so hyped up. So if you try and breathe at the bottom of a squat with lifting heavy weights, you're trying to open your diaphragm against a lot of resistance. You need to breathe at the top.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, learning breathing exercise and how to breathe properly and how to regulate my autonomic immune system that way has actually extended into being helpful in other arenas too and, like you know, working out and and yeah, I just just becoming more aware of where my nervous system is at different days. You know, am I feeling comfortable? Is there something that I'm noticing that's not quite right about how I'm feeling? You know, and actually learning to identify these things actually extends into a more successful recovery from drugs as well, because, you know, instead of just going, I'm irritable or I'm not feeling quite right. You know we use this more like okay, where's that sensation coming from, you know? Is it I haven't had enough sleep? Is it my sugar might be a bit low? Or is it, you know, I'm a bit too? You know, is it I haven't had enough sleep? Is it my sugar might be a bit low, or is it, you know, I'm a bit too? Uh, you know, in like I need some parasympathetic stimulation, you know, and to calm down and regulate my breathing and things like that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I guess these tools I don't just use for like emotional regulation, but in everyday just being more aware of what's happening in my body's nervous system, has been really helpful. And then I guess too, if you're coming from a calmer baseline and being more aware and not being so irritated or having such an irritable nervous system, then yeah, your tendency to become over emotional and dysregulate is less so of a problem as well. I guess I think so, along with all the like sort of neurological regulation stuff, also the realization that I'm not always right and that our brains are very good at getting biased information to us. So I used to think, oh there's, you know, if I was upset about a point, you know, there's this bit of evidence over here that proves my point and this bit of evidence that proves my point, and I never questioned it until I actually became aware of the fact that your brain actually works to be biased, you know, and that, in fact, your perspective on things or your perception of situations can often be actually very far from reality and inaccurate. So opening my mind up to actually considering other points of view or that I'm not right has also been a big thing that I've learned in recovery and also in, you know, dealing with conflict and emotional regulation and, as I said, it's much easier to do that too when you're not spinning out of control to the extremes that I used to.
Speaker 1:So this work has been really life-changing for me. I've got to say, and it's a set of skills that I wish I would have learned, like 10, 20 years earlier for sure, but unfortunately I did not, and I guess I'm hoping to help my son master this skill way before I did and that will also hopefully make his life much easier and much better. And I guess sorry, this is a plane going overhead and I guess the fact that I wasn't taught all of this early on in life is a little bit astonishing and probably has something to do with the fact that my parents had no idea about this, because they also emotionally dysregulated quite a lot. But also, when you're a bit neurodivergent and you're a girl, as a child you tend to mask a lot.
Speaker 1:So these issues didn't come out till later in life for me, and that was beyond, when I was under the care of anyone or you know, anyone could reel me in, um or teach me all of this, and so, yeah, it's quite phenomenal to me that I only learned all of this shit like when I was in my 40s. But anyway, I've learnt it. So that's good and I'm a reasonably quick learner. But I don't have a down pat yet. That's all I've got to say for today, I think, but I will update on this topic as I move through the journey with my son and helping him get his emotional dysregulation under control. So, yeah, thanks for listening. Send us a shout out, follow the show and follow me on my socials as well. I hope that my content is helpful and I will talk to you next episode. Be kind to everyone, namaste.