Dear Gaia:

I read something today in Wikipedia, and you can look at it yourself, topic Emotional dysregulation (the opposite term to Emotional Regulation, which I mentioned to you  before). It fits you (and me, before) perfectly: “Emotional dysregulation is a term used in the mental health community that refers to emotional responses that are poorly modulated… exhibiting emotions too intense for a situation, difficulty calming down when upset, difficulty decreasing negative emotions, becoming avoidant or aggressive when dealing with negative emotions, experiencing more negative emotions.. exhibiting more extreme emotions.. difficulty recognizing their own emotions, focusing on the negative.. being impulsive”- notice the term “extreme emotions” in Wiki, same as your “extreme feelings” words in the title of your thread.

Continued from Wiki on Emotional dysregulation: “Caregiver interaction styles that overwhelm a child or that are unpredictable may undermine emotional regulation development”- this is exactly what your mother did with her melodrama/ histrionics/ magnifying glass MO- she overwhelmed you and therefore made it impossible for you as a child and growing up to develop emotional regulation!

“Effective strategies involve working with a child to support developing self-control such as modeling a desired behavior rather than demanding it”- meaning your mother didn’t model to you emotional regulation; she modeled to you emotional dysregulation when she behaved histrionically, magnifying negative things with her magnifying glass.

“Increased negative family emotional climate was found to be associated with high levels of emotional dysregulation”- that’s what you had (if not still), a negative emotional climate!

anita