If you find yourself experiencing moods and emotions that are so intense, that you struggle to calm yourself down, you may be showing signs of being emotionally unstable. You may not possess the skills necessary to calm yourself down, meaning your emotions tend to become more and more aroused.
However, how can they tell the difference? Regarding behavior, people who suffer mentally may withdraw from friends and family members. This makes it harder to understand their problems. People with emotional issues may struggle with healthy boundaries and might be codependent on their loved ones.
An overwhelming fear of abandonment. Extreme anxiety and irritability. Anger. Paranoia and being suspicious of other people.
Emotionally unstable personality disorder causes significantly impaired functioning, including a feeling of emptiness, lack of identity, unstable mood and relationships, intense fear of abandonment and dangerous impulsive behaviour, including severe episodes of self-harm.
Causes of Emotional Instability
These include genetics, mental health history (including past trauma), and exposure to certain stimuli such as drug use and abuse. Some of these risk factors cannot be controlled, while some can only increase the likelihood of developing emotional instability.
People who have ADHD frequently experience emotions so deeply that they become overwhelmed or “flooded.” They may feel joy, anger, pain, or confusion in a given situation—and the intensity may precede impulsive behaviors they regret later.
An inability to cope with problems or daily activities. Feeling of disconnection or withdrawal from normal activities. Unusual or "magical" thinking. Excessive anxiety. Prolonged sadness, depression or apathy.
3 Emotionally unstable personality disorder. Personality disorder characterized by a definite tendency to act impulsively and without consideration of the consequences; the mood is unpredictable and capricious. There is a liability to outbursts of emotion and an incapacity to control the behavioural explosions.
Borderline personality disorder is also called emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD) and emotional intensity disorder (EID). In this factsheet, we call it BPD as this is still the most common term for the condition.
What Is Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD)? BPD, if left untreated, can severely impact a person's life behavior, self-image and stress-related thinking. Thus, it is commonly associated with issues like relationship, work, and school problems.
Thankfully, anyone can learn to become more emotionally stable. The key is to identify and eliminate these unhelpful mental habits that cause so much excess emotional suffering.
Things that can indicate an episode is occurring: Intense angry outbursts. Suicidal thoughts and self-harm behavior. Going to great lengths to feel something, then becoming increasingly avoidant and withdrawn.
Quiet BPD is an unofficial term for when you engage with symptoms inwardly, instead of outwardly. Share on Pinterest Sarah Mason/Getty Images. Having quiet borderline personality disorder (BPD) — aka “high-functioning” BPD — means that you often direct thoughts and feelings inward rather than outward.
People with BPD also have a tendency to think in extremes, a phenomenon called "dichotomous" or “black-or-white” thinking. 3 People with BPD often struggle to see the complexity in people and situations and are unable to recognize that things are often not either perfect or horrible, but are something in between.
Once upset, borderline people are often unable to think straight or calm themselves in a healthy way. They may say hurtful things or act out in dangerous or inappropriate ways.
Another hallmark of borderline personality disorder is having a favorite person—usually a family member, romantic partner, or someone in a supportive role, such as a teacher or coach. For someone with this type of BPD relationship, a “favorite person” is someone they rely on for comfort, happiness, and validation.
Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPDs) become overwhelmed and incapacitated by the intensity of their emotions, whether it is joy and elation or depression, anxiety, and rage. They are unable to manage these intense emotions.
Emotional instability can manifest in different ways, such as impulsive behavior, self-destructive tendencies, anxiety, depression, anger, irritability, and difficulty forming and maintaining relationships.
Similarly, people with ADHD can also experience 'meltdowns' more commonly than others, which is where emotions build up so extremely that someone acts out, often crying, angering, laughing, yelling and moving all at once, driven by many different emotions at once – this essentially resembles a child tantrum and can ...
Most people with ADHD have a very low frustration tolerance. They can be overly emotional about the stressors they experience. They don't have a barrier that allows them to set aside uncomfortable emotions, and they often become completely flooded by a feeling, making it unbearable.