Healing from a trauma such as sexual assault or abuse happens in stages. For some people after the trauma they shut down the feelings and these only re emerge many years later. Then, sometimes, all those feelings come roaring back. When the fear, the anger, the sadness, the helplessness, the heartache—all the emotions that were perhaps too painful, too complicated, in the immediate aftermath of the trauma—suddenly re-emerge it can feel very overwhelming. What could be happening is that some deep, inner part of us finally feels safe and stable enough to address the leftover emotional fallout that’s been patiently waiting for years. As difficult as it may be to believe, a sudden re-emergence of old feelings is often a sign that you’re ready to heal on a deeper level.
It is important that we understand what is happening to us at this time, and we are able to be able to support ourselves to regulate our emotions during this time although our feelings may feel over whelming at times. This can be called Emotional Regulation or Affect Regulation.
“Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their feelings. Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have effects at one or more points in the emotion producing process.”
(Source Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299.)
Affect regulation refers to the ability to manage and regulate our emotions effectively. It involves a range of cognitive, behavioural, and physiological strategies that enable us to modulate our emotional responses and maintain a state of emotional balance or stabilisation.
Emotional dysregulation can manifest as intense or extreme emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation, or as difficulty in controlling emotional responses such as crying or anger. Dysregulation can also lead to difficulty in managing the day to day stresses in life, as well as impulsivity, and also feeling out of control. One of the goals of therapy therefore can be to work with your therapist to improve your emotional regulation and so you will feel more stabilised. You can also put some strategies in place on your own or with the support of your friends. This is important so you can start to feel more in control of your life.