Day One Hundred and Two!!!!!

The Emotional Rollercoaster!!!


All of us have unique personalities that make us who it is that we are! We are all like snowflakes, not two of us are alike, even if we have an identical twin. Some of us can be sensitive to becoming depressed, compulsive, conflictual, or passive aggressive, which are all ways in which we can act-out based upon our personalities. Then there are the extremes; we have a tendency to call this a disordered way of being. Mental illness or being on the spectrum, are the extreme versions of personality, which can be driven by negative self statements, low self esteem, no sense of self worth, and hopelessness. These feelings have a tendency to be marked by an emotional rollercoaster of not just ups and downs but extreme ends of the emotional spectrum. 


What part of us can we blame when our emotions get out of whack? Of course, it’s your brain. Your amygdala assigns meaning to whatever it is that you are feeling. It recognizes that there might be a need to react to react to an emergency. The cortex on the other hand is the rational part of the brain. 


The amygdala is the emotional part of the brain. You are either going to fight, run away, or freeze. Because it is in control of your fear and your anxiety and emotional pain, which is at the root of most emotional disorders. When the amygdala is stimulated, it starts sending emotional messages to the cortex. So when the amygdala is stimulated, and doesn’t know when to stop sending messages to the cortex, the cortex can become overwhelmed, emotionality takes over, and rationality or cognitive thinking, stops. 


The amygdala makes the initial decision of emotionality before the cortex or rational thinking side of your brain (cognitive) even gets a chance to kick in. Those of us that are emotional processors are hard wired to react emotionally, whereas those of us that are cognitive processors, keep everything as cognitive decision making, shutting down their emotionality (at least from what you are able to see from the outside). 


The amygdala, when it kicks in says to your cortex, “you are in pain, stress, sadness, hopelessness etc. you need to eat to make this go away!” And for others, the amygdala keeps kicking in saying, “eat, eat, eat, eat”! At a certain point the cortex, fires up and says “No, don’t eat, eating won’t help and all that will happen is that you will feel bad all over again!” But, it is too late, the damage has already been done. That is why having all of the ‘willpower’ in the world, doesn’t actually work.