Day 6: Emotional Instability - Living in the Swings. (Copy)

This post is part of a 10‑day series exploring the nine criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), followed by my personal diagnosis story. These posts are educational in nature and rooted in lived experience — they are not intended as tools for self‑diagnosis.

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Some people feel like their emotions are waves.

For me, they were more like storms, sudden, intense, and hard to predict.

The DSM calls this “affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood.”

In plain language: emotions that shift fast and hit hard.

Joy to despair. Calm to rage. Hope to hopelessness.

Sometimes within minutes.

It’s not moodiness.

It’s not overreacting.

It’s a nervous system that’s constantly on high alert, reacting to every perceived shift in connection, safety, or meaning.

What This Looks Like For Me

I could wake up feeling okay and be in tears by breakfast.

A small comment could spiral into shame.

A delayed text could feel like rejection.

A moment of connection could feel euphoric…until it doesn’t.

I didn’t (and still don’t) know how to stay in one feeling.

Everything felt like too much or not enough.

And I hated that I couldn’t explain it, even to myself.

I wasn’t trying to be dramatic.

I was trying to survive the intensity of my own inner world.

What Helps

• Tracking patterns. I started noticing what triggered the biggest swings and what helped me come back to center through my journaling. Having something I could reference. Having something to form a core belief with as to why I get triggered. Mine, for example, is “I’m not good enough”, so anything that feels like a slight hint at someone saying or treating me as such makes me flip like a switch.

• Naming emotions. Just saying “I feel overwhelmed” instead of acting on it gave me a little more space to breathe. (Sometimes, literally taking 5-6 deep breaths helps more than actually saying anything.)

• Therapy. Especially since working with DBT. Focusing on the things around me that I can appreciate helps ground me when I feel so intensely.

• Self-kindness. Learning to say, “This feeling is real, but it won’t last forever,” changed everything. (Though not perfect, any progress is better than none. Small victories.")

If You Relate

You’re not too sensitive.

You’re not broken.

You’re not failing for feeling deeply.

You’ve learned to live in a world that often doesn’t make space for your intensity.

But your emotions aren’t the enemy.

They’re messengers.

And you can learn to listen without being swept away.

You are allowed to feel.

You are allowed to stay.

You are allowed to soften, even in the storm.