Do you experience extreme highs and lows?
Many of my clients experience anxiety that is primarily associated with rapidly shifting emotions. There is a feeling of instability in relationships, fear of losing their partner, fear of intimacy, and a general crisis of identity. They may have received a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, bipolar 2, or simply depression and anxiety.
Signs and Symptoms
- Fear of abandonment
- Periods of feeling high, on top of the world
- Periods of feeling depressed
- Difficulty in relationships
- Low self-esteem
- Seeing things in extremes, either really good or really bad
- Fear of intimacy
Treating Mood Swings
The initial treatment of mood swings may involve lifestyle changes, sleep, diet, exercise, and social connection. Many individuals may be prescribed medication for depression or for stabilizing mood. DBT therapy involves grounding exercises, and recognizing extreme black and white thinking.
Healing Mood Swings
Someone with mood swings often struggles to form stable long term relationships, and so building the relationship with a therapist can be a very corrective experience in and of itself. In the process of building a relationship, you may discover a more stable sense of yourself, a basis to have more balanced emotions. Oftentimes there are traumatic events that occurred that destabilized this sense of self. Therapy is a place to explore those events and recognize what meaning you made from them. Maybe you had to experience those things alone and did not have anyone accompany you through them. Now you are ready to revisit these events with a supportive person and find healing.