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Here's What It FEELS LIKE When Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated | Crappy Childhood Fairy | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: Here's What It FEELS LIKE When Your Nervous System Is Dysregulated
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Core Theme
Childhood trauma fundamentally alters brain and nervous system regulation, leading to a state of dysregulation that significantly impacts daily life and decision-making, but this cycle can be broken through learning to re-regulate.
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people who had a rough childhood often
go through life feeling and knowing
really that they're different than most people
people
and it's well known that early exposure
to violence and addiction abuse neglect
they can have a lifelong effect on
mental health and behavior
it's common sense right but until
recently researchers understood these
effects to be mostly psychological or
learned from dysfunctional parents and
while this is partly true we now know
the primary injury is neurological early
trauma dysregulates the brain and
nervous system potentially triggering a
whole range of problems from obesity to
ADHD to heart disease to sex addiction
but for people with childhood PTSD just
being disregulated is a problem that
makes ordinary things in life
ridiculously hard things like going on a date
date
spending time alone expressing an
opinion or you know just buying a jacket
can set it off
so if you could see an MRI image of the
brain in this dysregulated state what
you'd see in the front left cortex it
would go darker and dimmer and less
active under stress hampering the
ability to reason and pay attention and
you'd see the right front cortex just
flaring you know which is a flood of
emotions and activity there
suppressed reasoning over-reactive
emotions this is familiar right this is
what it feels like it's not all in your
mind it turns out it's in your brain
so there's this change of activity brain
waves are irregular breathing and heart
rate become ragged and out of sync and
there might be numbness in your hands or
your mouth or your face and it can be
hard to find words or to complete a task
you're in the middle of or even to just
pay attention so personally I get clumsy
and I trip on the curb and drop things
when I'm dysregulated my handwriting
changes does yours for a lot of us we
say things that we don't mean and we do
things that we don't want to do
or we may grow silent and withdrawn or
we may feel desperate and act
impulsively or fly into a rage and lash out
out
so after an outburst like this a trauma reaction
reaction
we might feel no emotion and we could
behave coldly to the people we've just
hurt my friend once told me that when I
get upset sometimes I have a blank
expression on my face and my voice goes
flat so it's impossible for other people
to tell from the outside what I'm feeling
feeling
but it looks like I don't care
and I remember a teacher telling me once
that my son in his preschool had been
really naughty that day and when she
told me that I felt mortified and I kind
of freaked out about it and she said I'm
telling you this and you obviously don't care
care
and I finally have some insight about
why she would say that why people have
ever thought so about me I do care
and you might have this too it's a very
hard thing where people can't read you
but here's the thing these reactions are
not happening because I'm bad or you're
bad or anybody's necessarily being bad
or selfish or weak
I mean you know sometimes we are right
but these reactions are happening or
they're made worse because the brain is dysregulated
dysregulated
nobody knew this before not doctors not
therapists not Preschool teachers nobody knew
knew
but now we know
so one way that I've described the
feeling of dysregulation to people who
have never really experienced it is that
it's like wearing a pair of headphones
with like really loud music just
blasting in your ears and you're you're
wearing somebody else's glasses that
make everything blurry and you're
wearing a giant pair of shoes a foot
long for your feet and a mop is on your
head and all the dirty strings are
slapping you in the face and no one can
see this and they think you're normal
and and you're trying to pretend that
you are normal and that you feel fine
and that you are in the conversation but
actually you're frustrated you're
getting pulled out you're disconnected
you're uncomfortable but you have to try
to guess what a connected person would
say in that situation it's very anxiety
provoking right you have to think about
how to hold your face so it looks
appropriate to whatever the other person
is saying only you can't really hear
what they're saying because the noise in
your head is so loud and you have a mop
on your head
so dysregulation gets activated when
we're confronted with stressors and
crises and remember it can suppress your
ability to reason while it amps up your
emotions so you see how this explains so
much of why those of us with childhood
PTSD appear to keep making the same bad
choices over and over even when we say
we're never going to do it again and we
mean we're never going to do it again
but then you look down and there you are
doing it again
so I'm here to tell you you can break
this cycle you really are capable of
making good choices and good changes but
it would really help if you could learn
to re-regulate so how do you know when
dysregulation is happening let's start
with the regulated State and what that
feels like when you're calm brain
activity is even and it's driving body
responses and emotions in an even and
predictable way
but when strong emotions trigger
dysregulation your thinking changes you
can go into reactivity you might
withdraw get silent get confused say
things freak out or do something
impulsive and it's hard to perceive
accurately what's going on in those
moments like you know what just happened
what's the actual problem is it me is it
the other person what am I supposed to say
say
so in our disregulated state we might
totally misread whether a person is safe
or dangerous and we can't tell whether
our words and actions are appropriate to
the situation and sometimes we say
things and do things that we later
regret so the trick to noticing
dysregulation is to recognize the signs
and they might be a little different in
different people but here are some Clues
one is you feel spaced out or at a loss
for words and you can't remember where
you are
or you feel scattered and you're trying
to do a lot of things at once but you're
not really finishing anything have you
had that
or you're tripping over things dropping
things losing things can't find your
phone your keys your jacket your purse
your voice and facial expressions are flat
flat
or you're in a rage or you feel a huge
urgency to express what's bothering you
or you can't feel parts of your body
your hands your mouth your face your
nose your feet or dysregulation often
begins with an emotional flood you get
very upset or scared or something that's
sad or something happens but sometimes
the trigger is nothing you noticed you
can wake up dysregulated in fact so
that's what it's like to be dysregulated
and I've put a quiz in the description
section it's on the free tools page
there's a quiz to find out if you're
dysregulated if you're showing the
common symptoms it's a self-assessment
now the most important question is what
can you do so first you notice that
you're dysregulated and if you can do
this one thing you can control your
negative impulses and give yourself the
time and space to re-regulate before you
begin saying anything or doing anything
that could be destructive so if you're
flooding with emotion going numb say to
yourself I'm getting dysregulated
all right number two be safe this is not
a good time to drive a car seriously
pull over and take your time don't go
running into a crosswalk or try to use a
table saw when you're dysregulated give
all your focus to getting yourself into
a physically safe place where you can pause
pause
if you are threatened with violence some
of this won't apply so just return all
your focus in that case to getting
yourself into a physically safe space
whatever it takes
all right number four if what triggered
you was an argument instead of
escalating the fight you can use gentle
words to stop the interaction at least
temporarily like I want to continue this
conversation I want to hear what you're
saying but I need to take a breather to
calm down
or you can say if you don't want to tell
the other person that you're triggered
and just tell them you need a bathroom
break or if you're on the phone you can
just say you have a call on the other line
line
now when you need to step back from a
situation you don't have to get into a
big discussion about it because remember
talking about it can actually make
dysregulation worse
so just find a way to put the
conversation on pause number six is then
to buy some time separate from the other
person if you can go to a room by
yourself even if it's the bathroom no
one has to know what you're doing if it
feels urgent take an even longer time
before you try to resolve anything
number seven is and this is a quick
technique stamp your feet on the floor
you'd be amazed how helpful it is to
bring yourself back into present time
into your body and as you stamp each
foot say quietly to yourself right left
right left and this helps your brain
begin to re-regulate you can also take
10 deep breaths focusing particularly on
like that
another measure you can take that no one
knows you're doing is you compress your
tongue to the back of your teeth like
like that number 10 is you can sit down
and feel the weight of your butt in the
chair and this is one more way to get
back inside your body now remember
inside your body out of your body it's a
figure of speech of course you're in
your body but you're not in full command
of your faculties when you're
dysregulated or dissociated
all right number 11.
sometimes what you need is to eat
something and when you're stressed
you'll probably crave carbs and sugar
but it's protein foods that will help
you get grounded again so mix that into
whatever you're eating add it
number 12 if you need some comfort you
can wash your hands and feel the water
and soap on your hands warm water is
beautifully calming
number 13 if you have a trusty friend
with you you can get a good squeezing
hug and it can really help re-regulate
your brain if no one's around try
pressing your back into a corner and
then Wrap Your Arms Around yourself so
you can feel pressure all around your
torso we're wired to calm down when
we're hugged and that's it you now have
a whole bunch of things that you can do
when you notice you're dysregulated and
I've written them down in a downloadable
PDF that you can access in the links
below I go deeper into the science of
dysregulation in my course healing
childhood PTSD also dysregulation boot
camp two different courses so I'll put
those links down below too
some people ask me is medication helpful
for treating dysregulation and some
researchers say yes and some say no but
given that we now know that the
underlying problem with a lot of
childhood PTSD symptoms
it's not a chemical imbalance per se
that's corrected by the introduction
introduction of chemicals there's
evidence that some medications can
actually do more harm than good
and one of the reasons may be that they
interfere with your natural ability to
re-regulate after a period of
dysregulation so think about that
everybody gets dysregulated sometimes
and everybody eventually re-regulates
with cptsd we tend to get disregulated
more often for longer periods of time
and it's harder to come back from so the
goal is to learn to re-regulate as soon
as you notice it and then to stay
regulated more of the time
so that's the first part of the solution
the second part then with your nice
fresh regulated mind is to work on the
behaviors and circumstances that flowed
out of you living your life disregulated
so much of the time
the childhood trauma happened and we
definitely were affected by it but this
is the stuff that holds us back now it's
the dysregulation and the behaviors so
that's the essence of what I teach in my
courses and coaching programs learn to
re-regulate your brain and emotions and
I teach people how to do that and two
acknowledge what happened to you and
then put it over on the side so you can
stop dwelling on it or identifying with
it and then move your focus to Healing
the life problems that are holding you
back today the habits the behaviors and
the reactions that you have focus on
right now what you're doing to make a
happy life right now to become your real
self right now
because it's time and the past can't
touch you now it's time to be your real
self even if it's funky because it's
beautiful you're a miracle you are made
to be something much more than someone
who struggles and if you can Master
re-regulation you can then have all this
space in your life and all this
possibility you can meet people and try
things and quit things and make a
positive difference in the world that's
where happiness comes from these all
become choices when you learn to
re-regulate you can go back to school
you can try your hand at a relationship
you can tell your story without flying
out of your body and collapsing into a
crying mess
you can choose what you want to spend
time thinking about it's really nice and
I made a video about what it's like when
you heal and I've got that for you right
here and I will see you very soon [Music]
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