Emotional Dyregulation/Meltdowns

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Hello,

I hope you’re all doing well this evening well this morning now this after midnight. I’m just reaching out to see if I can get a little support. My 27-year-old son who has ADHD and is on the autism spectrum has been having some meltdowns lately. He’s having a really hard time regulating his emotions recently. He’s away at work for the next week or two.. and he called me crying and bawling on the phone. He thinks his girlfriend might be breaking up with him. He’s totally beside himself and I can’t seem to calm him down when he’s home here we can talk it through and I can help him in that way. What are some things you think I can say to him to help bring it down? It’s so real when it happens the crying the bawling the sobbing, going down a rabbit hole of deep dark thinking, “I’m never gonna be right in the head. I’m not normal, etc. etc.” it hurts so bad to see him suffer like this. He does eventually come out of it but is so hard while he’s going through it. He does see a therapist and has a psychiatrist he sees on the regular.

I just feel so alone. This is the first group that I’ve ever joined a group. I wish I had help when he was younger. He’s been diagnosed since he was in the second grade. He’s 27 years old now.Thank you for reading

Has he been trying anything from Polyvagal theory? His therapists should be able to help with that if he hasn't already tried it. Basically, it's more of a physical set of exercises to calm down the nervous system. It's definitely not perfect in that you do still have to have some level of togetherness in the moment to use any of the exercises, but if we're talking emotional dysregulation,that's probably where to start.

Thank you so much for replying. I’m gonna look into that. He does see a therapist once a week.

This sort of unexpected event pain can hit hard. There can be an interval when things get better and then it hits hard again. Over a longer period of time repetitive instances become less intense and longer intervals. Going through this hurts, but there will be recovery.

Sometimes it can be useful to review the relationship to see if there were any indicators that would have shown that this would happen. This can be useful for the future. For now, it can be helpful just to be available to talk through the instances of recurrent pain.

Most therapists should have some awareness of it and how to teach it. I think the biggest challenge tends to be realizing that you need to use it early enough to catch the nervous system before it completely gets out of control.

There's other stuff like just labeling things as being "not so serious" that may or may not work, but I've found helpful. That being said, i tend to be fairly dissociated, so I tend to shy away from that one except for situations where I'm being all triggered over something in that past that I can't learn anything more from.