Hi everyone! I wanted to start off by sincerely apologizing for my absence from the newsletter. As some of you know, applying to colleges while balancing weekly AP tests and leadership positions during senior year can get quite hectic. In the past few weeks, I’ve had so many events happening at once that I struggled to find time to write an article (at the moment, I am the only person writing the Dear Overachievers articles). With that being said, however, I am still unhappy with the longevity of the break. After this article, I plan for Dear Overachievers’ articles to cycle normally again, but I wanted to explain my absence the past few weeks. Sorry, once again.
Ok, onto the article…
The main symptom of epilepsy is seizures, in which you lose control of your physical body due to a tiny trigger. But what if seizures could occur mentally and emotionally as well through the same process?
Part 1: Cracks in the Armor
Before I explain this, let’s define epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a brain disorder that results in repeated, unpredictable seizures – changes in normal brain activity, lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes caused by episodes of uncontrolled and abnormal electrical activity of the brain cells.
Epilepsy seizures can be triggered by a wide range of factors, including:
Emotional stress
Dehydration
Vitamin deficiencies
Specific foods (with caffeine being noted as a common factor)
Certain times of the day or night
Exposure to flickering lights or stimuli
Notice how most of these factors are common experiences in humans’ daily lives and how they would, therefore, seem relatively harmless or incapable of causing seizures?
During seizures, people with epilepsy experience uncontrolled muscle movements, jerking, or stiffness; temporary loss of awareness or alertness; atomic seizures (loss of muscle tone, causing the body to fall or become weak), blank staring or confusion; and problems with expression.
Now – how can we correlate medical epilepsy with “emotional seizures”?
Well, the “emotional seizures” referred to in the beginning of this article are rooted in emotional dysregulation.
Emotional dysregulation is characterized by poorly regulated emotional responses that seem out of proportion to the stimuli.
Since this symptom of the notorious overachiever syndrome is less known, let’s use a familiar situation to clearly illustrate this issue:
You check your math quiz grade and realize you scored a 90. Rationally, you know it’s an A. But instead of feeling proud, your chest tightens. All you can see is the red circle around the missed problems. You’re emotionally writhing on your way home. By the time you’re home, you’re breaking down, you’re replaying the mistake, you’ve convinced yourself that you’re no longer smart, and you’re snapping at a friend who just simply asked -‘how was your day?
So, emotional dysregulation encompasses the somewhat uncontrollable feelings you experience after a small inconvenience, usually related to academics (or the area in your life that you associate your self-worth with the most).
But how do epilepsy and emotional dysregulation relate? Well, just like minuscule triggers set off seizures in epilepsy, relatively small academic disruptions set off extreme emotional reactions where you lose control of yourself.
Just like a seizure hijacks the brain’s circuits, emotional dysregulation hijacks your reactions. You don’t choose the intensity: it surges out of proportion to the trigger.
And just like seizures, these emotional misfires don’t always stay the same. They can spread…until stress, criticism, even miniscule mistakes feel like live wires sparking uncontrollably inside you.
To be continued :)
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/epilepsy/about/index.html https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17636-epilepsy https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/25065-emotional-dysregulation https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-is-emotional-dysregulation https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10282844/
https://childmind.org/article/can-help-kids-self-regulation/ https://health.clevelandclinic.org/progressive-muscle-relaxation-pmr
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8272667/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK513238/
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/progressive-muscle-relaxation-pmr
https://www.healthline.com/health/progressive-muscle-relaxation
https://www.va.gov/WHOLEHEALTHLIBRARY/tools/progressive-muscle-relaxation.asp
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/relaxation-technique/art-20045368