What is Dysregulation?

Regulated means that something is operating properly.

The nervous system has three different states to utilize according to its needs.

The parasympathetic state is our default state, relaxed, calm, alive, connected, patient, playful. It's how we wished we felt all the time. Kids are wonderful at exemplifying the parasympathetic state.

The sympathetic state is to fight or flight from a threat.

The freeze state is to shut us down to the pain that comes with being overcome by a threat, having not been able to successfully fight or flight it.

The nervous system is operating properly when it goes into the sympathetic state based on a threat. According to Dr. Ronald A. Ruden, founder of Havening Touch Techniques, stimuli that humans unconditionally identify as a threat are the following:

Abandonment
Being killed
Heights
Suffocation
Novel situations
Being Trapped
Open spaces with no place to hide
Ground-based predators: creepy crawly things
Air-based predators: things out of visual field

He goes on to end the list with: "Culture-based fears such as loss of reputation" and "Inability to be a provider and so on". I would summarize these and the "so on" as the threat of shame. In abuse situations, we are often trapped and unable to escape from a threat. And we are also often saddled with shame at the same time. Being trapped is not limited to just a physical space; we can be trapped in a toxic situation, for example.

The nervous system is operating properly when we perceive these threats and go into a sympathetic state. Or when we are overcome by these threat and go into a freeze state.

What is dysregulation, then?

When we are going into a sympathetic or freeze state in the absence of one of the above. Our toddler having a public tantrum is not a real threat. Our kids being "needy" is not a real threat. If we are reacting to something that is not a real threat as if it were a real threat, then we are dysregulated. Look at the list above again. In a perfectly regulated world (which does not exist), we would be in the parasympathetic state all the time as long as the things on that list are not happening.

Why is the nervous system getting dysregulated?

The nervous system is constantly taking past experiences and learning from them, therefore projecting them onto the present. When it experienced something overwhelming, which happens easily to small children especially, given their size and capabilities, it will remember the subtle cues that were happening at the time of that incident. When it subconsciously identifies similar cues in the present, it will throw us into either the sympathetic or freeze states to prevent that overwhelm from happening again, even though zero threat may actually be present.

Therefore, when we are projecting a fear based on a past overwhelming threat onto the present, it will leave us dysregulated. Our toddler having a public tantrum is not a real threat but we react like it is when we are afraid of being scorned and rejected by those around us (shamed) because that has happened before.

Many of us don't even know what it feels like to be regulated in our daily lives. But when we are regulated, the public toddler tantrum isn't such a big deal. We have access to more of our parasympathetic state, which means we react in a patient, playful, creative, and calm way, instead of an angry, impatient, yelling, annoyed, embarrassed, frozen, or overwhelmed way.

What can we do?

When we are stuck in dysregulation based on what happened to us in the past, we can take advantage of the neuroplasticity of the nervous system to rewire it. We can bring regulation to the nervous system by addressing each of The 4 Roadblocks. The Promise of Parenting Program walks you through how to do that. Often, individualized support is needed to address these specific experiences, and one-on-one coaching can help with that.

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