Emotions Aren’t Cages. Here’s How to Break Free.
If this post about emotional regulation strategies for PTSD & ADHD speaks to you, feel free to share it with someone you trust. Healing gets lighter when we don’t carry it alone.
TL;DR Summary:
This post is a survival guide for living with ADHD, PTSD, depression, and anxiety — and the toxic cocktail they can create inside your mind. It’s about why emotional regulation strategies can be hard to figure out, how trauma scrambles your instincts, and how healing isn’t just about thinking your way out — it’s also knowing when to step back and protect your peace. Avoidance isn’t weakness when it’s survival. It’s a skill. It’s also about how building a real support system — and teaching your people how to actually support you — can make the difference between staying stuck and fighting your way back. If you’re looking for fairy tales, you won’t find them here. You’ll find survival tools, raw truth, and the reminder that you’re allowed to protect yourself, rebuild yourself, and ride forward — fists up, heart wide open, no apology.
There are days when emotions feel like concrete.
Heavy.
Cold.
Wrapping around your chest, your arms, your mind.
If you’ve lived through trauma, if you have ADHD, if you’ve fought battles inside yourself that the outside world can’t see — you know exactly what I’m talking about.
My life hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride, either.
I live with PTSD and ADHD, and like a lot of people with either condition, I also wrestle with depression and anxiety that tag along for the ride.
Sometimes my anxiety erupts like a controlled cooking fire ready to explode — a little scary, chaotic, but at least filled with energy I can redirect.
But depression?
Depression feels like someone cuts the power to the whole house.
No movement.
No light.
No energy.
Just a heavy, aching stillness that takes everything in me to fight through.
I’ve lived with PTSD and ADHD my whole life, whether I knew it or not.
So, sometimes it’s hard for me — even now — to tell where one ends and the other begins.
The majority of my therapy work has focused on emotional regulation strategies for overcoming PTSD, but there’s a lot of overlap in how ADHD and PTSD shape the way I think, feel, and move through the world.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has helped me the most — giving me strategies to think my way out of spirals when my brain starts turning against me.
But even CBT isn’t always about thinking smarter.
Sometimes, the hardest work is knowing when to stop thinking altogether.
And if you have ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, depression, etc., then you already know — that’s a battle all by itself.
And listen — if you don’t feel super self-aware yet, or if you’re scared of your emotions?
That’s okay.
Your emotions are still tameable.
You’re not behind.
You’re in the middle of the damn fight — and you’re still standing.
One of my lifelong role models has always been Rocky Balboa — not because he’s perfect, not because he wins every time, but because no matter how many times he gets knocked flat, he drags himself off the mat, bloodied, bruised, barely breathing — and keeps swinging.
Rocky doesn’t always know the perfect next move.
He doesn’t always say the right thing.
He doesn’t magically “fix” life.
He just shows up.
He stays true to who he is.
And he keeps fighting, even when the world tells him he can’t.
That’s the kind of power you have too.
It doesn’t matter how many rounds you’ve lost. It doesn’t matter how ugly the last fall was. You’re still in this fight. And you’re still dangerous.
You don’t have to be fearless. You just have to get back up.
This is your motivational speech between rounds:
Tied points. Blood on your gloves. Sweat stinging your eyes.
Everything still to fight for.
Get up.
Square your shoulders.
Shake off the bullshit.
And fight straight into a life you actually want — fists up, heart wide open, no apology.
This post isn’t about pretending the hard parts away. It’s about building real armor. It’s about learning how to sit with your feelings without letting them drown you — and learning how to stand back up when they do.
Let’s start at the beginning — with why your emotions feel so heavy in the first place.
Why We Even Feel Emotions in the First Place
Emotions aren’t mistakes. They’re ancient survival tools.
Long before we had language, our ancestors needed fast, body-wide signals to help them survive:
- Fear told them to run.
- Anger told them to fight.
- Sadness told them to seek comfort and regroup.
- Joy told them what was safe and good to pursue.
Your emotions evolved to help you navigate life — not to punish you.
And humans aren’t designed to feel just one emotion at a time. You can feel sadness and relief together. Anger and grief. Hope and fear.
Your brain stacks emotions because life is complicated. Emotions are data — real-time messages about your needs, your environment, and your survival.
They’re supposed to be messy. They’re supposed to be layered. They’re supposed to move you — not trap you.
But sometimes, what’s supposed to help you can start to hurt — especially when your brain’s wiring gets overwhelmed. That’s when we need emotional regulation strategies.
Your Brain’s Primal Caveman Wiring — And Why You Need to Watch for “Viruses”
Here’s the brutal truth:
Your brain is running caveman wiring on modern code.
Think of it like the first working computer ever made — groundbreaking, life-altering — but nowhere near perfect.
And just like any computer, your brain is vulnerable to viruses:
- Bad thoughts.
- Maladaptive coping mechanisms.
- Ancient fears that no longer apply to your life today.
A virus might disguise itself as a “logical” idea:
- “You’re failing because you’re tired.”
- “You’re broken because you’re sad.”
- “No one cares, so why bother trying?”
Left unchecked, those viruses install themselves into your operating system — slowing you down, confusing your instincts, making you question your worth.
That’s why emotional self-awareness isn’t just random self-help.
It’s cybersecurity for your mind.
You have to monitor what’s trying to breach your system. You have to recognize when a virus is masking itself as truth. You have to catch bad code before it rewrites your core functions.
Retraining your brain is like installing new software on old hardware.
It won’t run perfectly — there will be glitches, slowdowns, frustrating moments —
but with practice, you’ll learn to recognize when something’s trying to breach your peace.
You’ll build enough resilience, enough internal firewalls, that even the sneakiest virus won’t take you down for long.
But initially, before we effectively build that resilience, the reality is the “viruses” hit harder because our systems were vulnerable — shattered by what we lived through.
When Trust Goes Sideways (PTSD, ADHD, & Trauma)
Here’s something that hurt me more than once in the early days of trying to heal:
I would finally trust someone enough to open up — to share the tiny pieces of my trauma —
and they’d say something like:
“Oh yeah, I’ve been through something like that too. But I didn’t get PTSD.”
As if it was just a matter of willpower.
As if I had somehow chosen to carry this.
Trauma isn’t a competition. And PTSD isn’t a character flaw.
There’s real science behind why some people develop PTSD and others don’t:
- Nature and nurture collide. Some of us — especially those with ADHD, emotional sensitivity, or early-life adversity — are neurologically more vulnerable to developing PTSD when trauma hits.
- Brain development matters. Experiencing trauma while your brain is still forming can literally alter its structure, affecting emotional regulation, attention, and even executive function.
- Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) vs. PTSD: Some people experience temporary stress reactions after trauma — that’s called Acute Stress Disorder — and their symptoms resolve within a few weeks or months. PTSD embeds itself deeper, changing how your brain processes danger, memory, and trust long-term.
You didn’t choose your brain’s wiring. You didn’t choose the trauma. You didn’t choose the aftermath.
But you do choose how you protect yourself now.
And part of that protection is understanding your ADHD or PTSD diagnosis without shame.
What Comes First? ADHD or Trauma?
(And Why It Doesn’t Matter)
There’s one more thing I wrestled with when I was diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD at 32:
Was I born with ADHD?
… Or did trauma cause ADHD symptoms by stunting my brain as it was still developing?
Honestly?
I’ll never know.
Maybe I was born with ADHD.
Maybe PTSD rewired my brain in ways that mimic ADHD.
But here’s what I do know for sure:
No matter how it started, I will always have ADHD.
For one reason or another, parts of my brain didn’t fully develop the way it was supposed to.
And that’s not a judgment — it’s just a fact.
It means certain executive function skills are harder for me: planning, prioritizing, emotional regulation, task switching.
That’s what ADHD is.
And it’s not my fault.
It’s not worth dwelling on or being more angry with what trauma may or may not have taken from me (again).
It’s not your fault either.
It’s simply another part of life that — whether you realized it or not — you’ve already found creative ways to handle.
There’s no prize for solving the mystery of what came first. There’s only living with honor, self-trust, and creativity now.
Understanding that gives you the grounding to start rebuilding — not from shame, but from self-respect.
How ADHD Can Actually Help You Move Through Life
Here’s something nobody told me when I was drowning in my own mind: The same brain that struggles to regulate emotions is also the brain that can pull you out — if you know how to work with it.
ADHD brings its own weird gifts:
- Curiosity: Even when you feel stuck, your brain craves something new.
- Distractibility: Properly directed, it can interrupt emotional spirals before they turn into black holes.
- Zest for Life: Even in the worst storms, a part of you still wants to move, build, laugh, survive.
- Strong Moral Compass: ADHD brains often come wired with Justice Sensitivity — a fierce instinct for what’s fair, and the drive to act on it when you learn how to direct it. Basically, you’re the Batman of your own life. (I actually called him the ADHD icon we deserve — and if you want a laugh and some cleaning motivation, check out this blog post where I talk about my Batman-style comeback.)
The trick isn’t to shame yourself for feeling stuck. The trick is to notice when you’ve been stewing too long — and then let your brain’s strengths help you pivot.
How to Sit in Your Emotions Without Stewing
When emotions hit hard — and they will — how do you survive the tidal wave without drowning?
Here’s what helped me:
1. Label What You’re Feeling Out Loud
Even if it’s just a whisper:
“I’m feeling scared.”
“I’m feeling sad.”
Naming it shifts your brain from feeling mode into observing mode.
2. Ask: Am I Sitting or Stewing?
Quick gut-check:
- Am I letting my feelings breathe? → Sitting.
- Am I catastrophizing, looping, or ruminating endlessly? → Stewing.
3. Use Curiosity to Interrupt the Spiral
Gentle questions like:
- “What’s the smallest thing I could be curious about right now?”
- “What feeling is hiding underneath this one?”
Curiosity breaks the echo chamber without shaming yourself.
4. Move Your Body — Even Briefly
You don’t have to climb a mountain.
Stretch.
Walk outside.
Shake out your hands.
Get your body back in the game so your brain doesn’t spiral unchecked.
Sometimes just the change in scenery helps.
Here’s another one of my posts that further explores how to get yourself out of the ADHD overthinking loop without all the information on PTSD if you’re not ready to read this post yet!
But even with these tools, sometimes the waves come faster than you can outswim.
That’s when it’s time to call in a different kind of protection.
Build a Mental Guardian
When logic and curiosity aren’t enough — when the flashbacks hit harder than you can process — sometimes you need a shield.
One of the tools I use is a mental image of a protector: My Water Witch.
She lives in my mind.
She’s fierce but kind.
When memories rise like tidal waves, she throws up a massive wall of water between me and the storm — muting the flashback, softening the noise, keeping me grounded in the present.
Other days, I imagine locking the memory into a secure box — like Danny did in Doctor Sleep, locking away each ghost of The Overlook Hotel that wanted to suffocate him — and walking away.
Locking your trauma away can be powerful, but only after you’ve started doing the real work of healing. If you’re actively working through your trauma and you realize that replaying the same pain over and over is only hurting you, that’s when putting it in a mental box becomes a survival skill, not avoidance. But if you haven’t faced it yet — if you’re using the box to never think about it — that’s when it becomes a trap. This isn’t about running away. It’s about knowing when revisiting old wounds is making you bleed out — and choosing to protect your peace instead. And you will know, it’s intuitive.
You’re allowed to imagine yourself protected. You’re allowed to guard your mind when reality won’t do it for you.
It’s not weakness. It’s not avoidance.
It’s strategy. It’s survival.
And over time, you’ll build stronger and stronger internal firewalls — proof of your own quiet rebellion against being swallowed by the past.
Protecting Yourself is Healing
One of the strongest skills I’ve learned in therapy is this:
I don’t have to stew in my flashbacks.
I don’t have to punish myself by replaying what I couldn’t control or how I would control it if I relived it.
Protecting yourself isn’t erasing the past. It’s choosing not to let it own your future.
And the more you practice, the easier it gets.
What once knocked you flat for years will, someday, barely brush your mind before you push it away with a steady hand.
You’ll still remember. You’ll still honor it. But you won’t be ruled by it anymore.
Reclaiming What You Love — On Your Timeline
Healing doesn’t just mean blocking pain. It means reclaiming the things that once made you feel alive.
After the PTSD came on, even things I once loved — horror movies, dark romance novels — became triggering.
But healing meant trying again:
- Watching horror even when certain scenes rattled me.
- Reading dark romance even when old fears flinched awake.
Sometimes it still hurt for days.
Sometimes it still echoed for weeks.
But every time I chose to try again, I reclaimed a little more of myself.
Maybe some would call this desensitization. Maybe it is.
But it was never forced upon me.
It was never rushed, and I chose when I’d had enough.
It happened on my timeline.
And I’m damn proud of every step.
Every moment you take something back — no matter how small — you punch another hole through the lie that you have to live in fear forever.
When the People Who Helped You Heal Become Part of What You Let Go
Sometimes, the hardest part of healing isn’t the trauma itself — it’s what you lose along the way.
The people who held your hand when you were drowning — the ones who knew your brokenness better than you did — sometimes they become living reminders of a version of yourself you can’t afford to be pulled back into.
I know because it happened to me with two military friends who shared my trauma, listened, and helped me in those early days.
And sometimes the greatest act of respect — for yourself and for them — is letting go without reopening old wounds.
You can honor the role someone played in your survival without dragging yourself — or them — back into the storm.
Both things can be true. Both things can be sacred.
Grieving those losses doesn’t mean you made a mistake. It means you loved. It means you survived. It means you grew.
And now? Now you keep growing.
Not Every Conversation About Trauma Is Safe
Here’s another hard truth I had to learn, similar to what I’ve shared throughout this post:
Just because someone says they have PTSD too doesn’t mean you should unpack yours with them.
You might be at wildly different stages of healing.
You might trigger each other without meaning to.
You might feel jealous if they seem “further ahead,” and that doesn’t make you sound awful. That makes you human.
There were moments when hearing how much “better” someone else seemed made me feel even more broken. Asking myself why can I just heal faster?
There were moments when swapping trauma stories just reopened wounds I was desperately trying to close.
You don’t owe anyone your pain.
Not even other survivors.
Not even to help them along their journey if neither of you are ready for that.
Sometimes, the strongest thing you can do is say:
“I see you. I honor your story. But I need to protect my own today.”
And that’s not selfish.
That’s self-respect.
That’s another form of emotional regulation.
If This Post Feels Like Too Much — That’s Okay
If this post is heavy for you — if you’re reading through it feeling exhausted, numb, or like it’s all just too much and you may spiral — that’s okay.
You’re not broken for feeling that way. You’re surviving the best way you know how.
Sometimes trauma leaves you so empty you can’t imagine a way out. Sometimes the darkness whispers things you don’t want to think about — about not wanting to be here, about how you might leave. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.
You’re not alone. And you don’t have to climb out alone.
Having a support system — even just one person — makes all the difference.
Talking to a friend, a partner, a family member you trust.
Even if you can’t find the words yourself yet, maybe sharing this post could help give them a glimpse into the war you’re fighting inside.
But here’s the part no one really tells you:
Your supporters might not know how to help at first. They might ask the wrong questions. They might give the wrong advice. They’re human too.
That’s why it’s important — when you’re ready — to teach them how to support you.
In my case, my husband sat through my first few therapy sessions when I started PTSD treatment. He learned CBT tools right alongside me so he could be part of the solution. But eventually, as he got more curious, he asked questions he wasn’t ready to hear the answers to — and I wasn’t ready to explain. Sometimes it took me weeks to recover from reopening old wounds just to help him understand.
He felt like total dog shit afterward.
And when I was ready, I told him what I needed.
You’re allowed to do the same.
Tell your people:
- That you might not always have answers ready.
- That you might not want to talk about certain things yet — or ever.
- That doing their own research is part of supporting you too, not just waiting for you to spoon-feed them the perfect words.
You don’t have to go hunting for articles to hand them. You don’t have to curate the perfect post. You can simply say:
“I need you to understand a little more about what this is like for me. Can you look into it?”
If this post helps? Awesome — send it.
If not? That’s okay too.
Not every survivor can sit through an entire post like this. Not every supporter will get it right the first time.
And that’s normal.
You’re not failing.
They’re not failing.
You’re building a stronger, more resilient relationship together — and that’s what matters.
All I can hope is that somewhere in these words, you and/or your support system found something — even a small thing — that reminds you:
You’re worth fighting for.
Whether you needed this for yourself, or to help someone you love understand what you’re carrying, or to fuel how you will support those you care for — I’m honored you let me stand with you for a little while.
Final Thoughts: Emotional Regulation Strategies
Your emotions aren’t cages. They’re checkpoints.
It’s okay to sit down with your sadness. It’s okay to let anger keep you company for a while. It’s okay to cry until you feel hollow.
But after you sit with it —
stand up anyway.
Or don’t even sit with it at all.
You have permission, it’s okay to avoid in this instance. In fact, it’s a strong and healthy coping mechanism.
Shake the concrete from your shoulders. Call your curiosity back to your side. Let the wild, stubborn, beautiful fire of your ADHD and your battle-tested heart remind you:
You’re not here just to feel pain.
You’re here to live through it and push it aside.
And you’re damn sure strong enough.
Get up.
Go forward.
And take your life back — fists up, heart wide open, no apology.
