Get older.

Acknowledge them. Allow yourself to feel them, knowing they are only temporary. The more you try to suppress them, the longer it will take to work through them.

Exercise

I used to be very empathic, I cared so much about the world and everyone in it. Making sure people were taken care of, and hoping for the best for everything. I would get depressed when bad things happened and I couldn’t do anything about it. But as I’ve gotten older and the world has gotten so much worse and it keeps getting worse and worse. I find I’ve adopted an “It is what it is” attitude about nearly everything. I have zero faith in humanity and it’s ability to over come the downward spiral we are in, and doubt we will still be here in 100 years, and frankly have gotten to the point were I feel that might be for the best. Time for the universe to hit reset and start again.

It’s less about the intensity of your emotions and more about how you deal with them.

Let’s say you got really angry in public. It’s fine to get angry, sometimes there are good reasons for that. But there are multiple ways to deal with that anger. An unhealthy way would be to run amok and harm innocent people in order to vent. A healthy way would be to calm down, reflect on what makes you angry, and then either make an effort to improve your situation or remove yourself from it.

You can’t help feeling a certain way, but you can choose how you react to your emotions. Try to pick the option that is the least destructive to yourself and those around you. If emotional regulation is hard for you, you can learn coping skills from a therapist.

The box method of breathing for several minutes helps me in immediate situations. And I’ve found doing this on a regular basis helps it become a habit which in general helps me deal with emotions better.

As someone else posted, medication. If your psychiatrist thinks it is warranted.

Therapy can be a godsend. Don’t be afraid to hop therapists at the beginning either—find a good match.

And something that helps me immensely: I use this as a mantra: “I will not always feel like this. Tomorrow I will not feel like this. This will pass.” Treat these strong emotions as a wave you need to ride. But that wave will eventually subside and you cam comfort yourself with that fact.

Why would I want to do that? I wanna feel everything at the appropriate volume.

Med. I. Cation. Specifically Prozac. It works great for me, but we’re all different. Since I’ve been on it, it’s changed my life. So many things were attached to my mental health that I never knew.

About 25mg of Prozac a day and a job that supports my mild drug habit.

I find when I have a balanced life nothing in particular tends to make much of an impact. And when it does, those emotions are important and you shouldn’t try to douse them. For example if your mother dies, it’s normal and healthy to feel devastated.

What I mean by a balanced life is a meaningful job, fulfilling social relationships both romantic and non-romantic, hobbies and interests- intellectual and physical.

Stay far away from drugs.

Things that work for me, not necessarily recommendations:

• Mindfulness practices
• Always be a little bit too busy for comfort, keeps you from dwelling on things
• Smoke; weed or tobacco, both help
• Deliberately cultivate positive self-talk, don’t just uncritically accept whatever you mind tells you

For fear, anxiety, and panic, the 5-4-3-2-1 Exercise is amazing.

Mindfulness meditation, not the catchy popular kind your work teaches but the actual Buddhist mindfulness. It’s whole purpose is to be able to see the arising and passing away of thoughts/feelings without getting involved.

Breathing exercises

Read up on stoicism