Extreme emotions are the status quo when a codependent control strategy fails.

The safety they thought was secured with impulsive kindness–ass-kissing, exhausting favors, and putting others before themselves–was never there. Then the abusive control strategy of promises, excuses, and apologies failed, and the follow-up threats didn’t reestablish their total dominance of the relationship.

Whether the slight was large or small, intentional or accidental, a codependent who fails at confirmation feels it in their core. Their abandonment wound has been dug into, and the nuclear defense button has been pressed.

Emotions are now at their extreme. Sometimes, the meltdown is internal. Often, this can look like extreme withdrawal where the codependent isolates and cradles themselves behind a smokescreen of internet activity, video games, reading, and intense Netflix and YouTube binges.

Other times are exactly the opposite. The shouting, cursing, and verbal excoriation is not something a person forgets. For some, this behavior was such a normal part of everyday life that they don’t know any other way to react. It’s deep in their bones. It sloshes around in their spinal fluid and overwhelms them to their fingertips. They cannot stand it, and they let you know.

Extreme emotion is synonymous with emotional immaturity. It almost always stems from trauma, abandonment, or life-threatening fear. The trauma, abandonment, and fear are not your fault, but they are yours. The fact that someone took or threatened your innocence is not a valid reason to reject the responsibility of learning to carry your emotions like an adult.

Rage, shouting, threats of leaving, suicidal ideation, malignant impatience, irritability, victimization, and fault-finding are all normal reactions to whatever you went through, but your family doesn’t deserve it. Neither does the clumsy waiter, the police officer, the cashier, the postal clerk, the fast food worker, or the manager at Goodwill.

Did you know that most child abuse survivors, even as adults, cannot admit to themselves that their parents ever did anything wrong? We prove this every time we continue our parents’ emotional extremism. If we stopped, that would be an admission their way was wrong and shatter the illusion of their infallibility.

It would trigger an emotional crisis, one that we avoid by acting out extreme emotion. By screaming our heads off at our own children, or threatening our loved ones with violence, we preserve the fantasy of perfect parents that we required as children to trust and believe in their goodness. Honesty with yourself is the simple, necessary pain to setting yourself free. People who tear down others are not healthy or secure, regardless if they are your parents, partner, spouse, or oneself.

Emotional maturity is an issue of time. The verb “mature” comes from the French word “mûre” which means “ripe”, and both these meanings are represented by the same word in Spanish, “maduro.” When someone experiences trauma for the first time, they are stuck in eternity for a little while.

As they face it and grow with it, little by little, they develop a functional and self-preserving symbiotic relationship with the accompanying overpowering emotion. If they avoid the emotion, and instead protect themselves from it with outbursts, they will avoid all of the accompanying growth as well. They will be frozen in time.

The Ancient Greeks prided themselves on the virtue of temperance. Temperance is the middle way, the center of averages, and the opposite of extremes or excesses. It is balance. In practice, it is control of the appetite.

If you were taught to wait until everyone was at the table before you started eating, then you were given a lesson in temperance. If you refuse to drink alcohol alone, or every day, then you are practicing temperance. If you and a new lover make it a point to spend the night together without having sex, you are practicing temperance.

When you are overwhelmed with emotion but decide not to act right away, the Greeks would herald you as a vessel of virtue. If there was ever a time you were ready to knock someone out, but walked away instead, temperance saved you from a confrontation. You were the bigger and more mature person.

It is exactly this process that one must apply to our biggest and most frightening emotions, or they will end up assaulting themselves or someone else. The world of martial arts gives us a great example.

Immature fighters are all pretty much the same. Once they have decided to fight, and abandon their reserve, they run screaming into the foray, throwing death blows in every direction. Their ability to meet death without hesitation would be celebrated by Ancient Greeks and Japanese Samurai alike.

Their self-defense technique and strategy, however, are very immature. They are panicked, with no sense of time, and are flailing. Everyone can see their plan and their pain. A mature fighter, one who has confronted death countless times before, shows no fear, acts with reserve, strikes only when necessary, and with minimal force.

Extreme emotions can be handled the same way, by controlled exposure, emotional processing, cognitive training, and self-compassion. These are the secret to emotional temperance, freedom from extremes, and peace in old age.

The next time you feel a rush of despair, anger, meaninglessness, or exasperation, ask yourself: The last time I had this feeling, did it last forever?