Have you ever known a well-intentioned, kind person who had a pattern of creating interpersonal drama? I’ve known quite a few people like this, and they’ve often baffled me. Why would good people engage in behavior that systematically destroys relationships?
After spending a while thinking about my past experiences with such cases, I now have a name for a cluster of traits that I believe, in at least some of these cases, help explain what’s going on.
I call this cluster “Emotionally Reactive Traits.”
I use the phrase “traits” because I’m referring to rather long-lasting tendencies, but they are not immutable. A person can change these traits over time, for instance, by healing from trauma, going to therapy, or learning to see the world differently.
Emotionally Reactive Traits have two main aspects:
Aspect 1: Strong negative emotions triggered in innocuous situations
The person tends to have intense, negative emotional responses to harmless (or very nearly harmless) situations.
It’s, of course, up for debate what a reasonable reaction to any given situation is. Everyone sometimes has negative emotions in innocuous situations. But what I’m referring to here is a pattern of intense reactions to situations where reasonable, truly unbiased third parties would all agree that a situation was basically harmless.
Aspect 2: Emotional reasoning with blame
To an unusually high degree, the person’s emotions about a situation are interpreted as indicating the objective truth of the situation. For instance, if they feel scared by something someone said, they assume the other person must have done something objectively scary. Or if they feel angry, they assume the other person must have done something really harmful. Additionally, they tend to blame other people when their emotions are triggered (rather than considering whether their reaction might have more to do with themselves than the other person’s behavior).
The emotional reasoning can be so strong that, when they are emotionally activated, the facts of the situation (as remembered by this person) get warped to fit their emotion (e.g., “I’m feeling X, and that only makes sense if the other person had said Y, so they must have said Y, even though all the people who witnessed the event say they said Z.”) Important details about the situation or context can get glossed over or forgotten so that the situation (as remembered) better fits their emotional response to the situation.
Of course, everyone engages in emotional reasoning at times (e.g., when we’re feeling anxious, we tend to think that something frightening may happen, and when we’re feeling angry, we tend to think that someone is trying to harm us). What I’m referring to here is a recurring pattern of engaging in emotional reasoning to an unusually high degree.
Why would someone have intense emotional reactions (coupled with blaming others) in harmless situations? This pattern can have a diverse range of causes, for instance, arising from:
i. past trauma (e.g., getting triggered in situations that superficially resemble those of the trauma, such as a friend saying something harmless in a tone of voice that an abusive partner used to use)
ii. difficulties reading situations in general, but with a bias towards assuming negative intent (e.g., misinterpreting body language in such a way that innocent behavior seems nefarious)
iii. false beliefs about the world that cast others in a bad light (e.g., being convinced that someone who believes X is bad or scary, even though X is a harmless belief)
iv. paranoia, which in some cases could be linked to psychosis or drug use (e.g., believing that others are out to get you when they aren’t)
v. anger management issues (e.g., feeling attacked and getting extremely angry as a result of gentle constructive criticism)
vi. a highly sensitive ego (e.g., a friend doing something that feels at all like a put-down or social comparison will cause an intensely negative reaction)
vii. a long history of being mistreated (e.g., jumping to the conclusion that they are being mistreated – when they are not – due to sensitivity from years of actually being mistreated)
What are some example situations with people who have Emotionally Reactive Traits?
Below are some examples of what you might experience with different kinds of people that have these traits. Note that these situations are NOT real ones I’ve encountered, but I’ve designed each of them to try to capture key themes of what I have experienced with real people who I think have Emotionally Reactive Traits.
Example 1: Traumatized
Sally has serious trauma from an abusive past partner. Her current partner, Don, unfortunately, sometimes accidentally triggers this trauma. For instance, Sally’s ex used to engage in extremely controlling behaviors (e.g., controlling what she would eat, wear and say). Don, on the other hand, is not more controlling than an average partner but sometimes asks her to behave differently (e.g., he was upset about the way that Sally acted around his friends the other day and asked her not to behave that way anymore). This request triggered Sally’s trauma from her controlling ex, causing her to become extremely upset. She blamed Don for this, interpreting her own extreme emotions as proof that Don had done something very bad. She yells at him that he is being abusive and misremembers details of his request that make it seem abusive. Don is really upset by this accusation and tries to defend himself, but these attempts to explain his behavior make Sally even more upset, as they are invalidating her emotions.
Example 2: Angry
Gideon has a bit of a hot temper and a fragile ego. He regularly doubts his self-worth but also tries to protect himself from this doubt by blaming other people. One day Gideon asks his friend Alice for a small favor. She agrees to do it but hasn’t gotten around to it yet due to a busy schedule. After a couple of days, Gideon realizes she hasn’t done it yet; he takes this as a form of rejection, assuming it means Alice doesn’t care about him. He leaves her a voice message screaming at her for lying to him about doing the favor and accusing her of only pretending to be his friend.
Example 3: Idealogical
Jill believes that all masculinity is toxic and that most men disrespect women in myriad small ways. In her friendship with Johnny, this presents a problem because he grew up being taught to engage in “chivalrous” behaviors like holding doors for women, paying for their meals, and carrying bags for them. Sometimes he attempts to do these things for Jill, which makes her mad (but she hides this anger from him). One day when he picks up her bag and carries it for her without asking, she blows up at him, telling him she can’t stand his toxic behavior anymore. He is shocked and confused, failing to understand why she appears to suddenly be so enraged with him. His denial of toxicity enrages her further. Jill stops responding to Johnny, writing him off as a bad person.
What does it feel like if you have Emotionally Reactive Traits?
One reason that this cluster of traits is tragic is that the people that have it are often very good people (i.e., they are often very kind and empathetic), yet they end up with a history of destroyed relationships.
Another reason it is tragic is that from the inside, what it feels like to have these personality traits is that other people you trust keep suddenly doing things that harm you. Then, when you get upset, they deny your emotions and tell you that you are being unreasonable (or they subtly distance themselves from you). Not only does it feel like people keep hurting you, but it feels like they seem to be attempting to gaslight you in the process and may cause you to doubt your own interpretations. This is a terrible experience to have.
What other traits could be confused with Emotionally Reactive Traits?
There are a few different situations that might sound like what I’m describing above, but which are importantly different.
First of all, you could simply be friends with assholes or harmful people who WILL repeatedly harm you and then deny it or gaslight you or be unwilling to take responsibility. This feels very similar, I suspect, to having Emotionally Reactive Traits. The difference is really in the people around you and the facts of the situations. If the people around you are kind and good and the things you are getting upset about are actually innocuous, that’s really different than if the people around you are jerks who are actually doing harmful things. Of course, there is a great deal of subjectivity here since it’s hard to say what precisely the truth is in any given situation and what exactly is innocuous vs. harmful behavior. But if you find that even with the most good, kind people in your life from a wide variety of social circles, you are experiencing something like this, again and again, that is evidence that you have Emotionally Reactive Traits (but, of course, you could just be very unlucky and are continually surrounded by jerky behavior).
Another thing that may be confused with Emotionally Reactive Traits is Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). While people with BPD have an elevated chance of having Emotionally Reactive Traits (because there are some common elements), BPD also has other symptoms that are not related to Emotionally Reactive Traits (such as intense fear of abandonment), and I think that most people with Emotionally Reactive Traits would not have BPD.
How do Emotionally Reactive Traits lead to ruined relationships?
The basic pattern of relationship destruction is that a friend (or colleague or romantic partner) will do something innocuous or very slightly harmful, which leads to an intense negative emotional reaction, which gets blamed on the friend. Then, emotional reasoning kicks in, with the intensity of the negative emotions being interpreted as a demonstration of how harmful the friend’s action was. Details of the situation or context may also be misremembered or reinterpreted in light of the negative emotion, which can cause a disagreement about the basic facts of the situation.
If the friend is empathetic and patient, they may try to accept blame or apologize but come away feeling that the other person acted in a harmful or unreasonable manner and may (especially if this pattern is repeated) choose to distance themselves. On the other hand, if the friend is not as empathetic or patient, they may themselves grow angry or argue that the person is acting unreasonably, which can intensify the negative emotions, making things even worse and causing a sudden blowup in the relationship.
What is useful to do if a friend or romantic partner has Emotionally Reactive Traits?
I think it is usually unwise to challenge the perspective of a person with Emotionally Reactive Traits while they are in the midst of experiencing strong negative emotions. They are likely to feel the challenger is denying an obvious truth or harmfully invalidating their emotions, either of which may cause anger or other intensification of negative emotions (potentially leading to the feedback loop of even stronger emotional reasoning).
Hence, attempting to directly correct a misunderstanding in the heat of the moment can backfire. A better approach may be to validate the fact they are feeling those emotions, express empathy and concern, and apologize for accidentally causing them negative emotions without validating any misinterpretations of events they may have. When the acute negative emotions have subsided, that is a much better time to gently explain your perspective on the situation.
Of course, before assuming someone has Emotionally Reactive Traits, it’s also useful to do some self-reflection. Maybe you’re just being a jerk, doing things that hurt this person, or are in denial about your own behavior? A stronger signal that someone has Emotionally Reactive Traits is that they have acted this way with many people in their life, not just you.
What should you do if you think you may have Emotionally Reactive Traits?
I think that one of the most helpful things you can do is to learn to notice when you are experiencing strong negative emotional reactions and have strategies you can use in that situation. For instance, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has a number of useful techniques for this (there are helpful books available about these techniques, such as “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook”). Additionally, it can be really helpful to wait until you are in a more calm and collected state to dig into the details of what happened in a situation. If you try to talk it out with someone while you are still feeling really bad, it can lead to unfortunate outcomes.
I think it can also be really useful to recognize that you may have a tendency to engage in emotional reasoning and try to remind yourself that feeling angry doesn’t always mean that you have been wronged, and feeling anxious doesn’t always mean that something dangerous has occurred, etc. If we think of our emotions as smoke detectors for different sorts of situations, yours may be like those that often go off while cooking. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t really a fire, but the smoke detector is not always a reliable indicator of fire. Techniques from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be helpful for processing emotional reasoning after the fact (e.g., considering the evidence for and against different interpretations of an event).
I also think it can be helpful to get really curious about other people’s frames if you have Emotionally Reactive Traits. If someone feels that a situation was really different than it felt like to you, it can be useful to explore with curiosity what they experienced by asking them open-ended questions. Once you empathize with their perspective, you may see that your original interpretation was not as objective as it seemed.
I think it’s worth keeping in mind that you don’t choose to have sudden, intense negative emotional reactions to things. But you do, to an extent, have a choice of how you behave once you are having such a reaction (though it may be difficult to make choices in that state). You also choose whether to seek to reduce those emotional reactions (e.g., to work on yourself or, if you can afford it, to find an expert to try to heal the trauma that may be causing the reactions to occur).
Finally, if you have close friends who you trust with the information, you can consider explaining to them that you sometimes have emotionally reactive behaviors, and you can tell them how you’d find it most helpful for them to behave in such situations.
People with Emotionally Reactive Traits are not bad people (often, they are unusually empathetic and kind). But they can accidentally leave a trail of broken relationships.
As with all aspects of personality, Emotionally Reactive Traits exist on a spectrum. Some people are not at all like this, others are just a bit this way, and others are very much this way. It is people who are very high on these traits that I’m referring to in this post.
If you think that someone you care about may have these traits, I hope this essay will give you some ideas for how you can have a healthier friendship with this person. And if you think that you may have these traits yourself, I hope this essay will give you some ideas for how to have better relationships in the future and reduce the chance of them falling apart.
After posting this, five people have reached out and said that they feel that they have Emotionally Reactive Traits. Here is what one such person said, if you’re curious (posted here with permission):
“I ended up recognizing myself in [this post]. I couldn’t see fully what I was doing that was destroying my relationship with my partner until I saw your systematic and analytical presentation of the Emotional Reactivity concept.”
This piece was first written on August 13, 2022, and first appeared on this site on September 9, 2022.
This is creating ambivalence in me. On the one hand, I see myself in this- a trail of hurts and broken relationships behind me, often feeling hurt and invalidated (much as I did in my formative years).
On the other hand, my therapist encourages me to consider that I don’t listen to my feelings, say, if someone makes me feel bad or invalidates me, and I work really hard to get them to understand and be kinder towards me, but it becomes a cycle that leads to loneliness and pain.
Which is it? Do I create these scenarios because of my trauma, or do I put up with unreasonable behavior because of my trauma? Or both? I’m conflicted. I’d like to think it’s something I can work on, and therefore control, but my therapist thinks I just have a deep distrust of my gut feelings and should end things when my gut tells me someone or some situation is not right for me. I worry that that will mean a trail of people and situations that I leave behind.
I’m just a random person who read your comment and felt sad to see that you’re obviously putting in time and effort but look back at a cycle of loneliness and pain.
I hope you are doing well Anna and can look back to the day you wrote this comment and see that you’ve made progress since then.
It’s an excellent question to ask, and of course it’s only something that you (with the help of your therapist perhaps) can figure out! And yes, “both” is always a possibility that should be considered.
Late to the party here, Anna, but felt strongly enough to respond to your message.
Your therapist is spot on. You must listen to your feelings. Understand what they are trying to say. Then identify the need born from the emotion. To do this requires emotional regulation skills to self-sooth to understand what them pesky feelers are trying to say before approaching another with the need.
The author jumps quickly to BPD and strong emotional reactivity born of trauma from adverse childhood experiences. That’s a big pet peeve for me. What the author doesn’t discuss is the emotional tolerance of the one receiving the message. In reality, people have emotions – big and small – all the time. They are normal and should be normalized in relationships. Healthy couples “miss” emotional cues for closeness from their partner up to 67% of the time. Of course, this leads to hurt feelings!
Instead of focusing on not having emotional reactivity, you should be working to normalize emotional reactivity in your relationships. Normalize misses in the relationship. Learn to repair. And use those emotional self-soothing techniques to generate positive need statements “hey, you didn’t hug me when you got home yesterday. This made me feel sad and rejected. This is an important ritual of connection for me. What can we do to prioritize this going forward?”
Good luck. Looking forward to your healing journey!
I have a mild mood disorder (not as extreme as Bipolar but similar in that my moods and emotions can be erratic at times). I agree with most of what you have written here. However, here is something my therapist has shared with me that I find to be accurate. People who are emotionally reactive may indeed overreact, however, many times the event or action they are reacting to is, in fact, problematic. Not all the time. Sometimes I have misinterpreted situations and assumed offense where there was none meant, and I’m quick to self-correct in those situations. But many more times, the person in question is objectively being rude, dismissive, or insensitive (because other people have confirmed the person makes them feel that way too or they agree the person was behaving badly because they witnessed the precipitating event). However, my response to this treatment can be too intense. So for me, it’s more about learning to validate my feelings, recognize that this person is making me feel a way I don’t like, but also to remove myself from the situation instead of reacting impulsively to it (which often makes things worse). I think it’s important to acknowledge that even emotionally reactive people can often times be correct in their perceptions, and that, it is in fact invalidating to assume they’re always exaggerating. Being reactive means you respond to things too intensely, it does not mean you are always wrong about a person’s behavior or intentions towards you. I hope this helps.
I totally agree.
Great points Bree, I agree!
Two people can experience an exchange and interpret it very differently. I had years of going over confusing interactions to try and figure out what I could do better. I now know there was nothing I could have done. If someone does or says something that seems inconsiderate or rude, and I then learn that it was caused by a misunderstanding, I’d be relieved. If you find yourself trying to prove that the other person had bad thoughts and intentions, telling them what they think or meant, then you are probably trying to “prove” that your emotions are justified, as opposed to trying to understand what was actually going on with the other person. Or if you find yourself just criticizing the other person, as opposed to asking them for something specific. Can they ever know what success looks like? Saying “I’d appreciate it if you don’t make me wait that long”, is something that can be achieved. Saying “I need to be with someone that doesn’t trigger me”, is impossible to achieve.
I’m glad I came across this and want to thank you for sharing it.
I usualy go for your podcast content, but found myself here after this section of your recent 80K apperance really resonated with recent events in my life. Unfortunately it might be a week too late for me to be able to raise these ideas with the person that ERT described so well, I just hope she figures it out on her own before those tendencies hurt her again.
This perfectly describes my BFs daughter. Thank you, very informative article.
I think this is very common, or at least I’m attracted to this type of person. My ex wife, and two girlfriends in the last two years had these traits. I have so many stories. With my ex, asking a question because I didn’t understand something she said would be interpreted to mean I was telling her how to do something, or a criticism. Her response was confusing because it was a defensive reaction to an imagined idea. When I figured out what happened, I would say that I didn’t understand, and so I was simply asking a question that would clarify what she was saying. She would never let go of her emotion, bringing up an imagined thing I said 5 years ago to prove that I wasn’t just asking a question. High functioning people that switch to complete irrationality. One women I dated got very upset when she said that we were eating a pasta dish, but I didn’t see any pasta. She stirred the just thawed sauce and there was a single spaghetti noodle. When I expressed my confusion, she got very upset, and shortly after, I had to just leave. Not because of an argument, but she got quiet and said she wasn’t able to discuss it. You can have sympathy for the negative emotions these otherwise wonderful people are dealing with, but it causes a lot of pain.
I am struggling with feelings that, after reading your article, may be emotionally reactive. Two days ago, a man that I find very attractive sent me some “humorous” company signs that concern firearms and are misogynistic towards women. Over the past few months, I have been lusting after this man and we have expressed mutual interested in each other. However, when I read the email he sent with the company signs, it’s like a switch turned off. All the attraction I felt for him has instantly disappeared. How can that be? I was going to email him and tell him that, but I don’t like drama and I think doing it by email constitutes drama. Is it a red flag that someone I’m interested in finds misogynistic humour amusing enough to send to me? Am I being overly reactive? How could my feelings possibly switch off so quickly? We have been friends for several years and only recently started talking about our interest in each other.
Samantha, you sound like you possibly have very “liberal” ideas about misogyny in which case it’s better to tell the guy you’re not interested cause you’re too different otherwise you’re just leading him on. Alternatively, maybe it truly was something so misogynistic that people with more conservative views would recognize it as such too, in which case you should tell him you two are just too different.
Why date someone you no longer feel for that way so quickly or otherwise? And why do that to the other person? No one should be led on that way, it’s just cruel. Further, no one should try to force themselves into a relationship they don’t feel right about. Neither fair to you or the other person.
So either way, the answer is the same. Unless…
If it is really confusing you cause you like them a lot then for the sake of even their friendship, tell them that you don’t like it and why. What’s the use in not being honest?
Maybe you can even look at it objectively and see if you’re taking his joke too seriously and it’s something you feel like you need to work on. But even in that case, if it’s causing you to lose feeling for him, you can still self-reflect but don’t lead him on while you do. Or maybe if you reflect for a moment you’ll realize you still have strong feelings for the guy, but unless you realize that right away, don’t lead him on.
Thank you for this article. I believe I do live with an emotionally reactive person who is activated under stressful conditions. I love the advice that we can’t defend ourselves when our partners are in a charged state – simply validating and apologizing in the moment is the best way to handle it. However, what to do when that person grills you about why you said/acted like you did and then says things like , “you don’t want to change”, “you will never change”? I feel my own inner rage trigger when I am accused of being hurtful or intentionally mean in a completely innocent situation. It is very tricky living with a person with this tendency – taking everything so personally as an affront. We have lost friendships because of it. Am I enabling this? How can I help?
Hi A.A. I also have experience living with someone who has similar tendencies. They don’t usually grill me per se, but just continue to react and behave in ways that put a lot of emotional baggage onto me and my other roommates, creating a heavy tension. In the heat of the moment, it is definitely a good idea to just try and diffuse it in whatever way you can. You can apologize and say, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” but I would not take the entirety of the blame if you think it’s not truly your fault. Once calm, you should try to share your perspective without invalidating their feelings, as this will only make them feel worse. A way I do this is by acknowledging they feel a certain way but then continuing with how I feel about it from my view, consistently saying that it is my subjective perspective. Now, I give this advice with a grain of salt because things are certainly not good or stable in my living environment right now. I do think it may be near impossible to help people with these traits unless the person themself is seeking actual help. This is something that needs to be worked through with a therapist, and you shouldn’t take that responsibility onto yourself. It does create a lot of animosity, and it is very tricky living with a person with these tendencies, so I definitely feel the struggle. I think, overall, it is really important that you do what you have to do to protect your own mental health at the end of the day. These experiences can be extremely draining; take time for yourself, and do not be afraid to speak your mind.
I have an employee who goes off the rails with me (her boss) whenever she’s stressed. On a couple of occasions, when I’ve tried to get a word in, I’ve held up a flat palm, as if to say, please let me continue, and she’s reacted, screaming, “Don’t you dare raise your hand to me.” In the two cases I can recall, I was sitting behind a desk and she was standing at least 7-8 feet away. (I’m also 5’ 2” and weigh 118 lb).
This isn’t normal, is it?
Thanks