What is Emotional Permanence & Top 3 Ways to Master It

Imagine this: emotions that seem to play hide-and-seek with your memory. One moment they’re apparent and tangible, and the next, they’re elusive, almost as if they never existed. 

This is the reality for those grappling with a deficit in emotional permanence. It’s as if our internal emotional library disappears when we’re not checked into or experiencing a particular emotion. 

Although we may remember the facts of having felt these emotions, the actual feelings can seem distant. It’s a complex aspect of our emotional lives, and that’s what we’re diving into today.

What is emotional permanence?

In the simplest of terms, emotional permanence is the understanding that feelings don’t vanish just because they’re out of sight. 

A lack of emotional permanence can make the world feel unstable and unpredictable. It can manifest as emotional whiplash, where you’re on a euphoric high one moment and plunging into a despairing low the next. The roller-coaster of emotions can be intense, sometimes overwhelming.

For someone with ADHD, it’s easy to forget that emotions exist when they aren’t immediately felt. It’s akin to object permanence, a concept humans begin to grasp as toddlers, which tells them that objects continue to exist even when not perceived. But in this case, we’re talking about emotions, not physical objects.

Emotional permanence may seem like a complex concept, but let’s simplify it. In its essence, it’s an understanding of emotions’ continuity – the realization that feelings continue beyond their immediate expression or experience. 

My Experience with Emotional Impermanence 

Let me take you on a brief journey back in time, to a period when I had no idea about ADHD or even much about mental health. During those days, journaling was my emotional outlet.

In an entry, I wrote back in 2019, during one of those low periods I shared a message to my future self. It read, “Future me, happy me, not depressed me: these feelings were real and I am not just sad, it’s so much more.”

Reflecting on those words now, I realize it was my subconscious attempt to establish emotional permanence. Without even knowing the term, I was trying to ensure that my emotions, felt so deeply and painfully then, were acknowledged and remembered. 

It was my way of sending a message to a later version of myself – to remember that these feelings of sadness were real, profound, and more than just temporary waves of despair.

That’s the intricate dance of emotional permanence. It’s the understanding that our emotions, no matter how fleeting they may seem, are real. They exist continuously, persisting through time and changes in our moods or circumstances. 

Just as we remember that a book continues to exist even after we’ve closed it, we must acknowledge that our emotions remain a part of our reality, even after their immediate intensity has faded.

For people like me with ADHD, maintaining this awareness is an arduous task. It’s not uncommon to overlook emotions that aren’t actively felt or expressed.

This might seem relatively simple, but lacking emotional permanence can make the world appear chaotic. It causes a persistent feeling of instability, a sense of unpredictability that permeates. 

This can, at times, make it difficult to form consistent emotional connections with people and events, leading to challenges that ripple across different areas of life. Again, emotional permanence isn’t about the intensity of emotions, but their perceived continuity. 

It’s not about how loudly we laugh or how deeply we grieve, but recognizing that these emotions, continue to exist even when they’re not immediately felt.

What are signs of emotional permanence?

How does one identify emotional permanence? Well, it’s not as straightforward as spotting a red flag or ticking off a checklist. It’s a bit more nuanced. However, certain patterns might indicate a struggle with emotional permanence.

Missing Out-of-Sight Emotions

One common sign is feeling a sense of forgetfulness towards emotions when they’re not in the immediate present. This might manifest as forgetting about a loved one’s affection when they’re not around or feeling disconnected from the emotions linked to a task that isn’t directly in front of you. 

This isn’t about ordinary forgetfulness but a deeper disconnect from the emotional context tied to the people and tasks in your life.

Struggling with Emotional Recall

A key indicator of emotional permanence deficit is the struggle to recall emotional experiences differing from your current emotional state. Drawing from the personal encounters in my journal, I found it challenging to remember feeling any different from my present state. 

For instance, during periods of low mood or depression, I couldn’t recollect or relate to times when I felt better. Similarly, when I was in a good emotional space, it was hard to comprehend that I ever felt depressed, even if the low mood persisted for an extended period.

Rapidly Fading Intense Emotions

If you notice that your intense emotions seem to fade too quickly, this too could be indicative of a struggle with emotional permanence. While it’s normal for emotions to ebb and flow, a rapid transition might signal a disconnect from the lasting nature of emotions.

Keep in mind that these signs aren’t definitive but help identify potential struggles with emotional permanence. It’s always advisable to seek professional advice if you recognize several of these signs and they’re affecting your well-being.

What causes emotional impermanence?

Trauma

Individuals who have experienced significant trauma, such as being raised by narcissistic parents, abuse, neglect, or a life-threatening event, may develop emotional impermanence as a coping mechanism. Trauma can disrupt the ability to regulate emotions and create a sense of instability, leading to difficulties in maintaining emotional consistency over time.

Attachment Issues

Early attachment experiences can shape one’s emotional development. Insecure attachment styles, such as anxious or avoidant attachment, can contribute to emotional impermanence. These attachment styles often involve difficulties in forming and maintaining stable emotional connections with others, resulting in fluctuating emotional experiences.

Mental Health Conditions

Certain mental health conditions, such as borderline personality disorder (BPD) or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), can be associated with emotional impermanence.

In BPD, for example, individuals often experience intense and rapidly shifting emotions, leading to a sense of emotional instability and impermanence. While some individuals with ASD may struggle with recognizing and understanding their emotions of themselves and others. This difficulty in emotional recognition and regulation can impact their understanding of emotional permanence.

It’s important to remember that emotional impermanence can vary in its severity and impact on individuals. If you or someone you know is struggling with emotional stability or well-being, it is always recommended to seek out a professional mental health provider for a thorough assessment and appropriate support.

3 Tips for Cultivating Emotional Permanence

Now comes the pressing question. How do we develop emotional permanence? It’s no overnight process, trust me. But it’s not an unachievable task either. With some introspection, practice, and possibly professional guidance, it’s within sight.

Mindfulness

One of the steps to developing emotional permanence is mindfulness. Mindfulness teaches us to acknowledge and accept our emotions, even the uncomfortable ones. It helps us maintain balance, creating space to realize that emotions, like everything else, are transient.

Journaling

Journaling can also play a huge role. When you write about your feelings, you create a physical record of them, making them tangible and, in a sense, permanent.

As I shared, journaling was a helpful tool for me to reference when I struggled with emotional permanence. Over time, this can help us understand and internalize the continuity of emotions.

Therapy

Therapy can also be immensely beneficial. A professional can provide tools and techniques tailored to your needs and struggles. Cognitive-behavioral therapy, for instance, has shown promise in helping those with ADHD manage emotional dysregulation. Anecdotally, CBT combined with mindfulness has increased my capacity to acknowledge the persistence of my own emotions.

Conclusion

My journey with emotional permanence hasn’t been a walk in the park. Far from it! I began taking note of this challenge in my journals dating back to 2019 and have since continued to improve. 

I’ve since learned invaluable lessons about managing my emotions and recognizing their continuity. It’s a complicated topic but an important one that we should discuss more often. It’s easier when we share and learn from each other. 

Know that there are resources, strategies, and plenty of support available to help.

If you found this post useful or if it resonated with you, please make sure to share it with someone you know would benefit. Let’s spread awareness and understanding about emotional permanence. 

If you have your own experiences or strategies to share, feel free to drop a comment below. I’d love to hear your stories, and I’m sure others would too.