Fourteen statements

Emotional dysregulation checklist

Dysregulation is not measured by how bad a feeling is. It is measured by three things: how fast it arrives, how high it goes, and how long it takes to come down. These fourteen statements ask about those, and about what happens afterwards.

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I Hate You—Don’t Leave Me by Sage Lyons, cover

Tick what has been true over the last month

Not today, and not at your worst — the last month, on average. Answer the uncomfortable ones honestly; nobody sees this and the uncomfortable ones carry the most information.

Count your ticks and write the number down with today's date. The number on its own is not a result — read the bands below before deciding what it means.

Reading the number honestly

These bands are for orientation, not classification. Nothing here is a threshold anyone clinical uses.

0–3 tickedWithin the range of ordinary emotional life. Everybody overreacts sometimes and recovers. If you came here worried, this is not what dysregulation looks like — though if something specific is going on, that is still worth taking to someone.
4–7 tickedSome real difficulty, and worth attention. Often this is situational rather than a standing pattern — a bad stretch, poor sleep, a relationship going badly. Skills help here, and so does looking at what the last few months have actually contained.
8–11 tickedA consistent pattern rather than a bad month. This is the range where learning specific skills — TIPP, grounding, naming the emotion — makes the largest visible difference, and where a professional assessment is a reasonable next step rather than an overreaction.
12–14 tickedSubstantial and pervasive. Not a diagnosis of anything, and a strong reason to get an assessment rather than to keep managing it alone. Bring this list with the items you ticked; it is a considerably better opening than trying to describe it from memory.

What the individual items were actually testing

Some statements carry more information than others. If you want to understand your own answers rather than just your total, this is what each cluster was for.

Items 1 to 3 are the definition itself: speed, height, duration. If these three are ticked and little else is, what you have is emotional intensity, and the useful work is regulation skills.

Items 4 to 6 are about triggers and proportion. Ticking these alongside the first three points at interpersonal sensitivity specifically, which is the pattern chapter 5 describes.

Items 7 to 9 are the aftermath — impulsivity at the peak, then shame. This cluster is the one most people are least willing to tick and the one that most often distinguishes a difficult temperament from something worth assessing.

Items 10 to 12 are consequences and modifiers. Avoiding situations because of your own reactions is a life narrowing around a symptom; sleep and alcohol effects are the most modifiable variable available to you and the most frequently ignored.

Items 13 and 14 are about capacity and support. Not knowing which emotion is present is exactly what chapter 12 addresses, and the fact that another person's calm presence shortens an episode is not weakness — it is how nervous systems work.

Where to go next

Closely related pages, chosen because they answer the question this one tends to raise.

What changes in the few minutes before everything feels urgent?Why emotions arrive faster, peak higher and take longer to settle in BPD — what that means in practice,…Favorite person checklistSixteen statements to tell an intense attachment from a favorite person dynamic — plus what to do with…Getting through a crisisTIPP and ACCEPTS from chapter 11 of the recovery guide: what to do when the intensity is already too…
Educational disclaimer: this page supports book discovery and general learning about borderline personality disorder. It does not diagnose, replace individualised professional care, or provide emergency support. If you are in crisis, contact local emergency services or a crisis line — see the crisis support page.