Emotional: Intelligence or Regulation?

July 11, 2025

2:57 pm

I have always been very forthright about my major depressive disorder and anxiety. I have written here about the therapy process that I have been through over the last almost 12 years.

At the base of this therapy journey has been PTSD and Trauma due to abuse in not only physical form but verbal and emotional. Learning how to control those impulsive habits to just “react” without stepping back to assess the situation. To use the tools and techniques I have learned in my one on one’s and group therapy.

As I walked along this path I have learned the difference between Emotional Intelligence – “…capacity to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own emotions, as well as the ability to perceive, understand, and influence the emotions of others.” and Emotional Regulation -“…ability to influence which emotions one has, when one has them, and how one experiences and expresses them.”

I thought for the longest time these were the same but over the years I realized they were two different concepts or ideas.

One is about understanding behaviors, finding the cause and effect, while the other is about managing the behavior or response through adapting.

The topic of this prompt is “What bothers you and why?”.

The way people act in situations is what bothers me the most and why I limit my willingness to be in public spaces very often. The lack of emotional intelligence, emotional regulation, or sometimes both. The scarcity in good judgment and common sense has caused so many issues and will continue to do so.

The prompt immediately brought up how I perceive others and how in my younger days I would sometimes react badly to things or people. It was not always pretty, I would lose my temper, and get into physical confrontations with other. I was deemed a “hot head with a temper”.

As human beings we are bombarded with information every single day that sometimes causes an overload to our thinking. Our personal worlds are not always sunshine and roses. We live life the best way we know how and sometimes we are not always successful at it. The only good thing is that we have the ability to change and start over if we need to.

I am reminded that I have come a long way but there is still room from improvement.

A recent incident occurred with a complete stranger that reminded me of that fact.

Yesterday, I was at a yearly event on my tribal grounds. It is a celebration of culture and beliefs. It is not only for the tribal members and family but is also open to other tribal nations and the general public. In all the years that I have attended this event, I have never had any problems or any altercations until yesterday.

We were all waiting in line for an event to start. It was a hot day, there was a little breeze, the skies were clear but there was no shade. We were all out in the open, standing on a concrete parking lot, and baking under the sun. There had been a slight delay in the start time and an increase in the number of participants, so we were out there for almost an hour. These are the basic facts. We were all in the same space and experiencing the same hot day.

There was a group of Caucasian people in front of us consisting of 2 men and 2 women. They were all younger and most likely in their early twenties. I could not tell by their demeanor if they were related or just friends.

The person who I had the altercation with was one of the young women. The line of people was packed together and not much moving around despite the open space. This young woman and the other woman were both of unhealthy weight. The woman in question was larger and taller than the other woman.

This woman kept changing her stance and stepping back, when she did, her back would touch my arms which I had folded across my chest in front of me. That is how close she was, that is how close all of us were.

If I accidentally bump into people, I always say “Excuse me or I’m so sorry”. I show some sort of courtesy towards others for unintentionally invading their personal space. This accidental touching between us occurred several times over the course of that hour and not once did she say “Excuse me”.

Every time it happened, I would look at my eldest child who was there with me. We would just kind of shrug and roll our eyes but we kept silent. I was silent because I understood the circumstance we were all in that moment. I assumed that maybe she was unaware, I was wrong.

After almost an hour, we had finally moved up to the building where the event was taking place. It was a welcomed relief to be in air conditioning and out of the sun.

Upon entering the building is when we were told that the group in front of us had received the last meal tickets for lunch and free t-shirts from the event. The remaining 50 other people to include me and my eldest child were just out of luck. We were debating, my kid and I, whether to continue on and look at the booths and displays or not. The woman stepped back and shifted again. This time it was an even greater bump into my arms.

That is when she lost it.

The woman turned around and started yelling at me. In her own words she said “Quit fucking touching me!” then proceeded to berate me in front her group, my own grown kid, and the packed room full of other people, participants, and vendors. At first, my thought was “Whatever.” Then as her tirade continued and her friend decided to jump into it, that is when I lost my cool.

I shouted back, “I wasn’t fucking touching you, you keep backing up into me!”. Then I said if she and her friend had moved at least 3 feet further then maybe she would have had some room. In hindsight, I can see how that I might have been perceived as a comment on her weight which did not go over well. That was not my intention because I had noticed that one of the young men with them had about 3 feet of space between him and the person in front of him the whole time we were in line. The people behind me, were right behind me and we could not back up so my kid and I kept changing places to try and avoid getting any closer to her or her group.

Then she proceeded to make additional comments about my age and said “Well look at her, she’s old and she should know better!” In that moment, it took all the strength I could muster, to remain as calm as possible. My first gut reaction was to shove her and punch the other girl. I stood there in a defensive stance with my hands balled into fists. The second guy with them looked at me, saw my face, and how I was standing. I was visibly angry.

He immediately stepped in front me and told her to change places with him but then he made the mistake of saying “We are all adults here and maybe we should act like it.” That made her madder and she started arguing with him.

I turned to my eldest child just as the guy behind us said, “Why are we all standing here, we don’t have to be in a line.” I realized he was right. We were not required to be in a line once in the building. So I said “let’s go, we don’t have to stand here with idiots”. We went around the group in front of us. The rest of the people behind us followed suit and start dispersing past them. That group by then was having their own arguments with one another.

We looked at few booths and did get a couple of free t-shirts from some of the vendors then went home but that whole incident stuck with me the rest of the day.

At first when we got back home and I told my youngest kid about the incident, I got upset, I cried, I got angrier, and I debated whether to attend the events in the evening. That is how upset I had gotten with the million thoughts running through my mind.

I was angry at the treatment from a total stranger who obviously was not one of our tribal members as well as being angry at the people around me who did not step in or even attempt to intervene. She was not only an foreigner on our tribal land but a guest to our facilities and event. If she had been a tribal member whether born, adopted, or married into our way of life then she would have known better to behave that way.

We were always taught and raised to have some sort of tact, diplomacy, and respect for others, even if they do not deserve it or if you agree with it. To always try to be the better person even when we get angry, mad, or lose our temper. It made me feel like I had “failed” in that moment.

I was caught off guard and because of the environment, I did not react how I should have. I let someone else control the narrative and I got sucked into it. I knew we were all hot and tired from waiting. The only thing that I did right was to walk away and not let it escalate further.

That was yesterday and today is a new day. My perspective has changed.

True, I was the older person in that situation but she was also a grown woman capable of controlling her own behavior and emotions.

Instead of finding an alternative to her uncomfortableness such as trading places or being aware of the amount of space she had in front of her group and having them move up, she instead decided she wanted to cause a scene in a public space. That was on her and her friend who decided to join in with a herd mentality. I could have let the situation become worse but in those few seconds of reaction, I chose to let it go. That is what 12 years of therapy does.

I know from personal experience that I have the ability to inflict physical harm on others if I feel like I need to defend myself. I will always defend myself and my family from harm. I also know that I can turn into a bully and be a nasty person if I want to. I can see the vulnerabilities in others and have used it against them. That is the anger under the surface from years of being bullied by others. The anger that has slowly been quieted but it’s still there, dormant. These are the traits of the person that I no longer feel I need to be. I am no longer at risk or feel unsafe. Once again 12 years of therapy.

Today, my anger has subsided but the thoughts have not, that is why I write. I write to release the last of the thoughts that are bothering me.

I will end this with one of my favorite movie quotes by my favorite actor:

Gladiator (2000), Maximus, Decimus Meridius, “What we do in life, echoes in eternity”

I know that when things like this occur, it is a test of my own free will. The free will to either take action or to choose how to react.

I choose to use common sense and better judgment.

Thank you for stopping by and supporting this blog.

Have a fabulous week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne