What does it mean to be out-of-control (OOC)?
Out-of-control (OCC) behaviors often are extreme to the situation and create consequences for others that are problematic, painful, and in some cases generate even more problems. Most of the time the OOC behavior doesn’t necessarily fit the context or the the situation. In other words a person may behave in a manner that is more extreme than necessary and often don’t solve problems- in many cases it makes problems worse. OOC behaviors can occur with intense and magnified emotions.
In out of control situations emotions often take over, and emotions tend to take the blame. Some examples of out of control behavior can include:
- Antagonistic arguing
- Coercive communication
- Escalating, barraging, interrupting, and dominating a conversation
- Verbal attacks
- Stonewalling / shunning other people
While OOC behaviors are often problematic, many people don’t understand why they occur, what could prevent them from occurring in the future, or how to stop/ change/ fix the OOC behaviors. OOC can be downright scary, threatening, and disruptive to families, children, and relationships. However, if there was no good reason why an OOC behavior should occur, it would not happen. Here is a look at how OOC behaviors can work or function for people. OOC behaviors might:
- Justifies a response
- Gets someone’s attention
- Allows a person to be taken seriously
- Gets a certain reaction or response from someone else
- Gets someone to respond
- Maintains an identity as (fill in the blank)
- Sends a message
- Validates the seriousness of the situation
- Makes a person feel in control
However your OOC behavior works for you, some of the basic outcomes of the above can be better done through means that are more skillful, enhance and improve relationships, result in stronger connections, and ultimately a more successful means to an end.
OOC behaviors are problematic mainly because they create unwanted consequences. While some people may not be deterred by the havoc and pain they create, others are looking for ways to step outside of the cycle and patterns of transgenerational trauma and start living a more fulfilling and less crazy life.
Skills learning, acquisition, and generalization helps people to identify more effective means to have influence, power, self control, acceptance, and self-esteem by looking at the role of OOC behaviors. The idea is to manage emotions while being effective- what do you need to communicate- and can you do it in a way that doesn’t include shooting yourself in the foot (and keeping important relationships along the way).