If you’ve been on social media lately, you might’ve noticed a trending phrase: “crashing out.” Whether it’s someone rage-quitting their job, destroying property in a fit of anger, or spiraling into a breakdown, the term has become shorthand for totally losing control.
Crashing out is often talked about in a jokey or casual way, but the reality behind it has serious implications. Emotional overload can lead to dangerous behavior—fights, legal issues, injury—and is often a sign of deeper mental health struggles.
So, what does crashing out mean? How can you avoid getting to the point where your emotions call the shots? And when should you seek help?
What You’ll Learn
- What is the meaning of crashing out?
- What are the signs you’re about to crash out?
- How can you avoid a crashout?
- When should you seek treatment for crashing out?
Quick Read
The term “crashing out” has gained popularity on social media as a way to describe moments of emotional breakdown or impulsive behavior, often triggered by overwhelming stress or burnout. While it’s often used humorously, the implications of crashing out can be serious, leading to destructive actions and indicating deeper mental health issues. In a nutshell, crashing out is the experience of losing control in response to emotional overload.
While burnout is a gradual depletion of emotional and mental resources, crashing out represents a sudden eruption of these stresses. Common manifestations include quitting your job in anger, lashing out at loved ones, and engaging in risky behaviors. The phenomenon is particularly prevalent among younger generations, who face immense pressures from academics, financial burdens, global instability, social media, and family dynamics.
Recognizing the signs that precede crashing out is crucial for prevention. Indicators such as irritability, emotional numbness, racing thoughts, and increased substance use can signal that a person is nearing a breaking point. Acknowledging these feelings and seeking support can help them manage their emotional states before they escalate into a crashout.
To avoid crashing out, try strategies like building in pauses before reacting, expressing anger in healthy ways, journaling to release pent-up thoughts, and setting micro-boundaries to reduce stress. If you find yourself frequently on the brink of crashing out, accessing professional help can help you manage emotions and address any underlying issues.
What Does ‘Crashing Out’ Mean?
Essentially, crashing out refers to an emotional outburst or impulsive behavior. It’s usually the result of prolonged overwhelm, burnout, or mental exhaustion. You might lash out, break down, get completely overwhelmed, or do something reckless that feels impossible to undo.
On TikTok and other platforms, users describe the moment of crashing out as the instant when you become so angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, or hurt that you stop thinking rationally. You might suddenly and completely shut down, or maybe you behave in a way you’ll later regret.
The term, which may have originated in African American vernacular, has been somewhat diluted by its widespread use and popularity. But it can be a serious issue. Think of the Hulk in Marvel comics and movies: He’s a regular guy until he gets triggered, and then he flies into a rage so fierce that he physically transforms. At that point, he shares neither mind nor form with his human counterpart, and promptly starts destroying everything around him.
What Happens When You Crash Out?
While burnout and crashing out are related, they’re not the same thing. Burnout is a slow simmer: an ongoing depletion of your emotional, mental, and physical reserves. Crashing out is what can happen when that burnout becomes too saturated or boils over. Both are usually caused by the challenges of trying to cope with too many simultaneous stressors. As a result, the person’s nervous system enters fight-or-flight-freeze mode.
Real-life examples of crashing out might look like:
- Engaging in risky behavior (drugs, driving dangerously, hooking up impulsively)
- Quitting your job in a rage and storming out
- Screaming at your partner or friends over something small
- Flipping off a stranger, or getting out of your car to yell at them, when they cut you off
- Breaking or throwing things in frustration
- Sending explosive texts or posting things online that you instantly regret
- Getting into physical fights
What Causes Crashing Out?
Young people are at their limit right now. For young adults, particularly Gen Z and millennials, the emotional burden is substantial. Here’s what many are up against:
Academic pressure
Grades, scholarships, and the pressures of planning for the future are intense and often overwhelming.
High living expenses
The cost of living is high and seems to creep up daily. Rent, groceries, and just existing can feel financially impossible.
Global instability
Political shifts, climate crises, ecological threats, and humanitarian disasters have a profound emotional impact on young people, even when they don’t directly feel the consequences.
Social media
Young adults are always on, always comparing, always performing. It can be exhausting and demoralizing.
Tough family dynamics
High parental expectations, overinvolved parents, or a lack of understanding between parents and grown children can create additional stress for young people.
Trauma and discrimination
For LGBTQ+ young adults, BIPOC communities, and others facing systemic oppression and invalidation, life comes with extra layers of chronic stress.
When you’re constantly under pressure, trying to juggle too many things at once, and feel like nothing you do is enough or ultimately even matters, crashing out can feel inevitable.
10 Signs That You’re About to Crash Out
Before you spiral out of control, there are warning signs. Here are 10 experiences to watch for.
- Irritability, confusion, or anger that shows up quickly and intensely
- Feeling hypervigilant, jumpy, or always on edge
- Racing thoughts or intrusive, impulsive ideas
- Emotional numbness, followed by sudden emotional explosions
- Overcommitting yourself and feeling like you have to do everything on your own
- Difficulty sleeping, or waking up exhausted
- Unprocessed trauma that’s bubbling beneath the surface
- A sense of doom, like something bad is always about to happen
- Increased substance use or disordered eating as ways to manage stress
- Never having time for social connections, hobbies, or other positive emotional outlets
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s time to seek support before you crash out.
How to Avoid Crashing Out
Preventing a crashout starts with creating space between how you feel and how you react. Here are some regulating tools you can start practicing.
Acknowledge What’s Happening
The first step is recognizing your internal state before it hits the tipping point. Tune into your body. Are you clenching your jaw? Holding your breath? Feeling like you might cry or scream? That’s your cue. Notice when that happens, and start to track what’s causing it.
Build in a Pause
Take a moment before responding to something that triggers you. Nervous system dysregulation makes it feel almost impossible to pause when you’re on the verge of a breakdown. However, even a second or two of extra space can decrease the intensity of your response. Try just one deep breath, or shake your body. Or focus all your attention on one thing you can see or feel: Note the texture, the color, the temperature.
Express Anger on Purpose
Anger isn’t bad. We’re socialized to see it as a problem, but it’s a normal and healthy response to situations or events that feel unjust. Unexpressed anger, however, ultimately turns inward or outward in damaging ways. What does healthy anger expression look like? Here are some approaches for channeling anger in safe ways:
- Expressive dancing (don’t think about how you look—just move your body in ways that feel good)
- Jumping, stomping, or rolling around on the floor
- Screaming into a pillow or your elbow
- Punching a couch cushion
- Making big “angry monster” faces and noises
- Progressive muscle relaxation, which involves tensing and releasing every muscle in your body
- Shaking your limbs
- Letting yourself cry
Releasing anger and frustration through your body means that your brain doesn’t have to hold it all.
Try Brain-Dump Journaling
When your thoughts feel like a pressure cooker, let it all out on paper. Don’t worry about grammar or whether it makes sense. It doesn’t need to be pretty. Set a timer for 20–30 minutes and write down everything that stresses you out. Once the timer goes off, get up and do something regulating, like moving your body or spending time with a friend.
Set Micro-Boundaries
You don’t have to cancel everything on your calendar, but you can say no to at least one plan or event per week that stresses you out. Setting boundaries can help keep you from boiling over.
When Should You Seek Support?
If you’re constantly crashing out, or on the verge of it, you don’t have to white-knuckle through it alone. Reach out for help if you:
- Feel emotionally out of control most days
- Engage in risky or dangerous behavior
- Use substances to cope with big feelings
- Have hurt yourself or others during a crashout
- Are overwhelmed by past trauma and don’t know where to start
Support can make all the difference between spiraling and healing.
Mental Health Support in Minnesota
At PrairieCare, we offer comprehensive mental health treatment for individuals of all ages, providing a full continuum of care throughout Minnesota. Our treatment approach is trauma-informed and tailored to each person’s unique needs.
Through individual, group, family/couple, and experiential therapy, psychiatric care and medication management, and life skills, our multidisciplinary team of experts helps young people:
- Get to the root of mental health challenges
- Process trauma and emotional pain
- Learn emotional regulation and communication tools
- Cope with ongoing life stressors in a healthy, comprehensive way
- Build self-esteem and self-trust
- Create a long-term plan for thriving, not just surviving
Whether you or a loved one is dealing with emotional dysregulation, burnout, anxiety, or depression, we’re here to support you every step of the way. Get started by calling our team at 952-826-8475 or learning more about our admissions process here.
You can also request a no-cost mental health screening by clicking the button below and filling out the form on the right. Our team will then contact you within one business day to begin the process.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “crashing out” slang mean?
- Crashing out is slang for emotionally losing control, often in public or destructive ways. It’s the point where emotional pressure turns into impulsive action.
What does it mean if you crash out?
- Crashing out means you’ve reached your emotional breaking point and acted in a way that you might regret. This can manifest as storming out of the room, yelling, or behaving impulsively in other ways.
Does crashing out mean crying?
- Not necessarily, although it can. Crashing out is more frequently used to describe destructive or impulsive actions, such as picking a fight, breaking things, or engaging in other explosive behaviors.
Why do I crash out so much?
- Frequent crashouts are often a sign of unprocessed trauma, chronic stress, or emotional dysregulation. You may not have learned safe ways to express anger or overwhelm, and that’s something that the right support, including therapy, can help with.
How do you control yourself from crashing out?
- Learn to identify your triggers, build in pauses, and find physical, creative, expressive outlets for big emotions like anger. Therapy can help you build tools to regulate your nervous system and process underlying pain.
Sources
- J Couns Psychol. 2009 Apr; 56(2): 289–300.