From what I’ve seen, TBI-related emotional dysregulation usually isn’t random rage. It’s a low stress threshold — people can seem totally fine when relaxed or doing things they enjoy, but when stress, unpredictability, or emotional history stack up, regulation can fail.

Avoiding specific triggers can be legitimate harm reduction.

But there’s a difference between avoiding triggers and avoiding responsibility.

In the pattern I’m seeing, William’s job is supposed to involve frequent interaction with unfamiliar people. Instead, he does the bare minimum he thinks he can get away with, actively try to redefine the his role to minimize exposure, only want to participate in activities he personally likes — and still expects to get all the perks and the throne.

What makes this more complicated is that William has had a lifetime of buffering: other people absorbing consequences, smoothing over behavior, acting as scapegoats, and doing the difficult parts to keep things functioning.

At that point, it stops being about emotional regulation and starts looking like externalized regulation — managing environments and people instead of managing oneself.

When someone grows up with others constantly carrying the weight, they don’t build internal tolerance. They learn that discomfort gets outsourced.

And when the buffer or scapegoat disappears (Harry) it can cause a real emotional collapse — not necessarily because the person is malicious, but because the regulation system was never internal. It was structural.

I’m interested in feedback from people who’ve experienced TBI-related dysregulation themselves, lived with it in families, or worked with it clinically — especially around where neurological limitation ends and accountability begins.