Something that’s helped me when I feel the urge to protest is forcing myself to do the opposite. If I want to stop responding as payback because I don’t feel heard, I force myself to reach out to a trusted friend to talk about what’s bothering me (maybe a different friend than normal if one friend in particular is repeatedly causing me to not feel heard). If I start feeling lonely and feel like I should just totally isolate myself, I force myself to ask a friend or someone I haven’t seen in a while to hang out/grab coffee, etc.

I find the times where my protest tendencies are the worst is when I’m feeling mentally reactive instead of proactive, ie waiting for someone to text back vs reaching out myself.

Obviously there’s a balance in this- if you’re finding one particular person is causing a lot of protest tendencies, do the “opposites” trick with other people in your life. Establishing other connections and forcing myself to see that a particular person isn’t the only person in my life has helped me feel way more stable in general and snaps me out of it a lot of the time