> is there some form of timer that I can use to terminate a regex that takes longer than X seconds to complete

No! But you might want to experiment with alarm and stop the whole program with die².

> I know it can be modified so it doesn't break, etc,

while I don't like the way you are asking, I'll give you two general hints:

• you might wanna restructure your regex with /g-modifier and pos such that it works within a loop. Then you are able to execute Perl code to measure the runtime.

• as a (more experimental) variation of the former: Regexes can embed perlcode with (?{code}) syntax, you may want to experiment with this and die after a timespan.¹

¹) I said die cause I've never seen any return-like exit from a regex ...which doesn't mean it's impossible² (?). ( But I am not interested to test it for you :)

update

²) well you can always catch die from within eval { BLOCK }

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