When Your Life Seems Like An Unsatisfying Roller Coaster Of Crises
If you have spent your life reeling from one catastrophe to the next, or going through a roller coaster of tumultuous emotions, and have trouble have trouble maintaining satisfying relationships with other people, you may fall in complete despair and feel life is not worth living. There are some things you can do to improve your life and feel happier.
Develop Some Insight
It could be therapeutic to take a look at your initial environment. The problems you are having now may have roots in your childhood because your parents or guardians were unable to give you the guidance, love, and attention that you desperately needed. It may have been impossible under these conditions to form a coherent and stable sense of self. You may have been also raised in an atmosphere of constant chaos and turmoil and are now unconsciously recreating this in your adult life. You simply don't have psychological tools to create a peaceful atmosphere to live in.
Differentiate Between the Levels of Seriousness When Experiencing Problems
If a co-worker's offhand derisive remark causes you to immediately assume all your co-workers are talking about you and/or your job is in danger, or your lover wants to discuss an issue between the two of you and you become anxious thinking that he/she is attacking your whole being or wants out, you may have histrionic or narcissistic traits to deal with.
Personality traits run on a continuum from non-existent to extreme, so you needn't give yourself negative labels if you discover that you have certain tendencies. You just need to examine them, and learn new ways of coping that help you negotiate reality in a more life-affirming way.
One important skill to develop is the capacity to differentiate the levels of seriousness of the problems you face. You might try:
- Journaling to examine problems as they come up and list the possible outcomes of situations. Then you could put the possible outcomes in order of likelihood of actually happening. After that, you could think about what the consequences or impacts would be on your life and how you could deal with them.
- Talking about a situation over with someone whose judgment you respect.
- Talking to your higher power about the situation in detail and then surrender the problem to them.
- Allowing some time to go by. The problem may resolve itself without any action on your part at all.
Learn How to Self-soothe
If you were emotionally neglected as a child, when you got hurt or felt bad, there wasn't anyone to comfort and soothe you so that you could feel better. You will now need to figure out ways to soothe yourself when you're hurting. To soothe means to do something that feels good to distract yourself from the intensity of your feelings until you can cope with them. It could something as simple as a bubble bath, listening to music, or taking a walk in a park.
Avoid Alienating Possible Sources of Support
Most people can tolerate helping you out once or twice when you are in a high emotional state, but if they sense a pattern of you being needy or histrionic, they may lose respect for you or begin to avoid you. This would make you feel worse and more alone than ever. Before approaching them, do take the time to be alone, self soothe, and compose yourself.
People develop compassion fatigue if you come to them too often, so it's best to develop more friends that you can confide or go to for help. Close relatives tend to have a greater capacity to listen and help, but even they may get worn out or have problems of their own to deal with.
Heal the Holes And Become Your One Best Friend.
To work on healing issues from the past or the present, you would benefit from professional counseling. A therapist can help you to work on confidence, self esteem, deal with problems effectively, and in building better relationships with others. If you're looking for a counseling center in your area, visit Albano Fischetti Counseling.
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