05.15.09

Life

Posted in Uncategorized at 8:18 pm by livies

A big mass of complicated scenarios. Most people think being positive should just be the done thing and not to dwell on negative things. A lot of the time it’s something  that seems wrong or impossible for me. I’ve been thinking about the last year over the last few weeks and how i’ve dealt with things. Personally, I don’t know if I have “dealt” with everything. This post is going to be all over the place, but it’s just some stuff i’ve been thinking about.

I recently took park in a workshop on how to deal with grief as part of my placement in the hospital. A few of the things brought up struck me. Mainly the differences between peoples coping skills. While one person might shut down completely over a matter, another might be able to think about it and move past it. It doesn’t make them any less of a person, it’s just how they happen to deal with things.  I can pick out examples of different coping skills that i’ve witnessed throughout my family. While I wish I could change some of them, for their own sake, I can’t. In stressful situations people rarely stand back and say ‘Ok, what is the best way to deal with this?’. Panic sometimes takes over and that’s the end of it. My roll is usually to remain somewhat calm throughout tough situations. Every bad situation i’ve come across has usually depended on someone calm taking over.

Frankly, my life has been extremely difficult to cope with for over 2 years. I won’t bring up any particular aspects as I don’t think they have a place here. But my coping skills seem to be dramatically declining. If I see someone in my family being upset or if they’re not coping well with something, I let emotions take over. I remember two incidences of me being hysterical over the past few months. Dealing with people who seem to have 3 or 4 different personalities is incredibly trying.

I was recently acused of bottling emotions too much and moving past things too quickly. Something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. I think how a person deals with something is their own business, unless it’s seriously affecting them. Some people seem fixated on situations, they just want to focus on how badly a situation went, or how much worse it could have gone. More feel the only proper way of dealing is through phases of emotions. I personally don’t think there is a right or wrong way if it eventually leads to acceptance.

While dealing with situations over the last year, i’ve usually spent a lot of time in my room thinking (in the situations that i’ve managed to remain calm). Once i’d thought about it, I usually ended up speaking to a friend about it in great detail until I literally had nothing left to say about the situation. I never liked going to sleep with overcrowded thoughts. I usually then tried to forget it and keep it in the past, or at least take it out of main focus.

I’m feeling badly about how I dealt with friends on these matters aswell. On days where drama would occur, i’d get texts asking if i’d go out somewhere. A lot of the time I ended up saying no because I was in this process of thinking or talking. I couldn’t leave the house and force myself to think about something else. I wanted to deal with things in my head and spend the time alone so when I did leave I wouldn’t be distracted.  I hated feeling like I was overburdening my friends with the latest details on things or being constantly negative. It was very hard to talk about anything else. Worry is very much an overpowering emotion. This is mainly the reason I stayed away from them. I had 3 or 4 good friends who didn’t mind me talking about matters. Something i’ve never been more grateful for.

There were occasions where I just wanted to forget about everything. Lock myself away and focus on something else. A bad coping mechanism, but it was something I did on occasion. I took a season of a tv series I enjoyed and watched it, a lot of the time straight through. Thought about nothing else and just enjoyed having time where nothing was an issue. Escapism at its best. I blamed laziness a lot of the time, something I knew it wasn’t. But it made life easier and meant I got a break in between stress and worrying.

This post was mainly just random thoughts. While I envy people who think positive thinking is just a decision you have to make and see the good in everything. In a lot of situations it truly is impossible. I try to be as positive as I can at home and work. I keep the negative out of my personal life as much as I can mentally cope with and go from there. I’m learning a lot on coping and life in general. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? Well, for me it certainly has. But it’s also had its negative effects.As of today i’m officially finished 3rd year of college. Season 6 of Gilmore Girls arrived in the post for me today. I’m going to sit here and watch it with a cup of tea until I fall asleep. Here’s to a good summer and a relaxing one at that.

Permalink