I have an issue with negative emotions, mostly in social situations, probably because I’m a rather antisocial person:
It’s like if you bounce a basketball, if you hit it once, it stays on the ground, if you hit it 5 times or so, it starts to take off and once you got it going you only need to give it a push every time it comes up to keep it going.
Let’s say we visit my parents, we are late, I’m stressed when we leave home, then there is a lot of traffic, maybe some person in the other car that seems like a jerk, and other little things that stress or annoy me and that keep adding up.
When I’m alone, it’s more easy for me to calm down, reset, get my resilience back and continue being relaxed and happy.
But in social situations I’m anyways a bit more stressed than usual, so it just keeps adding up and at some point there is only a few little comments from my GF or parents needed, that I don’t like and come on top of all the other stuff that stressed my out and I’m in a really bad mood. I stop talking so I don’t give aggressive or hurtful replies (which I go if I’m like that), my parents and GF ask me what’s wrong, I say it or I say nothing, doesn’t matter, the whole family thing is now really awkward and uncomfortable, parents and GF are disappointed etc. and I need to go home asap, be alone and recover…
This is apparently not very nice and it happens rather often. I the past I thought something is wrong with me, over time I learned that I just have less capacity for social interactions than others and my only solution is to go away before I get in a bad mood – but at a family diner I just can’t get up and leave during or before diner, but I also can’t cool down when other people are around…
Any advice?
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1 comment
Yes, and don’t worry, you are not crazy. The human brain is like a cities resources department.
If something breaks, like, say a pothole, your brain will send a team to try and consolidate the problem. While working on this problem, you find that traffic lights down main are faulty, and you send another team out to fix it.
These problems mount during a day, and ultimately, our response teams become fewer in number. So we have to split our resources in half just to keep things running. This means that our response time becomes slower, so our teams need time to address our problems.
In psychology, I describe these teams as cognitive resources. We only have so much to go around, and frankly, we will all become overwhelmed with enough minor problems hitting us.
Solutions:
1. Hire more people (start reading more and doing things that stretch your comfort zone. This forces you into uncomfortable situations and gives you more tools to work with them)
2. Hydrate our team(I know it sounds strange, but enough overwhelming stimuli can activate autonomic systems and work our sympathetic nervous system. By taking a drink of water, we work our parasympathetic system and help calm us down. This gives us more resources)
3. Keep our team fed (we make better decisions after a snack )
4. Make sure our team has had sleep ( poor sleeping can dramatically reduce cognitive ability, often times it is the source of our issues)