Tuesday, May 15, 2012

My Dark Side

I had a little meltdown today (because I'm dramatic like that) and to cope with my feelings started yelling at B. This sadly is a recurrent habit of mine (in fact, it was the impetus for one of my New Year's resolutions): I get stressed out about something, and feel overwhelmed by my feelings, and as a coping strategy decide that everything wrong is his fault. Blaming and yelling at him paradoxically makes me feel calmer and more in control of everything (at least in the moment: later I feel horribly guilty and full of shame). Of course it tends to have the opposite effect on B (since having your wife morph into a raging bitch viciously telling you that "all you do is try to ruin things for me" is not very soothing).

In a way it's just a bad habit: in other words, it's a coping strategy for dealing with stress (just like eating too much, or smoking), which has negative effects far outweighing the benefits it provides. I don't need to scream and yell (it's a choice, not a compulsion); I just do it because I get something out of it. Obviously I need to stop, because 1. it hurts others; 2. it makes me feel bad about myself; and 3. the costs of the strategy far outweigh the benefits.

I know why I do it (for the immediate soothing effect), but the interesting question really is, why does verbally abusing others (in this case, B) make me feel calm? It's pretty much a horrible thing to admit about yourself, I must say. Maybe because I feel out of control, and at least can have control over others (by causing certain emotional reactions in them)? I am not sure.

My mother did the same thing (to my father), and I think my grandmother did too (to my grandfather), so it's likely that it's in large part a learned behavior. This is one reason why I need to change my behavior--because otherwise little R will begin copying me.

I've actually made pretty good progress this year so far (this is the first incident in a long time), but obviously have a lot more work to do.


2 comments:

  1. Guilty here too for a long time (like my whole life) until I found 5HTP. A LOT of my "issues" were resolved when I realized that I just have naturally less seratonin than other people.

    Things like small noises made me fly into a rage, I would get annoyed at small soft touches, and I would fly into bad rages at people I loved. I started taking 5HTP and it all stopped. Plus, I stopped binging on sugar and bread (they create seratonin) and lost 15 lbs. My family also raged, but turns out low seratonin is genetic.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is really interesting. I am not sure if it's available here (will check at the supplement store), but if not I will check it out once we visit the US in June.

      B tells me that 5HTP is basically less-effective Zoloft (he has a degree in biochemistry so knows a lot about drugs). However, since I found Zoloft effective when I was actually depressed, maybe a less effective version would be perfect when I am not actually depressed?

      Delete