Self-monitoring

[jack]

It occurs to me, that if I'm getting stressed by a situation, I feel compelled not to let that out in public, which is a very laudable aim, but typically backfires. Since I feel I can't show any stress until I have to, it means (i) I subconsciously want to boil over just a little earlier as a way to stop getting loaded with more stress and (ii) I've no way to escape until I totally implode.

I think it partly comes from socially-unaware and perfectionist tendencies: if you tend to equate any form of failure with "I might as well not bother", you subconsciously assume it's better to hold on as long as possible in the hope that you get through without any failure. Whereas for normal people, admitting a small failure now is better than holding on five more minutes and then imploding :)

Rather than going on thinking "I'm fine, I can hold on longer", it would be more useful if I could recognise when I was shortly going to run out of reserve, and get out somehow earlier. That might be rude, but presumably better than waiting till I implode. But I don't really have any practice at actually doing so, as I only just found the words to explain what I think was going on.

Comments

[eudoxiafriday.wordpress.com]

Another thing I find important is to admit to myself that there are some upsides of keeping on pushing and stressing until Meltdown Occurs. I have wonderful friends, and therefore if I experience Meltdown, I get quite a lot of attention and sympathy, and let's be honest - attention and sympathy is nice. Another upside is getting some of the 'kudos' (from self or others) that can come from the "ooh I'm just so hardworking I can continue to operate even when I'm really stressed, isn't that admirable?*" sorts of sentiments.

(*I think this is unhealthy, but I also think it is true that society regards working til-you-drop etc as admirable)

Having acknowledged that those things feel good and can be rather nice, it's then time (for me) to say: okay, but there are downsides too. Being stressed is unpleasant. Meltdown is unpleasant. The sympathy of friends is a wonderful thing but also a finite one and one shouldn't draw on it flippantly - also your friends could be in tough places at the moment and you don't know what stress it's putting on them to support you. So the grown up thing to do is to make better choices whenever you can, and try to minimise the stress, and deal with it so as to avoid meltdown. And then pat yourself on the back for being grown up about things and making helpful, constructive choices. (As noted above, I often find that a downside of making helpful, constructive choices is that nobody except yourself sees them, which makes it harder to choose the grown-up sensible healthy choice over the letting-it-all-spill-out toddler choice (which gets you sympathy)).

Does anyone else think like this or is it just me?