According to some experts, stress plays a much larger role in a person's life than is commonly believed. Obviously, stress is a negative phenomenon that prevents us from enjoying life, doing our work and generally makes us suffer. But, according to a number of studies, many people become dependent on negative feelings and can no longer live without them - like without cigarettes, the need for sweets, or, in the worst scenarios, without alcohol or drugs. We decided to look into this issue and tell you why you like to suffer so much and how to recover from this addiction.
Looking for a dose of hormones
Our psychology is designed in such a way that often troubles and suffering can cause us positive emotions, against the backdrop of which addiction arises. This is connected not only with the psyche, so you shouldn’t look for deviations in yourself, but you shouldn’t exclude a physiological factor. The thing is that stress is a biological process that the body needs in order to survive difficult situations. Hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol begin to be actively released and fight the attacks of the outside world. Thanks to them, we can cope with anxiety before an important event, and also achieve success if we have a high goal. The presence of these substances in the blood activates muscle and brain activity, which is not associated with feelings, but directly works to make troubles allies of the body and psyche.
This state can be compared to being in the euphoria that any other addictive substance brings. Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol - all this works in the same way as stress to make muscles contract. But unlike drugs or other physical addictions, the effects of stress and the effects of adrenaline and cortisol continue to affect us for much longer. Instead of simply calming down, we continue to feel tired, irritable and tense as chronic stress causes hormones to continue to be released. The next stage of such an attraction is quite expected: problems with hair, skin, weight, heart and digestive system. In other words, we need our own hormones, but since it is impossible to promote their release, we seek out stressful situations, subconsciously or not. Psychologist and author of Stress Addiction Debbie Mandel says:
You begin to need to constantly deal with stress, like a drug addict. To cope with everyday challenges like deadlines or work boredom, you continue to look for sources of adrenaline, completely unaware that your body has not yet recovered from the previous “dose”. This also includes the phenomenon of “workaholism,” which forces people to constantly burden themselves with a large number of stressful situations in order to get another shake-up of hormones.
Pleasure and sublimation
But it’s not only hormones that force us to step on the same rake. The fact that society tends to discuss problems with each other and strive for a more active lifestyle causes us to experience stress, so often that we begin to believe that this is where our happiness lies. To the question “How are you?” You will often hear responses such as “I'm very busy”, “I've had a crazy day”, “I'm going crazy with my job” and so on. Thus, the degree of busyness becomes an indicator of success and self-importance, and the constant use of devices only enhances such an “active” life, preventing you from relaxing and taking a break from problems even during your lunch break or after work. It seems crazy to say no to things like this: “What if I miss something?”, “This is a good opportunity,” “I need to be in touch,” “I feel good, I’m so happy. We need to check if anyone has written.” Stress! We need him like air. Spin constantly, like a squirrel in a wheel, just so as not to experience this withdrawal from free time.
Well, the cherry on the cake is, of course, money, the constant need for which forces us to work above the norm established by the body.
The fear of working with ourselves on a deeper and more complex level than everyday problems makes us avoid free time. Constantly working, organizing meetings and getting things done are not only ingredients for success, but also a great excuse for not dealing with yourself.
In 2014, scientists conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to spend time alone. As a result, most of the participants experienced unpleasant feelings due to the fact that they had to be left alone with their thoughts for more than 6-15 minutes.
If we move fast enough, then we will not have time to think, understand, and most importantly, admit that there is something in our life that no longer suits us. Many of the dissatisfactions reach a level too complex to simply resolve, so we resort to such sublimation, hiding behind an endless stream of responsibilities and tasks. In the same way, drug addicts or alcoholics hide their problems in their addiction. But this is an escape from happiness.
All astrologers
Why do nervous patients rejoice from suffering? Why do we sometimes rejoice when our significant other abandons us? Why does a healthy person sometimes feel pleasant sensations during certain suffering? Of course, this pleasant is on the verge of unpleasant. Psychoanalysis primarily pays attention to childhood and considers many of our sensations and mental patterns as consequences of childhood life history, which in this case fully reveals the reason why it is possible to feel pleasant emotions during suffering. Therefore, in a sense, almost all people go through a stage of masochism in childhood in order to control others through this. What are the origins? To begin with, I would like to give an elementary example from the life of a child. Imagine yourself as a child, you have a toothache, and you are taken to the dentist, you have never seen this doctor and do not know what he will do to you, you are going to an execution, and you are afraid that he will pull out a part of you in the form of a tooth. And then the doctor comes out of the office and says that he cannot serve you today and you need to come tomorrow. In this case, the parent is upset, but the child’s happiness is off the charts - he got rid of “death”, and he feels pleasant sensations, although the tooth still hurts. And here a collision of pleasure and pain occurs; this collision is the forerunner of masochism. It would seem that pain is the destruction of the ego, but in this case the child rather preserved his ego, so it turns out that the very beginning of masochism comes from preserving his ego.
The next example is breaking up with your significant other. All people who are not successful in their personal lives or often change partners have one similar feeling when breaking up - this is a pleasant feeling that is next to tears or aggression. A sadistic desire for one thing also manifests itself here. In general, we consider sadism and masochism to be two sides of the same coin. So this feeling may seem strange, but it comes as a reason that “Fortunately, I did not have to destroy my Ego,” but not only because of this, there are other reasons that make you feel pleasant during suffering and pain. We, followers of the compensatory theory of psychoanalysis, have derived four reasons why pain and suffering can be accompanied by pleasant feelings and sensations:
1) Pity and compassion for the sufferer, which is instilled in childhood. If a person has left his libido at this level (has not matured, because the harmonious moon and/or sun and/or planets are in their signs with a watery core), infantility, regression, then he will certainly feel pleasant sensations during suffering. Your parents feel sorry for you, they pay attention to you, they love you, they cherish you. So we get an omen (premonition) of a pleasant “feel sorry for me”, which is expressed in the very feeling even during suffering. This can be compared with how Freud explained the emergence of the “Super-Ego”, which was formed from the first punishments for violations, which then gradually formed into a part of the human psyche in the form of fear of punishment or fear of losing a good attitude towards oneself, which goes to a higher stage in the form of conscience or self-punishment, and the psychological feelings of self-punishment themselves are sometimes more painful than the punishment of a parent in childhood. And such a strong attachment of self-punishment to the psyche is explained by the fact that parents are part of the child’s ego. Therefore, punishments remain in him, as part of him. That is why it is so difficult for a psychoanalyst to fight to remove the conscience from a patient. But we are interested in the analogy with a pleasant feeling during suffering. In the same way, when we do something bad, we have an omen of punishment (Super-ego), just as when we suffer, there is an expectation and, rather, the already existing pleasant regret on the part of others and all the parental “courtships.”
2) Ego defense. The “Ego” itself, according to Freud, consists of pleasant sensations, and the unpleasant ones fell away from the child’s large ego. Therefore, if a person maintains his ego, then he has joy. And it can be destroyed by any form of human renewal, and the most severe destruction is during sexual intercourse. Or a new friendship or opening to another person, and all this is accompanied by fear, as an instinct of self-preservation, but immediately with favorable destruction, for example, mutual love, the libido brings enough pleasure. But when we are abandoned (masochism) or we are abandoned (sadism), then all this is accompanied by a pleasant feeling that the ego has been preserved. The same thing with the dentist and the child.
3) Suffering gives the child and infant the opportunity to get something they want or get away from something they don’t want. As an example in my work “Fear and Aggression” about how a child raised his body temperature in order not to go to school and on the same day safely lowered it to go to the concert of his favorite band. Or, for example, when a child feels bad, the people around him begin to fulfill his wishes. That is, there is direct satisfaction of leadership here. Through suffering, a child can force parents who are superior to him to work for himself even more than usual. It's definitely nice.
4) “I'm tough because I endure and experience suffering. If I suffer, I am a hero." As an example of the fame of the crucifixion and suffering of Christ, which for a real Christian is even bliss (the most pleasant feeling): to suffer for the sake of Christ and to be like him, that is, if you are persecuted and despised, then you are the best, you are like God. Leadership aspiration again.
All four of these causes can affect a person of any age, and there is such a feeling when suffering, just as clearly as the “super-ego” when norms are violated. Therefore, the desire of some people (usually melancholic, that is, the predominance of water among the core signs) to lose something, suffer, cry and get into trouble all the time is quite understandable. And in order to cut this connection, you need to delve into childhood and in all cases of receiving a reward for suffering in the history of the psyche of a particular person.
How can you help a person who wants to kill himself?
We will divide psychological assistance, as well as the causes of suicidal behavior, into four parts: 1) ego-defense (the harmonious sun and/or its dispositor, and one of them is element 8); 2) attitude towards oneself (tension of the Sun/its dispositor/planets or Lilith in Leo, especially the square with malefactors from Scorpio); 3) internal conflict (opposition with harmonious discharge to element 8/Pluto/Lilith/planet in Scorpio, which simultaneously strains part of the core); 4) altruistic death (problems of Neptune and Pluto in connection with each other, their intertwining with personal planets, the air-water core);
In all cases, it will be necessary to conduct psychoanalysis or another psychotherapeutic technique. It is also important to make a person feel needed, since suicide is the lack of a reason to live or the inability to live. A person lives in order to perform some functions that are useful not only for him, but also for others.
1. The reason for ego-defense - what is said above applies here, plus you need to find out what exactly the person is protecting. And make it clear that this is no longer the case if a loved one dies; or restore, if this is, for example, the meaning of life, a favorite activity according to the sign and house of the Sun/its dispositor/planets in Leo. If this is window dressing or an attempt to prove oneself, then the person needs to be allowed to prove himself in another area according to the sign and house of the Sun first.
2. Attitude towards yourself. Make the person feel needed. If this is study or work, then change your attitude towards them, remove the “excellent student complex” (if the sun is straining Saturn/Mars or a conjunction with Mercury/Venus). Many people are forced to be the best to receive only excellent grades or awards; it is necessary to explain to the person that it is not grades, but knowledge that is most important; It’s not about being the first, but about being able to do everything. So as not to be afraid of losing or giving in. Because of this, a feeling of not being accepted and recognized is manifested. But here you need to be confident in yourself, in order not to react to humiliation from the outside, you need to light up the Sun. Plus communicate with relatives who are pressing (look at the elements of which houses are straining towards the Sun).
3. Resolution of internal conflict - you need to remove the conflict: if it is real, then you need to choose one of the sides of the conflict (one of the opposition sides and sit on it), if possible, then find a third way to resolve the internal conflict (consider detente for element 8 otherwise , like, say, a sports load). For example, a person needs to choose: to leave his partner or not. If it is not real, or subjective, it is necessary to prove that it is not conflicting, for example, if a person blames himself for “bad” dreams or thoughts.
4. Altruistic suicide can be considered the most difficult in psychological work. Since death for the sake of others is the fulfillment of one’s functionality as a social being. But as for death for the sake of religion, it is necessary to use methods of manipulation and logical persuasion, but such people themselves will not go to a psychologist. Relationships with loved ones are important here. In general, the earlier a psychological problem is recognized, the easier it is to solve it.
Original author: Shakin Alexey Sergeevich
How to stop suffering and become happier?
Habituation to stress arises from many unresolved problems within ourselves. But while we are hiding behind a whole host of important matters, our body desperately needs rest, receiving only a new charge of hormones from us. No matter how strange it may sound, the panacea for such a destructive lifestyle is very simple - rest. If this seems funny to you, then pay attention to exactly how you spend your days. Behind the popularity of a healthy lifestyle are not only trends and seductive photos on Instagram, but also common sense - when you are tired, you need to rest; If you are confused, you need to figure it out and not try to get distracted by work. If everything was as simple as it sounds, then everyone would walk around healthy and happy, but relaxation is just as difficult to bring into your life as it is to give up bad habits. Here are some tips on what you can do:
The right to grief and joy
Human nature is such that it requires the manifestation of the entire palette of emotions - then we can talk about a healthy psyche.
Life is varied, there is a lot of joy in it, we just forgot about it, and joy cannot be understood without grief.
Grief requires a reason, but suffering does not. Suffering turns the palette of emotions into gray, nondescript, dull chewing gum, so joy is also not experienced, it merges with the grayness of suffering. Grief demands its payment only once.
There are not so many reasons for grief, and the hardest is the death of loved ones; everything else is fixable. It takes time to get over this grief.
All religions of the world have rituals designed to help a person survive the death of a loved one and accept it. Therefore, if you are a believer, contact a priest and perform the necessary rituals. If you’re not a believer, do it anyway. This is a sign of respect for both the deceased and the living.
But in order to move on in life and not fall into suffering and self-pity, consult a psychologist.
The rest can be fixed
Everything else is fixable, but sometimes it seems like you are in a hopeless situation. This is not so, there is a way out and you know it, but you don’t like it. If the situation seems so difficult that it is impossible to bear, surrender to it: cry out loud, scream, growl, swear, hit a pillow or punching bag - let it go through aggression that is safe for others - usually 15-20 minutes is enough (it’s better to survive the pain now, rather than trying to drown it out and squeeze it out drop by drop).
Then powerlessness will come, and then enlightenment in the brain. As a result, a search and enumeration of options for solving the current situation begins, and there is no shame in asking for help.
Just don’t fall into despondency, whining and whining - they are followed by dullness, indifference and depression. Getting out of a depressive binge is difficult and time-consuming. Life will pass, you won’t catch up with it and won’t bring it back... Only regrets and dissatisfaction will remain.
The conclusion is this - allow yourself the right to express mental pain and distinguish it from whining for any reason.
Turn off gadgets at least in the evening
Try not to use gadgets in the evenings. At least in order not to get involved in working or reviewing everything that is in your news feed. Better turn on the series and just relax. Do not allow yourself to answer business letters or solve any other important matters after sunset - everything important will wait until the morning, and you need to restore your strength. If giving up your phone for the whole evening is even more stressful for you, then try giving yourself at least 20 minutes of complete absence from the virtual world.
Give up difficult friends
People who are commonly called “toxic” today are not a myth, but a very real scenario. What previously seemed to you as difficulties in communication, differences in character, may now be one of the reasons why you constantly experience stress. Such people have the peculiarity of attracting us, since subconsciously we strive to defeat them, correct them, or at least overcome the difficulties that fate has thrown up.
But if you look at it rationally, an evening that you can spend at home, in peace and quiet, is much more productive than communicating with a person who can throw off your balance. Such friends should be replaced with people who can support you if your reality has cracked, who will always listen and give an adequate assessment of what is happening, and will not become a catalyst for another nervous breakdown.
Psychology of masochism
What do you call people who love pain? Psychologists call them masochists. Typically, when people hear masochism mentioned, they think it's about sex. However, sadomasochistic relationships arise not only in intimate relationships where handcuffs, whips, or even piercing objects are used. Masochism is expressed not only in causing physical pain, but also psychological. One can even say that a person becomes a masochist first in the soul, and only then is drawn to physical pain.
Psychologists view masochism as an all-consuming state. A person is not capable of loving only physical pain, excluding psychological pain. When a person receives pleasure, if he is morally humiliated, then he may like physical pain. It is impossible to become a moral and spiritual masochist without wanting to experience pain on a physical level.
Exercise
Sport is the best way to combat stress, as regular muscle exercise relieves tension and keeps you in good shape. This is also a great way to throw out aggression and call on endorphins to help, which will show stress hormones who is boss. But if you are in an extremely stressful state, then psychologists advise staying indoors, since focusing on your mood can cause an accident, like an accident while you decided to go for a run and completely forgot that there are cars driving around you.
