How To Live If When You Were Told NO: Intolerable Frustration

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 22:18

and optimism and lust for life

and positive attitude

just try me bitch

frustration

When you are denied it is, to put it mildly, unpleasant. Psychologists call this state (when a person is painfully experiencing a refusal, trying to come to terms with the thought: what I was counting on, I will not get it) - frustration. The average person simply calls him a bummer.

If you think so, then our whole life is a series of frustrations. The first cry of the baby - and he speaks of frustration: in the mother's belly, they breathed for the baby and supplied nutrients directly through the umbilical cord. And then, well, he was born - and now you have to breathe yourself, suck milk from your mother's breast on your own, and if something goes wrong - yell, since they don't understand. That is, you have to make an effort. Get used to it, kid, and this is just the beginning.

And the rest of life will also be bummer, big and small. (What ordinary people call "bummer", psychologists call among themselves in science "frustrations"). That is, frustration normally replaces another frustration.

Frustration is not a pleasant experience. It is accompanied by depressed mood, anxiety, feelings of frustration and tension. Naturally, if frustration can be avoided, a person will try to avoid it.

And what do people do with the fact that not everything will go as planned and that not everything in life they can get?

Oh, there are many ways to help yourself with unbearable feelings. Most will only make things worse in the long run, but for a short while, coping with a bout of frustration will, in general, help.

• You can lie to yourself or lie to others. To loudly declare: “I didn't really want to” (that is, “Green grapes”) - for example, to look for shortcomings in a job that I wanted to get and for which I was not accepted. There are definitely drawbacks to the workplace - where are they not? But the fact is that this job had many advantages, so I really wanted to take this job. But it couldn't. But these two facts in consciousness at the same time ("I want to get it" and "I didn't get it") cause such violent frustration in some that a person begins to deny his desire and devalue the dignity of the object that he did not get. Yes, and getting there is inconvenient and long! And quitting my current job is stressful. And I promised to teach the guys at my old job, but I haven't finished my studies yet - no, I just couldn't quit my old job for a new job. Let me list the shortcomings of the new job once again, maybe it will feel easier on my soul …
• You can blame someone outside, insidious. Scold the vile government, or, conversely, the Americans. Or reptilians. It doesn't matter who - the main thing is to make it clear that we are not to blame for our troubles (just not ourselves!), But some external enemy. Here a wide choice opens up for a person: you can go to rallies, or you can join the armies of the sofa and pour out your bile on the Internet. Again, a great way not to think about your own contribution to your problems: outside forces are to blame, period! And I - and what am I? Where am I against a powerful state apparatus? Or against the reptilians?

• You can fall into aggression show malice towards everyone who comes to hand. Because being alone with your anger, resentment, indignation, anger is unbearable. So let those who "deserve" it (or, more precisely, just unsuccessfully turned out to be near and caused a momentary irritation) slurp my anger in big spoons. It is these aggressive people who declare: "Psychologists say that it is important not to keep emotions in oneself" - but the negative emotions splashed out on their neighbors do not fly into space, they affect relationships and remain unpleasant showdowns in the memory. It is really important to deal with negative emotions, but throwing them out on others is like throwing your garbage on a neighbor's plot in the country. The garbage will not go anywhere, and the neighbor will not be happy and will take revenge. In the same way as summer cottage waste needs to be collected and disposed of, and not just thrown over the fence to a neighboring site, it is also important to transform and properly contain negative emotions.

• You can, on the contrary, fall into apathy., to lose interest in life, to refuse to take part in the "rat race" - all the same, nothing good awaits me in my life. This attitude is based on the idea that someone (big and kind) is obliged to give us all the blessings and joys. Suddenly a magician will arrive in a blue helicopter, and then everything will be fine. And it seems natural to think that if someone (and even though most people) has something, and I want it too, then I should get it, period. Why did someone have kind loving parents, and mine beat me with a rubber expander until I was 14? Why did they buy an apartment for someone, but you can't interrogate snow from my father in the winter - and he already has three apartments, but he doesn't want to give anything to his own child? Why does someone have an excellent figure and strong health from birth, and I get fat from one glance at the buns and even get sick all year round? Outrageous! Where are my primordial rights - to wealth, health, beauty, love of people? This is what I am supposed to do! This is also childish, infantile thinking: that failures and misfortunes happen to someone and somewhere, and everything should and must be fine with me. And if not very good, then here's the insult and see paragraph 2.
• You can fall into self-deprecation … Scourge yourself for failure. There is little sense from this, but there is a nontrivial psychological gain - a subconscious belief that everything is under my control. How it works: let's say a person quits his job because of a conflict in the work collective. The team was a pure serpentarium, where everyone sits on each other and skillfully weaves intrigues, and our employee was inexperienced in intrigues and just tried to work honestly. A far-fetched pretext, a scandal - and now the employee is on the doorstep, clutching a work book in his hands and scolding himself with all his might: if only I were smarter and more polite! If only I had spent more effort to improve relations with Tamara Ivanovna! If I spent time with my colleagues in the smoking room! Then I would still be working in my place … See? Imperceptibly, the idea "I could have done everything right, but I did not do it" is sewn into this reasoning. "I could do anything" = "I am omnipotent." That is, oddly enough, agonizing self-abasement and violent guilt is synonymous with belief in one's own omnipotence. And the unfortunate fired man who excused himself and tortured himself - in fact, reinforces the irrational idea "I rule this world, but this time for some reason I did not cope." Recognition of the idea “I can’t do everything, I’m just a human being and rather weak” - could be healing, but at the same time it is quite painful … Therefore, it is rarely dealt with alone, more and more in psychotherapy.

In general, people who cannot hear "no" are encountered even more often than those who cannot say this "no". It's easier for such people to hide - go and understand whether the person really didn't want to apply for this job, or fell out of love with the girl, or was the grape just green? Why is a person so aggressive - it is not written on it, well, you never know what made him angry? And they skillfully lie to themselves for years, and they sincerely convince others: what are you, but I didn't need to. All the power of logic is connected, sophisticated in rationalizations. Arguably prove that it was stupid and senseless to want this, so no, I didn't want to at all. And it's not a shame that it didn't work out.

It happens that people build their whole life around ways to deal with frustration. In order to never hear "no" on their wishes, some choose:

• Never ask for anything or pretend for anything. Be content with little ("If you don't have an aunt, then you won't lose her")
• Stomp your foot and make demands on the whole world: leave it to me! Provide! Let them stop! And let them give me! And in all normal countries, not like in this country! …
• The battle "with all the bad for all the good" is also a good way to distract from one's own "wishes" in favor of "the struggle for world peace" and for the sake of restoring justice wherever it is violated. At the same time, a person receives an additional bonus in the fact that he does not even have to think about his own needs and desires. In Africa, children are starving.

Vkontakte has a whole public in which girls post their correspondence with boys on dating sites. And one scenario repeats itself there with a regularity worthy of better use.

The young man writes a compliment to the girl in a personal note, offers to talk. The girl politely (or dryly, but without rudeness) refuses. The boy, in response, bursts out with streams of abuse, swears, spits poison, fires her last words. I! Offered! And me !!! REFUSED !!! How dare she, oh she is so and so … Surprisingly, the scenario is repeated hundreds of times: to a polite "no" - in response, a tub of slops. Because it really hurts to hear this "no", too unbearable. But the number of men following this scenario is surprising.

It's hard to hear no. It is generally painful to stumble over the border: on someone else's borders (this is when another refuses our desires) or on the border of our own capabilities. It is unpleasant to realize: yes, I am not what I thought before. Not as smart, not as popular, not as attractive, not as good at the profession and not needed by everyone. To survive this painful sensation, you need internal support. Or, otherwise, people with such awareness often prefer not to meet. It is easier to indulge in the illusion that "I am ogogo, it is they … (circumstances, or other people)." Or the illusion that "it doesn't hurt and I want to." To live with the thought “I’m not the very best” and “I will not get what I desired” - some are hurt to the point of unbearableness.

The reason for this may be a subconscious belief that "if I have not achieved much and I have nothing to brag about, I am generally useless." This is a very deeply hidden self-doubt, the lack of unconditional acceptance of oneself. Yes, yes, the same unconditional parental love and parental acceptance, which is repeatedly described in psychological texts - they are needed, first of all, in order to launch in the child his own mechanism of unconditional belief in his own value. It is impossible to constantly run to mom for unconditional love. Parents, one might say, "set an example", "ignite the fuse", which should be in the heart of a person all his life. Unconditional acceptance of oneself is not the same as unbridled selfishness and contempt for others. On the contrary, it is the feeling that "I am important and valuable even when I am small and ordinary." An irrational but so important belief that I need myself. What I won't leave myself … No matter how it turns, no matter how ordinary and insignificant I am - I will be on my own side, I will love myself and respect.

And you have no idea how much support this seemingly small conviction provides. What tremendous freedom it gives. It’s not scary to try new things (and when you start doing something new, unfamiliar, then at first everyone doesn’t do well - and this doesn’t make you feel like nothing, can you imagine?). It's not scary to take risks. Are you not afraid to look stupid in the eyes of others - well, yes, I looked stupid, yes, so what? Taunts don't kill. Other people's opinions do not hurt ("you need this and that, but this and that, but this and that," "women need," "men should") - well, yes, Aunt Vali has such an opinion, uh-huh. (But I shouldn't be guided by other people's opinions in my life. What? Aunt Valya will be unhappy, condemned and offended? Well … It's her choice. It won't affect my attitude towards her. And no, Aunt Vali's point of view in her actions I will still not be guided).

Etc.

The quality of life improves many times over. From one small but deeply hidden detail, from a small but root belief.

And it looks like a miracle.