The Things Stress Does to You

[chainedfiction]

No, not eustress. Distress. So many things it does, and even a sudden burst of anger for something so small. I got pissed off at my brother for laughing because I dropped a cup on the counter when taking it down from the cabinet. The cup was smaller than the one I grabbed and it happened to be magically "sticking" to the inside when I pulled that top cup out and the cup inside slipped out. My brother was passing by, getting ready to set the table and the moment that cup hit the counter, he burst out laughing. He said nothing, but I was angry.

I asked him, "You think this is funny?" and without a care in the world, he told me, "Yes, it's hilarious."

I was fucking done in that moment. I took up the cup that fell and slammed the cabinet door shut. I angrily told him to shut up two times, one for laughing at me and one for asking what was wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with me dammit. I slammed those cups down on the table, proceeded to pour the drinks, then stormed out of the kitchen like all hell broke loose. I slammed my door shut and went to my bed, then started to cry and think negatively about myself. I was an idiot, a fool to get hyped up over something so small. I felt bad for my actions and googled 'sudden acts of anger' and read up information on what might've caused it, then believed right then and there it was because of my psychological stress.

I came to more realizations as dinner passed and decided afterwards, even though I'd never in my life ever done it with meaning much less do it at all, apologized to him for my sudden outburst. I told him why it happened and that I could've handled the situation better. But he brushed it off as if nothing had happened. He was apathetic and careless towards my apology, telling me that he didn't care, that he didn't see why I needed to apologize to him. That was a fucking slap in the face to someone who'd never apologized.

Or even thought to apologize with feeling.

I'm not a person who forgives easily, I'll just throw that out there. I never have been, and when I've been forced by those older than me (e.g. teachers, parents), I've always done so with reluctance and burning hatred for whoever I had to apologize to and say I'm sorry. I blame so easily that I don't stop to think about others even if I say I'm kind and sympathetic towards others. To me, I want things done a certain way and it's my way or the highway, especially around the house. So for me to step forward and forgive myself and ask for my brother's forgiveness, I felt like shit in that moment. It was as if he didn't care, but really, it's just because he has a different mindset.

He's a jokester, he makes snide comments, he's witty, he makes jokes, and I'm the complete opposite. He's of the mindset that, "Oh haha I made her irritated, okay, moving along now" type deal because he's my brother. He didn't think I needed to apologize because it was something so small and that there was nothing truly wrong with what I did. I want to forgive and forget. I want to move on. I'm tired of being the way that I've always been- apathetic, uncaring towards family members.

School is stressful, house is stressful, everything is stressful. I just want to see someone now. I'm tired of waiting for an appointment to go see them, I want to just walk in there and slowly let everything out. There's never been a day where I wish everything was all laughter and happiness. But it feels like that's never going to happen.

 

[Kagayours]

I feel the need to point out that the thread title implies you've been feeling stressed lately, though only the last paragraph of it all says anything about the cause of your stress. Everything else was about, well... just other problems in your life in general.

And I feel like that's the tricky thing about stress. When things get stressful, you want to lump all your problems together. And that's why "school is stressful, house is stressful", etc turns into "everything is stressful and I snapped at my brother and I apologized which was really hard but he doesn't even care and now I feel like shit and EVERYTHING IS PAINFUL!!"

Bear in mind, I'm not trying to make light of your situation. I've been there a few times myself. But what I'm trying to suggest is -- try isolating the cause(s) of your stress. For example, you implied at the start of this that you had stress originating from other things, but then ranted about the encounter with your brother. The thing about your brother then sent you overboard and, while I'm not trying to marginalize how stressful that encounter itself was, it's now only marginally related to the stress you've been getting from, say, school. It's easy to say that stress from A causes stress from B, and maybe that's true, but that doesn't help solve the problem. It also makes every single piece to the puzzle seem even worse when you just look at everything as one awful torrent of stress that's eating up your entire life.

Instead, separate everything into categories, and try to solve things one at a time. School is stressful? Ok, take steps to solve your school situation. Your brother is stressing you out? I don't have a ton of advice on how to fix that, but, regardless, he has nothing to do with your schoolwork. Focus on fixing that by itself. House is stressful? I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm sure it can be solved the same way.

Even if everything is at least marginally connected, you'll be able to handle things a lot better if you chunk everything up into sections, and even then, perhaps even smaller sections -- which then become goals and objectives -- to fix the actual problems. Having problems in school? Ok, maybe focus on a particular class you're having problems with. Then, think about what you need to do to become more successful in that class. Break it up into objectives and then, without thinking about everything else -- because your brother is in no way relevant to, say, your math homework -- just get that one thing done. Congrats, you're now one step closer to completely eliminating your giant stress ball. Except, at this point, you shouldn't even feel like you have a stress ball anymore. Just a bunch of tiny stress lumps that used to be a ball, but, now that they're broken up, they're a thousand times easier to stomp into the ground or set on fire or however you want to metaphorically destroy them. Because there's no easy way to attack a giant stress ball. You'll only want to curl up on the floor and feel stressed. Stress lumps, though -- now you have something you can handle, one step at a time.

The most important part, though, is to just keep everything separate. Don't think too much about how everything connects together -- just think about the tiny pieces, and how you might be able to take care of some of those pieces, in order to bring down your overall stress levels. Hope this helps.

 

[chainedfiction]

@Kaga-kun

Sorry, it was merely a rant and I went off on a tangent. My brother doesn't stress me out in general, it was the mere fact that he didn't seem to care in that moment (because the need to apologize was very important to me while he thought the complete opposite because he doesn't know what's exactly going on through my mind) which made me come to more realizations about myself, which made me feel more stressed out. When I said that "house is stressful", I meant things that happen in the house which cause me to be stressful in general because of how hard my life is right now dealing with school.

They're not supposedly stressful, but how I'm raised, my past, the heat of my current problems dealing with school and my own mental health, makes everything else seem stressful and puts a terrible view on myself. I, indeed, do know that looking at everything from one standpoint makes it all the more worse, but it just, it feels like it won't go away. Thanks for your advice. I'll put forth it in my upcoming visit to my school's counselor.

 

[Kagayours]

Aye. Just couldn't help but notice that you were letting everything come together into one problem, it seemed -- just wanted to help with that. And the feeling of wanting to look at it that way won't "just go away" until you really try to separate things and deal with them one at a time, I find. Might sound a bit harsh, but, honestly, these things don't just fix themselves. I thought I might be able to help you fix them, though.

Good to hear that you're seeing a counselor about all this. They'll probably be a lot better at helping you with specific problems than I am, I'm sure.

 

[chainedfiction]

@Kaga-kun

I won't deny I haven't. Even my dad knows I have. He knows that the trauma I'm putting myself through won't make anything better. It just feels like everything's going to crumble down if I don't see who I want to see right now. I can't go back to my old school as of now it seems, so I have to continue on, but it feels like forever, and I'm impatient because I know what I'm going through, yet it seems like forever for my dad to set up an appointment with a talk therapist. My counselor's been helping me specifically with my academic success and mental health, therefore, why I'm inclined to share the little bit of information you've shared with me about breaking everything down instead of looking at it as a whole.

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

I have to agree with Kaga's advice about breaking it into small things.
It's much easier to eat the steak in bite sized pieces than to try to swallow the whole thing at once, if you do that you'll only choke.
(Such lovely imagery I'm bringing here ain't I? :P)

I also feel the need to add on though that it's also just as (if not even more important) to try to address, and solve sources of stress as they come up.
If you simply allow stress to pile up and not really try to solve it then they will continue to bottle up inside of you.
And by having that happen you now have a bigger amount of stress to have to break down later.

The Councillor you're seeing should also be able to do you a lot of good and help far more than me, Kaga or anyone else here can.
Though I still extend to the offer to help anyways if you want it.

 

[chainedfiction]

@Gwazi Magnum

I do that. Address my problems, I'm just learning to solve them. Yeah, half a cookie. Thank you for your kind words Lord Gwazi (and such lovely imagery, yes)~ :3

 

[Gwazi Magnum]

Well that's good to hear. :)

In regards to solving problems, other than breaking them into smaller pieces like already said the only real thing I can add (well, add at 4 in the morning before going to sleep anyways) is to look for the source of the stress rather than the immediate instigator. By that I mean if you're in a situation such as "This homework is difficult" don't just look at the immediate situation of "This work is hard", but dig deeper as to why is it hard? What makes it hard? What actions can be done to make that work and work in the future easier and less stressful to handle?

This can extend to anywhere mind you, like with social interactions. Looking for the root of the cause rather than the immediate cause.
But that's assuming of course there is a deeper cause, and it's not just say a bad day or a simple misunderstanding with words.

And for the next act of lovely imagery... Here is a cookie.
Full of chocolate chips... and face huggers. :3