Fear, sadness, and anger are part of life and we all struggle with how to deal with them effectively. These negative emotions can be appealing to act on what you are feeling straight away, but quite often doesn’t resolve any situation. In fact, it causes more problems and pain to deal with down the track.
Some of the detrimental ways we deal with negative emotions are:
Denial
Person refuses to acknowledge and accept that something is wrong or may need help. Denial of challenged feelings, can build up inside, instead of expressing to a point that a person ends up “exploding” or behave in a harmful way because the person is unhappy or upset.
Social Withdrawal and Isolation
Withdrawal is when a person doesn’t want to be around people, or participate in activities they usually participate. This can be a warning sign of depression. Some people may withdraw themselves because being around others could take energy, or be overwhelming. Some people may withdraw themselves because they may believe, or think that other people don’t like them or want to be around them. Social withdrawal brings extreme isolation, misinterpretation, irritation, and one-sided thinking. Let’s be mindful that interacting with other people keeps us balanced.
Bullying and Intimidation
Bullying and intimidation is when a person uses force, or taunting to show power over people around them. People typically take part in bullying and intimidation because they don’t feel good about themselves. When someone around them feels bad, this makes the bully feel better about themselves or feel less empty inside. This is harmful to the bully, as it does not address underlying issues. And the person being bullied, tends develop mental health illness.
Non suicidal self-inflicted injury
Non suicidal self-inflicted injury can be in the form of cutting, hitting, starving one’s self, overdoing and exclusion, or participating in dangerous behaviour. When people self-harm, it gives them control over emotional pain. While self-harming may bring temporary relief, these behaviours can lead people to be more out of control and in greater pain than ever.
Substance Abuse
Alcohol and drugs use, can make a person numb about painful situations, or help them to forget about underlining issues. This can make difficult feelings even worse and, in some cases, leads to suicidal thoughts or behaviour, dependency on alcohol and drug addiction and/or depression and anxiety.
Managing Emotions
Have you ever heard of PATH? We all can do a better job of dealing with our negative emotions in better, constructive approach.
Here it comes:
