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Avoiding by creating problems?

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I have a different take on this issue. I believe that if it’s trauma that’s caused from dysfunctional home life, then we have become comfortable with dysfunction and when there isn’t any, were LOST. We don’t know how to function without dysfunction. So, we create it in order to function.

It’s hard to recognize when we do this, and even harder to stop the behavior. I did this for yrs... Until a very good therapist pointed it out to me, and we worked on me stopping the behavior..... I still slip sometimes, but life is so much better without all of the dysfunction....
 
I don't think I ever purposefully set out to create problems in hopes of an external viewer not noticing my other problems, but I feel I can relate some to what you're saying.

I tend to think more along the lines of @She Cat in regards to having had dysfunction be the "norm" for so long in my world, I wasn't sure how to operate outside of it.

Which is so incredibly ironic to me now as I can finally step outside of my conditioning and actually see the depths of the overall dysfunction known as 'the world'. lol

I also insisted on being the problem solver for others, no matter the extent I had to go to in order to help, so I stayed way too busy to mind and tend to my own sorrows. Avoidance that looks healthy to others, I suppose.

Until, of course, I finally drained myself of most of my own life energy and was forced to have to stop and re-evaluate things via a medical emergency.
 
@leehalf Maybe a “gentle seed planted” that this might be the behavior that he exhibits, might be enough for him to at least think about it. Men are different and they don’t want to be TOLD anything. But maybe if you could somehow mention this is a possiblity he might just think about it.....
 
then we have become comfortable with dysfunction and when there isn’t any, were LOST. We don’t know how to function without dysfunction. So, we create it in order to function.

Wow! I hadn't even considered this... it is true though I think I am so used to being the one with problems that I don't know how to be without problems...I used to be set on a path of self destruction for so long how do I not self destruct? Also, with my last relationship was probably the FIRST time I tried not to load my issues onto him because...I am so used to being the one with these problems and the guy "saving me" and protecting me and solving my problems. Honestly...theyre not my T but that is what my boyfriends in the past have sometimes been in a sense.. I also do have a lot of dysfunction at home as I am still living with my parents....I feel like sometimes I am trying to create dysfunction in my own life

I also insisted on being the problem solver for others, no matter the extent I had to go to in order to help, so I stayed way too busy to mind and tend to my own sorrows. Avoidance that looks healthy to others, I suppose.
I can really relate to this! Actually in t sometimes I will spend most of the session working on solving other people in my family's problems because, then we don't have to focus on my issues. A while ago in T I was having problems with drinking too much and I was going on about that but, my T said something along the lines of lets talk about the issues underneath this instead of just focusing on your poor coping mechanisms. I remembered this the other day and it got me thinking maybe I would rather have these poor coping mechanisms like self harm for instance because its easier to cry and whine about those and "work" on those because, they are just coping mechanisms as opposed to working on the hidden pain beneath..
 
I do this.
The Ts I've seen over the years call it self-sabatoging.

I do it to prevent myself from dealing with the stuff that I don't want to. If I'm dealing with an overdrafted bank account, no electricity and/or no food in the house, I don't have to deal with the depression/anxiety, trauma, and especially not the cognitive distortions.
 
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