Coping with stress does not have to be that difficult. Unfortunately, many folks make it hard by violating some basic principles. Consider Maribeth. She had a tough childhood filled with emotional deprivation. Both mom and dad were alcoholics; dad also liked to beat-up mom when he got mad, which was often, and he generally terrorized Maribeth who learned to hide from him by retreating to a neighbor’s house by the time she was 3. An aunt eventually “rescued” Maribeth when she was 9, and took her to live in another town. By this time, Maribeth was full of hatred toward her parents, and distrustful of all adults – including her aunt even though she did her best to provide a stable, emotionally-supportive environment for Maribeth.
By her late teens, Maribeth had learned to wear her poor upbringing as a badge of sympathy: “Treat me gently because I have been rejected and beaten by my parents, who never gave me the love I needed when growing up. I deserve better, and am now totally screwed up, filled with anxiety and out-of-control emotions. I want to have a good life, but I can’t; my rotten parents destroyed me and made it impossible for me to live a normal life.”
Maribeth believed she was owed something, and she decided that she deserved to be indulged and enabled by everyone because of the way her parents raised her. Many young people carry around this attitude, and say things like: “My parents were killed in a car accident when I was 12. No one understands my grief. Life stinks and people are mean. It’s not fair.” “I’ll admit I have a lot of issues, and I owe it all to my parents.” “How can I be expected to be normal when I was raised by the worst people on the planet?” “My so-called friends just don’t seem to understand how I’ve suffered. I don’t get it. I’ve already had more than I can take.”
The problem with people who choose to use their torment to get sympathy from others is that the badge they wear makes it impossible to take three steps that are essential to successfully coping with a rough past, and with current psychological pain. The first coping step is Accountability. If you’re busy blaming others for your problems, you cannot take responsibility for your decisions. The second step is Humility. Here again, the reason you’re blaming others for your problems is because you have this sense of entitlement; it’s not fair that you’re suffering; you don’t deserve it because you’re special.
Maribeth began to gain some insight into her problems in her early 20s when she ran into trouble with the law. She lived with a man and their relationship was very turbulent; there were numerous calls for domestic abuse and disturbing the peace. On one of those calls Maribeth pushed a cop aside and that move sent her to jail and court. After a night in jail, at her hearing the judge levied a hefty fine against her. He also ordered her to professional counseling with a psychologist. “I’ll give you six months to get your life in order, or you’re going to face some serious consequences,” the judge warned her.
After about 10 productive counseling sessions, the psychologist invited Maribeth to join her group therapy sessions with abused women. Their issues concerned recovering from abusive relationships with a spouse or boyfriend, not so much childhood abuse from parents, but the therapist felt Maribeth could profit from seeing a few realities that went beyond her self-absorbed approach to her anger. The therapist was correct. Maribeth was amazed to hear women talk about their near-death experiences from beatings – and in one case, being shot – inflicted by sadistic men. She began to realize that her anger toward her parents focused her on feelings of entitlement and indulgence that she felt she deserved because life cheated her. After only a few group sessions, Maribeth took the first uncertain toward step three of the coping process. One day she said to a group member who had an emotional breakdown while describing one of her horrific experiences, “What can I do to help?” Maribeth had discovered Empathy. Hearing others’ horror stories made her realize that she had no right to expect the corners of the world to be padded for her. Others were worse off.
Maribeth stayed in counseling and she continued to attend the group sessions with abused women. She discarded her Badge of Sympathy, and slowly became more and more involved in volunteering with social service agencies devoted to helping abused women. She still harbored anger toward her parents, but she no longer allowed that anger to be used to blame them for her travails; she used it instead to guide her to personal humility, and empathetic service to others. That’s what coping is all about; not avoiding or denying a troubled past, or the negative emotions that go with it, but using those memories and emotions to motivate you to choose not to make yourself the center, but to make others in need the focus of your road to self-understanding.
Psychology and Stress 