Anybody else tend to disregard their feelings?

[ocean-man]

I'm eighteen and I graduate high school in a couple of months.

I find myself stressing about things often, in a variety of forms. Sometimes I'll be depressed, slumping around the house as I overthink about the society around me, and then when I do nothing with my time because of my depression my depression just gets worse. Other times I'll be fuming, stomping around the joint and tossing stuff round in a pretty destructive manner over the littlest things. (That was the case at work last night - I kept punching things around me because my coworkers outright refuse to stack up their dishes, which helps me do my job properly.)

How I handle the situations I find myself in is a discussion for another time. But whenever these events occur, sometimes thoughts will crop up in my head dismissing them and they always make me ponder if they're correct to do so. I'm being too pessimistic. I have my standards raised too high and I need to take myself down a peg. I'm too picky and need to deal with the cards I've been given.

I understand that whether my concerns are valid or not will always depend on the context but I cannot for the life of me make the judgement myself. It's part of the reason why I hardly speak up about things that worry me - I don't want to put undue stress on people over things that might not even matter that much. Even worse, when I don't speak up, I beat myself up for not getting my own needs assessed and accounted for. I'm worried that the fact I can't make these judgements is inhibiting my journey to improving my mental health.

Does anybody else struggle with this? Always doubting and second guessing themselves for one reason or another? It'd be nice enough to know there's others out there that have this same issue, but if you have any strategies for dealing with this please feel free to share.

Thank you

[sbella02]

Ocean Man,

Thank you for posting here, and I'd like to warmly welcome you to the forums.

This. All of this. You've described an experience that is so familiar to me. I also find that my angrier reactions tend to correlate with my mental state - if I've been really upset or stressed, I have a shorter fuse and I get irritated far more easily. I'm also a chronic overthinker, and I dwell on these kinds of reactions and apologise too much for outbursts I may have. I don't know if that's true for you as well, but the overthinking definitely resonates with me.

Honestly, I don't always do it, but sometimes when I'm about to have a bit of an outburst, I'll take a second, close my eyes and just breathe for a bit. It helps to bring yourself back to reality like this, and it can really help to diffuse emotions like anger relatively quickly.

Journalling also helps me as well, because it can be useful for making sense of more difficult emotions, and it can help you to better understand how you react to and in certain situations. Recognising what makes you angry or upset, or when you tend to overthink most can be an important step in learning how you can better approach times when you feel like this.

In general, your feelings are valid. It doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't consequences for certain negative reactions, but your feelings are valid. You feel how you feel, and you can't help how you feel. You can only control what you do to express or manage these feelings.

I hope this is helpful advice, this is also something that I struggle with so I look forward to reading others' advice too.

SB