I’d say 80% of this is traceable to having a comfortable amount of money his entire life and decent, non-abusive parents. A lot of anxiety and mental illness most people experience is traceable to trauma due to scarcity or trauma due to family. Ditto sleep disorders and reactability.
It doesn’t explain everything, of course. No allergies is just a lucky die roll (and may not be true forever; allergies sometimes develop over time, or appear because you finally tried something new). And plenty of mental illnesses can still develop no matter who you are.
I’m convinced that the vast majority of us are just canon-balling between traumatic event to traumatic event, with no real time to stop and process. So we inevitably freak out over something small, without realizing that the level of emotion we feel is a reflection of unresolved trauma, and not indicative of whatever the triggering event is. Sometimes, I see news stories about someone flipping out on a plane or in public, and I wonder what they’re actually upset over, what happened to their past selves that so heavily contributed to their over-reaction today? I think you can only truly understand someone when you know their tragedies.
I’m convinced that the vast majority of us are just canon-balling between traumatic event to traumatic event, with no real time to stop and process.
Much of that is just life though. I’ve always wondered if this misunderstanding is one of the fundamental sources of many people’s anxiety.
So we inevitably freak out over something small, without realizing that the level of emotion we feel is a reflection of unresolved trauma, and not indicative of whatever the triggering event is.
For some reason most people assume the “good times” are the default and the “traumatic event” is the outlier. I don’t believe that is the case.
The “traumatic event” is the default, the “good times” are the outlier.
So when a traumatic event happens the question isn’t “Why did this happen to me?” but rather the statement “That was a really great run of temporary ‘good times’, now lets deal with this event”.
Thats when having money comes in. Many years ago a family member gave me a saged piece of advice when I was young “If you have a problem that can be solved by money, and you have money, you don’t have a problem”. A flat tire, for many, can be a traumatic event listed above. It can mean finding money you don’t have for a new tire, loss of income from missing work, impacts to your family from not being able to pick up your kid from school/daycare, or loss of advancement at work from being considered “unreliably” and being passed over for promotion. Those can all trigger the consequences of “traumatic event”. However, if you have a couple hundred bucks unallocated to your name you can immediately lay your hands on and spend, a flat tire isn’t a problem, its a mild annoyance.
So having money doesn’t remove the “canon-balling between traumatic event to traumatic event”, but it removes many events that would otherwise be traumatic leaving you with less trauma overall, and keeping your capacity to deal with the trauma mostly in check with the understanding that life will always give you more as time passes. This also makes you very much appreciate the outlier “good times” when you’re experiencing them, because you know they will end.
When you said trauma wasn’t a big deal and we should get used to it, drag thought you were being unreasonably flippant. But then drag read that you think of a flat tire as a good example of a traumatic event, and it suddenly made sense to drag. You think trauma isn’t a big deal because you’ve had an easy life with mild traumas.
I think trauma and hardship in general isn’t additive, rather multiplicative or exponential.
Like, once there’s a “core” trauma, small every day issues seems bigger and harder to deal with, and that kinda builds on itself so any new hardship seems bigger and bigger and so on.
Normal happy healthy person here. Money helps ALOT, parents were abusive but I worked past it and they got help. Can confirm allergies CAN just pop up as you get old. Thanks for nothing coffee allergy!
I have two teenaged boys brought up together , close in age, and most of their lives had an intact family and comfortable life …
- one has anxiety, the other doesn’t
- one has sleep issues, the other doesn’t
- one has overeating issues, the other doesn’t
- one is sedentary, the other an athlete.
- one has allergies, the other doesn’t
I don’t know what to make of my younger kid: he does his homework on time and gets good grades. He goes to bed on time and gets a healthy amount of sleep. He eats a healthy amount with good nutritional choices. He’s an athlete on a varsity team and likes working out. He’s open to new experiences, new cuisines, new knowledge, and has friends different races, preferences, and peer groups. He’s popular with both fellow students and with teachers. He’s not anxious nor bullying nor mean. I don’t understand him at all.
There are just so many factors that go into a person’s experience of life. Even something as simple as being on the older side or the younger side when you first start school can have a giant impact.
When our youngest was just at the age where she was allowed to get up and turn on the TV by herself and watch something while we were sleeping, 9-11 happened. I left the house early for work that morning. When my wife got up, our daughter was terrified. They had repeatedly interrupted Nickelodeon to show the planes hitting the buildings, and she was too young to understand that it was the same planes being shown over and over - she thought planes were falling out of the sky all over and crashing into buildings. She was waiting for one to hit our house. It took a long time before we realized that’s what she was thinking. At 27, it’s still left lasting issues. If she had been younger, she wouldn’t have seen it, and if she had been older she would have likely understood better.
I agree the things you mentioned play a role in mental health. Just to stress what you said by the end, because people sometimes don’t know and are confused: there’s an awful lot of hereditary mental illnesses. There can be nothing wrong in your life and just the lotery of genes makes you miserable.
Plenty of “normal” people (maybe all of them) still struggle with their own issues. I’m well-regarded as an expert in my field, I’d be considered successful by most standards, and I don’t outwardly show any red flags around my colleagues. They probably assume I don’t take any medication, because I don’t exactly wear a list of my prescriptions printed on my shirt. They probably don’t assume I work out, because they’re not blind, but whatever. Little do they know that the only thing keeping me sane are a few tiny pills and probably way too much beer.
My point is, it’s normal to be flawed. Everyone is flawed, and it’s part of being a human. By comparing yourself to others, you’re comparing yourself to the image that others portray, not to other people as they truly are. Compare yourself to version of yourself that’s happy, and strive to become that person.
Not all of them. Sure we all have “issues” but nowhere near the same magnitude.
source: I’m one of those that had to be thought how crippling certain situations are. I don’t work out and oversleep though!
Yup. It’s always good to keep in mind that some issues are hidden and that your perception of someone is different to who they truly are, as OP said. But there’s no Universal Law of Conservation of Personal Problems that dictates that everyone must have the same level of significant problems in their life. Some people have less, and some have more. It usually averages out but there will be people on either end of the spectrum having a very bad or good time.
Lucky bastard
He’s totally a serial killer.
This sounds like me before trump, the pandemic, losing my brother, aunt and father-in-law to COVID (due to them not taking it seriously because of politics) and finally getting laid off from my job of 16 years.
Now I eat a handful a pills every day just so I can make it through the day without losing my shit on the next person who slightly annoys me.