Dealing with Stress

Everyone deals with stress in different ways. This is a rather obvious fact, right? Right. I thought that today I would share my way of dealing with stress. This doesn't stem from being particularly stressed today or anything like that. In fact was watching Day[9] do his daily about fifteen minutes ago and he was talking about how he dealt with stress. I figured it would make for a good topic for tonight's post.

So when I get stressed, it usually causes a type of meltdown in my brain. I don't mean like tearing my room apart or breaking things (though God knows I've wanted to). I simply mean I withdraw into my brain and become very quiet and depressed. It's a weird shell I used to get my mind trapped in, and still do on occasion. Despite that, I've learned that stress is pointless. At least mine is. Nine out of ten times I'm freaking out over nothing. I was a social hypochondriac. I'd say something to someone, think about that thing afterwards, and then wonder if it was taken the right way or not. This used to happen to me all the time. I swear there's probably a hole burned in my stomach somewhere that I haven't found out about yet from all the times I've worried over the most pointless of conversations.

Nowadays, I've learned a few ways to deal with that type of stress. One way I've learned is to just stop caring in general. I realized that if something I said was misconstrued and the person I said it to was offended, I'd learn about it eventually and deal with it then. Until that moment in time, I wouldn't care at all if I happened to accidentally offend that person. I could even interact with this person again and not even think about what I may/may not have said to that person.  This may sound crass and make me out to be a jerk, but the truth is I was overreacting almost every time. As for the times I wasn't, it was dealt with rather easily and the person realized it was a misunderstanding and we moved on.

This is just one example obviously. There are many things in life that deserved to be stressed over, such as "legitimate" drama with friends (I use quotes because most drama with friends is never legitimate). Again, I stop caring. Such little things usually happen with people I'm not too close to, so I don't fret over it too much. If it was someone close to me, that I actually wanted as my friend, I would definitely do my best to fix it. Trust me.

This approach of "not caring" works for many emotions, not only "worry". I've adapted this strategy to fit most negative emotions. Fear, worry, sadness, boredom, and for the most part: anger (although sometimes I find myself seething and need to nip that in the ass as quickly as possible). I have for the most part - taught myself to close my mind off from feeling this way. It doesn't work all the time unfortunately as I do wind up feeling these things sometimes. These types of emotions are a natural part of life though so I suppose I'll never be able to fully cut them off. Either way this form of coping has worked out rather well for me overall.

Such a feeling of not caring has also helped me along with other parts of my life. Instead of fearing the people's reaction to something I want to do, or worrying about whether I'll do it correctly etc etc, I just go for it. I put my foot forward and go full steam ahead. It doesn't always work out in the end, but what in life does? At least I won't be wondering "well what if I had?".

The reason I taught myself to cope like this was because I was becoming emotionally exhausted. I was tired of being stress over things. I would wake up certain days and just not want to do anything, ever. You ever get that feeling in your brain like something like broken inside? Not like you're going crazy or anything like that. It's just a little warning bell telling you that you need a break. Fast.

And here ends my story. What about you guys? How do you cope with stress? Whether it be something you should be stressed over or something completely insignificant in the great scheme of things. Do you shut yourself off like I do? Share your stories, I'm curious. I hope you've enjoy my rather long tale.

P.S. I wanted most of these posts to be gaming-related, but there was nothing worth talking about today. Maybe tomorrow?