06 July, 2011

Musings - Broken Glass and Other People's Happiness

Broken Glass
 
A friend today mentioned on twitter how she'd broken a dinner plate and how it upset her. It got me thinking a little bit about the simple impact of a broken thing.
 
When I break something, whether it's an electronic device, thread on my clothes, or one of my dishes or glasses, I immediately get incredibly upset and cry. Once, while TGW was gone, I got upset and threw some sort of trinket against the wall and destroyed it. I was depressed for days over it, and I still cringe a little when I think about it. It can be something super cheap and can mean nothing, but the moment it breaks, I feel awful.
 
I have tried to figure out why this is the case. It's not like I have some sort of history of parents throwing things and them breaking to leave me with this feeling (which I have heard can be a cause), but it just makes me feel so very horrible. I know part of it is because of the intense value I place on material objects.
 
I am trying to learn that material things are just that - materials, not the actual instrinsic value that I have applied to them, but I still use physical things to remember things I would otherwise forget, and they help me hold on to myself when I need grounding. I don't think there's anything wrong with loving stuff, but it is hard to handle things breaking when they do.
 
Other People's Happiness
 
I've been working on this whole "being happy" thing. It's incredibly difficult, in case you didn't know. However, I've been getting a little better (I think), and I feel a little less depressed and a little less angry some of the time. Which is an improvement. But there's more work to do, and I've found that there's something seriously interfering with it.
 
Other people being unhappy.
 
I don't like when other people are unhappy. I don't like when other people are angry or depressed or bitter. I don't like when other people reject change and complain. The same people who tell me I need a better attitude are the people who bring ME down when I'm trying to feel better.
 
So, I try to figure out ways to make them happy. I say things about good things, or neutral things, and sometimes it's okay, but then when I least expect it, there's this massive wave of negativity - monsoon, more like - swooping around me and washing away my small bits of positive moods. When I work super hard on something and I really am trying to make it go well, and everyone just constantly whines about it or complains or rejects it, or even when they just ignore it because they don't care, it makes it so hard to keep trying.
 
When I am having a good day, my friends' days suck. When I get a task done at work, everyone else is overloaded. It's like the moment I start to feel good, everyone else feels bad, then I feel bad. Or, I feel embarassed because my good feelings make me excited or overenthusiastic and people give me that look like I'm being annoying or like I'm purposefully overinflating my good mood (which I rarely do).
 
It's just been really getting to me. I wish I could help.

3 comments:

  1. I don't like when things break. I have the fear of dropping plates or glasses when I carry them. I don't want them to break. I hate the fear that they will break. I can't even remember a time I ever dropped a plate or glass and it broke but I sure have this fear of it.

    I don't like when other people are unhappy. It makes me unhappy

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  2. This makes total sense. Your happiness is fragile and super super valuable, and other people's negativity threatens it. Breaks it. The relationship between these two topics is clear, to me at any rate. My muse is similarly fragile, though I'm trying to train myself not to drop muse at the drop of hat. Or a phone call. Or an email. Or whatever. Such training is slow going. Hang in there, lady.

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  3. @Colleen - I've dropped plenty of things. One or two were like priceless heirloom kind of things. It takes a lot to recover from it.

    @Viv - It has been super hard for me to work on this whole being-happy thing. Even with medication and my own personal therapeutic work, it just doesn't work if there's a bunch of interference. It's like, I start doing okay but them I'm not okay anymore the minute something goes wrong.
    As far as muses go, mine breaks the minute I lose my support system. I struggle very much with my ability to write regularly, and it disappears the minute I rethink things or I'm left alone or when no one is backing me up. It's kind of pathetic, really.

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