Getting to the Root Cause of Why We Like Being Upset

[PepperBlossoms]

First, I am not sure if there even is a root cause.  If one keeps on "peeling the onion", is there even a final place to peel to that says - ah ha!  That is it!  You found the root cause!

But, we may see that we keep on choosing to feel/be hurt over and over again and think - no there has to be something, otherwise why am I doing it?

Here are some theories but I don't know your situation but am just guessing they pertain to mine:

-A parent could have been very loud, aggressive, and angry when we did things that he/she was not satisfied with and as a way to protect ourselves, an armor, a survival mechanism - we chose to be upset and may have put ourselves in a ball in a corner- the crying/sadness gave us something to focus on instead of his/her words, loudness, disapproval.  We could basically start to tune out everything they said by focusing on our own sadness.  It allowed us to retreat and escape from them.  They could have kept on going at it but we may have stopped listening and started focusing on sadness but also feeling unworthy.  Maybe you were unconsciously trying to make yourself so small to make yourself look hopeless so that the parent would lower their expectations of you and stop being so hard on you and the times you often get upset tend to correlate to the times the parent was very loud, aggressive, and critical of you.  You would get upset to try to get them to go away out of self love of protecting yourself from more hurt.

-Being upset allows us an excuse to not have to deal with the situation.  We could say - "oh I am so upset please go away" and not face it/acknowledge it.  It allows us to shrug stuff off and sometimes get away with not taking responsibility for things.

-We may have found that we can get our way when we are upset.  People may do things to appease us like give us compliments, give us tasty treats, do nice things for us, give us more privileges, etc. all because we were upset.  We may find we get rewarded for being upset.  Maybe we saw it work for others and then tried it and it worked some for us too.  (Heck a military can go invade/bomb another country and find it works to a degree and continue to do it....)

-We may get to claim that we are the victim and are in the morally just/correct/right category for being the upset one.  "if you upset me, you must be the bad one."

However, these methods only go so far and at some point, you may find that you want to be stronger, more adaptive, more functional, and better at working with others and find that cowering all the time is not attractive.  You may find that your dissociation every time there is a conflict only makes your peer more upset at you and that you are missing so much of what they are saying because you aren't listening and don't know how to respond.  You may find that you want to be better able at addressing things and that not trying to work things out makes it harder for everyone, not just you.  You may find that you liked the attention and love for being pitied but also that you prefer being strong rather than weak and that you can get attention and love for being strong and don't have to get it for being weak.  You may find that there is possibly a mixture of truth and delusion in every perspective and that stuff we find upsetting could be trying to help us, could be upset itself and is just letting it out at us, could be anything.

We may find that being upset all the time isn't going to help us survive in the long run and that if we want to do what we want to do, we have to chose to be strong, try to be honest with ourselves and others, try to work together, take responsibility, and enjoy the ride.

-Probably the biggest one: We did not have the skills/knowledge for how to deal with things, how to communicate, how to handle feedback and tough information, identifying delusions, how to handle emotions, self awareness, and also did not have enough broad experience and examples to get a better picture of realistic expectations. 

Edited February 21, 2022 by PepperBlossoms

[BlueOak]

Yes. The way we develop behaviors to cope or survive are many.

The methods I have observed over my life that I have used where:

Escape - Avoidance - Fantasy or Fiction - Being the helper to feel 'good'. Food. etc.
Anger - Fight
Manipulation - Control
Breakdown - Freezing in Place 
Over Analysing - Control
Anxiety - Worry - Outcome

Worse we weren't even aware we were separate from the abusers as our consciousness and memory were not developed to that stage yet, so its all internalized emotionally and not known until we see it or have it pointed out to us. We go through cycles of behavior or live in reaction over and over.

Its hard to explain to a mother or father why getting their kid away from an abuser is so important, as so many different behaviors can result and that kid will be living with them for the next 30-40 years, or perhaps all their life. With people who never understand why or even perhaps understand the behavior itself, and can't see it as a trauma or a wound they are interacting with.

Edited February 21, 2022 by BlueOak