Why do things affect me so much? It is one of the frequent statements that I hear from my patients, referring to a subjective and consistent sensation in which small events provoke more intense responses in them (or that affect them more than they would like or consider logical).
Like almost everything when we talk about psychology—and about something as rich and varied as people—there is no single possible explanation applicable to everyone and that explains the matter in itself. And each person is a world, they have their own life story and their way of understanding it based on their system of values and beliefs (come on, everyone belongs to their father and mother…).
Even so, I am going to try to explain the most frequent causes of this sensation and the reflections that I usually make with my patients. That is to say; What they do and so do I (because in my work I learn a lot from the patient, that person who in theory is the one who is wrong) about the subject.
On the one hand, a plausible explanation is that you can’t take it anymore, you are at the limit of your strength, overloaded with carrying things or enduring a very costly and hurtful situation for you (such as staying in a job that you can’t stand, living at based on overexertion, feeling very guilty or bad about yourself, feeling helpless or exposed, that you do not have control of your life and you are not free…). So, just as a glass that is level does not need a large stream of water to overflow, but a simple drop is enough, you do not need anything of great intensity to happen for you to exceed your limit. natural and you break down or lose control.
The question here therefore is not how to avoid overflowing, but rather how to be able to empty that glass that is so full, and why you have become accustomed or normalized to always being on the limit or living with something that is always adding water to your glass.
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The other most common option is that what happens, even if it is small, touches on an open emotional wound, that is: some issue that hurts you because you have not yet resolved it. That is why it is enough that what happens, no matter how small, has to do with that issue (or your mind can make an association with it) and that is why it hurts so much and your reaction is in accordance with that pain. Following the metaphor of the wound, a small blow to a healthy leg is not painful, but… what if you were lightly hit on a raw leg with a very deep cut? It would hurt terribly, and even a caress could trigger that pain reaction as well.
For example, when I was between 12 and 15 years old they picked on me a lot because of my physical appearance (I had a growth problem in my jaw and I was not a very attractive kid, rather ugly) which was something that made me (still makes me) a lot of damage. When I went out to party at university and some girl tried to pick me up, any comment about my appearance or being harassed affected me enormously, keeping me down for a day or two. I didn’t understand it. Why does it affect me so much if I neither know that girl nor care about her beyond wanting to meet her for drinks? Why does my well-being depend so much on flirting or not? Until my psychotherapist made me see that every time I was “rejected” it touched that painful wound, that feeling of being attacked and rejected for being ugly. That is why when the girl in question rejected me, my mind connected with those painful sensations from my pre-adolescence.
Whether for one reason or another, the fact is that something “silly” or “unimportant” happens and you react, not only to what just happened to you, but to everything that has accumulated, and suddenly it collapses on you. Normally, by “collapsing” I am talking about an emotional reaction that we usually understand to be disproportionate: we get extremely angry and we cannot control it: we start crying without being able to avoid it, being down for a few days or not wanting to do anything and we are overcome by anxiety and we feel that we lose control…
When you see yourself like this or after this reaction you tend to think “why did I get like this over something so insignificant?” And either you panic because you feel like you’re losing it or you beat yourself up and treat yourself terribly for being that soft or hysterical and for not having more self-control. And the reality is that you’re just watching a small scene, instead of the whole fucking movie.
If you only watch that scene, where you lose your temper with your partner, well yes, you are a little hysterical. But if you watch the entire movie, and do the difficult thing, which is instead of judging yourself, accepting that this is happening to you and trying to understand yourself, you will realize that the character in that movie is having a hard time, and that his reaction was disproportionate. , but how could it not be with what has happened? If this happens to you relatively frequently, you can look up bullshit in self-help books and the internet about “how to make things not affect you” or “5 types of emotional control” or you can fuck up, treat yourself with love and respect, and go to psychotherapy.