None of us are strangers to family stressors. The hard part is indicating which coping pattern we intend to use when we reach a situation of crisis.
Different stressors
It's common knowledge to know that each of us has different kinds of stressors, but the real kicker is how each of us handles these stressors.
Think about a time when you were little and you went through one of your first stressful situations. Think about the situation itself. Looking back on it, was it really that stressful? Probably not, right? But at the time, that was something entirely new and you had no idea how to handle it at a single-digit age.
As you get older, you encounter bigger trials and your capacity to handle those stressors increases.
More to manage
My mom is dear friends with Sister Kristen Oaks, yeah, that Sister Oaks. She once said that our trials are usually hard only because it's the first time we experience them.
What a good way to put it! The more we repeat the same process, the easier it becomes. As we get older, the number of our responsibilities increase. There's more stress to manage. As a family with people of different ages, some cope with different stressors better than others.
Coping
Coping with stress and crisis is a skill each person develops. The coping patterns each person develops in their younger years is pretty hard to change as they get older. They become a little more set-in-stone through time.
Whatever coping patterns you portray as a parent can be easily passed on to children, but that's not always the case. Research proves that parents that don't engage in overdrinking alcohol, abusing drugs, or abusing their children tend to have higher levels of family relationship satisfaction.
For me, I struggle to redirect my anger the most. It's not that I hit anyone or anything, nor do I shout or express it unhealthily, but I do feel intense anger within me when I feel like I don't have the capacity to cope with my situation.
My problem is that I feel intense anger, but I internalize it, then it all comes out in either tears or days where I simply can't focus on anything and I'm not productive at all because I wallow.
My goal
Growing up, I had some good examples to learn from when it comes to coping with stress, but the key people in my life didn't handle stress terribly well. I was never abused physically, but sometimes the stress would be let out on me verbally. The anger and stress would build up because they wouldn't let it out healthily, then they let it loose on us out of anger and manipulation in various ways.
I hope to avoid that completely. I can't handle that stress of knowing I can potentially hurt my future children if I don't cope well with my stress.
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