Psychoanalysis

What To Do If You Are In A Rough Stretch

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More often than not we end up living in prisons of our own making. Our problems are, in large part, created by our own errors in perception, our own existential anxiety, our own tacit refusal to accept the difficult truths of our life situations.

If you’re currently in a rough stretch there are two likely psychological defense mechanisms you’re using to cope. The first defense mechanism is to pretend like nothing is wrong by repressing, ignoring, minimizing, denying, to yourself and to everybody else. Everything’s just fine, no problems here. The second defense mechanism is to project your problems and your responsibility for them onto other people and structures, to blame this or that entity for your rough stretch, to center all those unwanted thoughts and feelings around someone or something else instead of around yourself.

The central irony in all of this is that the fastest way to get out of a rough stretch is to accept your situation for what it is and to take personal responsibility for changing it. Repression and projection might make you feel a little better in the short-term but they end up hurting you in the long-term because they inspire complacency. Your situation remains the same. We’re not saying that outside factors over which you had little or no control didn’t play a role in creating your problems. They might have. What we are saying is that your problems as they stand are yours and yours alone. Only by becoming aware of their true nature and taking full responsibility for them can you determine how much power you have to change your situation for the better.