Lately, I feel like such a brat for not wanting to keep my frustrations quietly to myself, push past them, and "focus on the positive!" Almost anyone will tell you that if you're hurt, upset, or frustrated, you should think about it rationally while at the same time trying to jump over it like the cow over the moon. :dry: When I was younger, about ten years ago in elementary school, I really was a brat who would be frustrated almost all day every day in a bad mood for no reason that I could think of. Everything pissed me off. Now, however, my personality has done a complete 180 and almost nothing ruffles my feathers. I'm a people pleaser, and most of the time I smile, I encourage my friends, and I let them tell me all of their frustrations. The problem is now, if I don't act like this all the time, I get scolded by my family. :icon_sad: It's been getting to me lately, so I snapped at my sister/roommate earlier today, not entirely by accident (which she didn't take kindly to). There's been earsplitting maintenance on our floor as well as outside our window for the past week, and it's driving me crazy!! I want it to be quiet again, and I want them to put everything back the way it was. She was doing homework and turned the volume up on her laptop so she could hear over the hammering and drills, and so I grabbed my headphones and was all: "They're making noise out there, and you're turning your volume up, so I guess I'll grab my headphones!" She promptly snapped back at me that if I wanted her to use headphones, all I had to do was ask her and I didn't need to be rude. :eusa_naug I'm not justifying my actions--I could have been a lot politer than I was. I've just been so sick of holding myself back that I snapped for a minute. I don't want to be rude, and I try not to be. I just wish sometimes that I could just BE frustrated without having to keep it to myself or someone will think badly of me. My family in particular doesn't take well to bad moods--if it's suspected that I'm in a bad mood I'm given the evil eye, my mother takes personal offense, and I'm basically told to knock it off. No one even asks me what's wrong, tries to understand me, or fix it. :tears: So here's my question to the EC'ers: No one likes a grump, but is it the right thing to do to never complain and keep your cool all the time no matter what? It doesn't sound healthy to me, yet that's what's expected of me. Please, help! :help:
Nothing is expected. If you blow up on people who are being annoying or obnoxious or frustrated then they might catch on to your discontentment with their behavior. You need to be assertive of course. Don't become a pushover who people will walk on. I know it's hard when you are a good person. Don't let people mistake kindness for weakness though.
I have a similar problem and I've learned that trying to hold everything in just doesn't work. And it's not really fair to yourself or to other people. If someone is doing something that frustrates you, it's much better to (politely) explain that frustration, then to try to hide it; The more that frustration grates at you, the more likely it is that eventually you'll blow up at that person. Trying to let it out before it gets to bad is the best approach. Sometimes people just had Bad Days, and that's a fact that parents often don't understand. My mom will still nag at me when I'm obviously in a bad mood, "You were fine this morning / yesterday, what happened" "You've had a great week, don't mess it up now" etc etc. Your parents may not like it, but sometimes the best you can do in those situations is just be factual: "I'm having a bad day, I can't just magic away my feelings, so maybe we should just go our own way today" or something.
The thing is, people just don't like it when someone else is annoyed, because they perceive it as a personal offense directed at them or extra work on their part. Its not necessarily a conscious thing, people usually just don't like someone getting frustrated, at them or not. I wouldn't sweat it if its just every now and then that you get frustrated, they understand everyone's got those times when stress is just too much to shrug off.
No, it's not bad to get frustrated. It's impossible to be cheerful and good-tempered all of the time. If you strive for that, you just end up building up pressure until you blow up.
