From birth to death, stress is a part of life. When kept within
tolerable levels, it is an indicator that life is interesting and we are
engaged in it. When not within tolerable levels, stress becomes a problem.
While the quantity of what constitutes intolerable stress is entirely
an individual matter, the quality of intolerable stress always feels like
either hyper-arousal/over-stimulation or hypo-arousal/under-stimulation.
Even the best of parents will occasionally over- or under-stimulate their
children. Under ideal circumstances, this would happen infrequently and,
when it does, the parents would help the child return to a state of enlivened
calmness. Unfortunately, when there is a pattern of intolerable stress
in a child’s life, and when parents don’t help the child return
to enlivened calmness, the child begins to struggle with regulating her
psychological states and with feeling comfortable about being alive and
in relationship to others. Sometimes, the parents aren’t able to
provide the child enough tools for regulating her internal states, or
are so disruptive of the child’s states, that life feels chaotic.
Whether chronic under- or over-stimulation, parents not teaching the child
how to handle stress, or the child’s world becoming chaotic because
the parent’s world is, this becomes the basis for psychological
problems later in life. It is compounded when the child has a genetic
predisposition to anxiety or depression, as the environmental stressors
are likely to activate the gene for anxiety or depression.
We respond self-protectively to too much stress. Ironically,
some of us deal with chronic stress by seldom allowing ourselves to
settle in and relax with ourselves or others. We do this by maintaining
high stress levels by—for instance, by taking on too much work
or committing to too many activities; by leading an overly full or dramatic
social life or seeking thrills or having affairs, or by using stimulants.
Maybe we keep getting into trouble (in relationships, at work, or legally);
maybe we keep our lives from running smoothly in a variety of small
ways. Alternatively, some of us manage stress by tuning everything down,
through limiting how much stimulation we will expose ourselves too,
or by limiting our emotional responsiveness, or by maintaining rigid
routines or rules, or by using downers. Some of us alternate between
these two general styles of stress management.
It there was chronic stress in our lives when we were little,
our means of protecting ourselves from the stress are those tools of
a little kid. For example, we may blame ourselves when things out of
our control go wrong, or we may create distractions or make bids for
attention that end up pushing others away or sabotaging ourselves. The
problem is not that we protected ourselves from stress, but that the
way we protected ourselves got in the way of our leading satisfying,
adult lives. Our defenses didn’t necessarily mature as we got
older. They protected us, but also get in the way or our developing
the means of healthy self-regulation and protection against too much
stress. They protected against having to feel the pain of unmet longings
and of fears we couldn’t handle—but they also get in the
way of our getting our needs met and of learning to face our fears.
Even when we know our defensive patterns and coping styles,
we may not be able to change them on our own. These patterns protect
us not only from stress, but from early, unmet longings and needs. The
vulnerability of opening to that calls for working in a relational matrix
of mind, body, spirit, and connection to another who can hear and respond
to these vulnerabilities in a caring way.