Psychology
fromPsychology Today
27 minutes agoWhy Avoiding Your Emotions Makes Them Stronger
Avoiding thoughts and emotions often intensifies them, while small shifts in response can help manage emotions effectively.
#unresolved-grief
#unresolved-grief
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#mental-health #grief #psychology #identity #trauma #personal-growth #resilience #loss #emotional-intelligence
Parenting
fromSilicon Canals
5 hours agoThe people who were praised for being mature as children and punished for being needy as adults, and the decades it takes to untangle which one was actually true - Silicon Canals
Maturity in children often reflects adult expectations, leading to long-term consequences for the child's emotional development.
#retirement
Retirement
fromSilicon Canals
4 hours agoPsychology says there's a specific version of loneliness that only shows up in retirement - not the absence of colleagues or the silence of mornings, but the slow understanding that the version of you the world was interested in was the one producing, performing, solving, and the version sitting at home in a quiet kitchen is someone the world has gently agreed to stop asking about - Silicon Canals
Retirement loneliness stems from losing one's identity and purpose, not just from missing social connections.
Retirement
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoI'm 66 and the loneliest I have ever felt in my life wasn't when I lost my parents or when my kids moved away - it was the first winter of retirement when I realized my entire social world had been held together by a building I no longer had a reason to enter - Silicon Canals
Retirement can lead to unexpected loneliness as social connections tied to work diminish.
Retirement
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoPsychology suggests retirees who become genuinely exhausting to be around are almost never aware they're doing it - because the crankiness is grief wearing a disguise and the neediness is loneliness knocking on the only doors still open, and neither one feels like a choice from the inside - Silicon Canals
Retirement can lead to unexpected grief and identity loss, resulting in irritability and strained relationships.
#friendship
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 hours agoI'm 37 and I just realized that the reason I have no close friends isn't because I'm hard to love - it's because I learned young that needing people was dangerous - Silicon Canals
Recognizing patterns in friendships reveals a fear of vulnerability and a tendency to withdraw as relationships deepen.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
4 hours agoI'm 37 and I just realized that the reason I have no close friends isn't because I'm hard to love - it's because I learned young that needing people was dangerous - Silicon Canals
Recognizing patterns in friendships reveals a fear of vulnerability and a tendency to withdraw as relationships deepen.
Humor
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPeople who laugh before they finish telling a painful story aren't handling it well. They're releasing the listener from having to respond to it seriously, which is a skill they learned from people who couldn't. - Silicon Canals
Laughter during painful stories often serves as a social cue to ease discomfort rather than indicating healing.
fromIndependent
4 days agoModern Morals: My husband has just been let go from his fourth job in five years - I'm running out of patience. What can I do?
My husband has just been let go from his fourth job in five years. The first time it happened was during Covid when he was laid off, but it seemed to start a pattern.
Careers
#trauma
Mental health
fromPsychology Today
13 hours agoHow to Talk About Childhood Issues Without Blaming the Parents
Unresolved parental trauma can manifest in children's psychiatric symptoms, perpetuating trauma across generations unless actively addressed.
fromPsychology Today
1 week agoGrief, Storytelling, and Identity
The concept album is a response to the brutal murder of Breedlove's father and stepmother at the hands of his stepbrother. The frame—the first song and the last—of the album is about the murders and their aftermath. But this is not a true crime record.
Music production
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
5 hours agoPsychology suggests there's a certain type of anger that lives inside the most agreeable people - it's the anger of swallowing every small injustice, every dismissive comment, every overlooked contribution for decades, and the reason the calmest person in your family might one day explode over something trivial isn't the trivial thing, it's the fifty years of larger things they never allowed themselves to react to - Silicon Canals
Agreeableness can lead to emotional accumulation, resulting in explosive reactions over seemingly trivial matters due to suppressed feelings.
fromPsychology Today
22 hours agoWhen Anger Waits: The Turtle Technique Beyond Childhood
The turtle technique is often introduced to children to help them manage strong emotions, guiding them to pause, breathe, and step back before reacting. It sounds simple, yet it carries depth when practiced with intention.
Mindfulness
#grief
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says adult children don't grieve their aging parents all at once - they grieve them in a thousand tiny deaths, like the first time your mother forgets she told you the same story twice, or the afternoon you notice your father's hands shaking when he signs his name - Silicon Canals
Anticipatory grief involves mourning the gradual changes in living parents, representing incremental losses rather than just preparing for death.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 week agoPsychology suggests people who become difficult to be around with age are almost always carrying an unprocessed grief - for the life they expected and didn't get, for the recognition they believed they had earned and never received, for the version of themselves they were supposed to become - and the difficulty is what that grief sounds like when it has been stored as resentment for long enough to become the way they experience everything - Silicon Canals
Unprocessed grief can manifest as bitterness and negativity, stemming from unfulfilled dreams and unmet expectations in life.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says adult children don't grieve their aging parents all at once - they grieve them in a thousand tiny deaths, like the first time your mother forgets she told you the same story twice, or the afternoon you notice your father's hands shaking when he signs his name - Silicon Canals
Anticipatory grief involves mourning the gradual changes in living parents, representing incremental losses rather than just preparing for death.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 week agoPsychology suggests people who become difficult to be around with age are almost always carrying an unprocessed grief - for the life they expected and didn't get, for the recognition they believed they had earned and never received, for the version of themselves they were supposed to become - and the difficulty is what that grief sounds like when it has been stored as resentment for long enough to become the way they experience everything - Silicon Canals
Unprocessed grief can manifest as bitterness and negativity, stemming from unfulfilled dreams and unmet expectations in life.
#acceptance
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says people who find genuine peace after 60 didn't get there by solving their problems - they got there by finally accepting which ones were never going to be solved and releasing the grip they'd been keeping on a version of life that was never coming, and that surrender isn't giving up, it's the first honest breath most people take in decades - Silicon Canals
Letting go of alternate lives and accepting the past brings peace as one ages.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoThere's a specific kind of adult who apologizes for crying even when they're alone, and it isn't sensitivity, it's the residue of a childhood where emotion was something you were expected to clean up before anyone saw the mess - Silicon Canals
Adults who were invalidated in childhood often apologize for their emotions, reflecting deep-seated patterns of emotional suppression.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology explains people who forgive easily aren't weak or naive - they've simply done the math on what resentment actually costs the person carrying it and decided the debt isn't worth collecting, because forgiveness isn't about the other person deserving peace, it's about refusing to let someone who already hurt you once continue to take up space in a body they no longer have any right to occupy - Silicon Canals
Forgiveness is essential for personal well-being and mental health, freeing individuals from the burden of resentment.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says the reason so many people crash emotionally in their early 60s isn't retirement or aging - it's the first time in decades they've had enough silence to hear their own thoughts and they don't recognize the person thinking them - Silicon Canals
Highly functional individuals often face delayed emotional collapse in their sixties due to decades of avoidance and relentless life pressures.
Relationships
fromSilicon Canals
3 days agoI realized this year that every relationship I've stayed too long in was one where I had to be quieter to make it work - Silicon Canals
Compromising in relationships can lead to diminishing one's authentic self, resulting in a quieter, less expressive version of oneself.
#social-anxiety
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoPsychology says people who keep adjusting their personality to suit the room aren't socially skilled - they're exhausted, and they've been exhausted since childhood - Silicon Canals
Constantly adapting one's personality can lead to exhaustion and loss of personal identity, rather than being a sign of social skill.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says the most isolating part of getting older isn't having fewer people around you - it's having fewer people who knew you when you were whole and fast and full of plans, because the version of you that exists in other people's memory is shrinking at the same rate as the guest list, and one day you'll be the only person alive who remembers what you were capable of - Silicon Canals
The hardest part of aging is losing connections to those who remember different versions of ourselves.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 day agoThere's a particular stillness that arrives in your 40s when you realize that the people who were supposed to approve of your choices never actually had a vote, and most of the exhaustion of the previous decade was the cost of campaigning in an election that didn't exist. - Silicon Canals
Realization in midlife reveals that the pursuit of approval was often imaginary, leading to self-acceptance and a shift in identity.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoThe people who seem to have endless patience with difficult family members aren't necessarily more forgiving. Many of them long ago concluded that the emotional cost of asking for change was higher than the cost of absorbing the behavior, and they've been paying the cheaper price for so long they forgot there was ever a choice. - Silicon Canals
Conflict avoidance is often mistaken for patience, but it can lead to relationship breakdown and is linked to anxiety and attachment insecurity.
#childhood-trauma
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoPsychology says people who check on everyone else during a crisis before acknowledging their own fear aren't selfless - they learned that being needed is the only form of safety their childhood ever reliably delivered - Silicon Canals
Composure in crises often masks unresolved childhood fears and the need to fulfill others' expectations.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
4 days agoPsychology says people who check on everyone else during a crisis before acknowledging their own fear aren't selfless - they learned that being needed is the only form of safety their childhood ever reliably delivered - Silicon Canals
Composure in crises often masks unresolved childhood fears and the need to fulfill others' expectations.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 days agoPsychology says people who constantly apologize for things that aren't their fault aren't being polite. They grew up in an environment where someone else's bad mood was always their responsibility to fix - Silicon Canals
Over-apologizing often stems from childhood experiences that teach individuals to manage others' emotions, leading to chronic self-blame and anxiety.
Mental health
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoPsychology says people who describe themselves as self-sufficient aren't always describing a strength. Sometimes they're describing the scar tissue that formed where the need for other people used to be, and they've carried it so long they genuinely mistake the numbness for peace. - Silicon Canals
Self-reliance is often mistaken for strength, but true strength includes the ability to seek help and share vulnerabilities.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
5 days agoThe people who talk about their childhood like it was fine but can't remember most of it aren't lying. The absence of memory and the absence of trauma feel identical from the inside until something cracks the seal, and by then the person has built an entire adult identity on the version where nothing happened. - Silicon Canals
Childhood amnesia affects memory retention, leading to a lack of vivid recollections from early years despite having a normal upbringing.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
6 days agoPsychology says the people who seem impossible to offend aren't thick-skinned. They decided long ago that showing hurt gives others a map they haven't earned, so they absorb the wound and reclassify it as information - Silicon Canals
Emotional toughness often masks deep sensitivity, leading individuals to absorb pain without showing it, as vulnerability can be weaponized by others.
fromSlate Magazine
2 months agoMy Friend and I Had an Awkward Conversation Before He Died. Now I'm Unsettled About What Comes Next.
We were both in our 60s and had no health problems that were about to kill us any time soon, but our parents had recently died, so end of life issues were on our minds. Plus everyone knows writing a will is the responsible thing to do. We'd talked to lawyers. While I considered my friend a close one, we didn't have many friends in common. I knew he had a brother and sister.
Law
fromDeconstructing Yourself
2 months agoStay with the Grief
Today I saw images of students leaving their school with their hands raised in the air, hours after cowering in fear and terror in barricaded classrooms. Nine dead and twenty-seven wounded in the tiny Rocky Mountain town of Tumbler Ridge. The mayor, Darryl Krakowka, said, "I have lived here for 18 years. I probably know every one of the victims." And this in Canada, which often seems to us Americans like a bastion of sanity and normalcy in comparison with our madness.
Mindfulness
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