To hate it when people say 'Don't get stressed about what you can't control'

[IntoTheUnknown89]

Just this. I'm feeling stressed, frustrated and sad. Like lots are at the moment. I try to lean on him and that's what he comes out with!!

Somebody said it to me the other day - in a kind way - as I was ruminating on something to the point where I was starting to feel unwell. I found it helpful actually.

Plus worrying isn't really the same as preparing

Worrying is acknowledging what may happen (for me), and in turn that leads to preparing. I try and write stuff down.

There was a poster that wrote that she asked her daughter to stop worrying as obviously to her as it was affecting her anxiety. I find that a smidge worrying.

I am sorry, I should have given more detail. The daughter is an adult (23) and I am there to listen to her day and night if she needs it. She knows she can ring me in the middle of the night and does so. I have spent many long nights holding her and listening to her. She talks to me in great detail about how she feels and that is good. I fought hard to get her therapy. She knows I have her back.

It was just that I did find it stressful to hear all the details over and over again about the man who had stood in the queue behind her had coughed, and would have given her corona. I listened for the first 10 times or so, then I asked her quite gently to try not to think about it because it was getting a bit much. (Both dh and I are vulnerable so hearing over and over again how this disease would be coming into the family was quite stressful even though I haven't actually got health anxiety).

Oh and by the way, I found what you said about children killing themselves being the fault of parents not listening quite upsetting.

My dd did attempt suicide several times during adolescence. It was not because I didn't listen to her: it was because however much I listened I wasn't able to take her pain and fear away from her. By the time she made her second attempt she was in therapy with a very helpful and understanding team: she just had a bad flare-up. Parents fighting to help their suicidal children have a hard enough time anyway: they don't need people to suggest it's their fault.

In the case of adults, I think it's a question of compromise. Your husband should listen to you as his default position but should also be able to say if he is getting stressed by e.g. hearing the same worries over and over again. I assume you would expect the same consideration from him. If something is already worrying you, would you want him to keep talking about how dreadful it's going to be?

Oh my god, i agree! The only things that are stressful are the things we can't control.

Oh my god, i agree! The only things that are stressful are the things we can't control.

I disagree, I can control my stress and manage it through meditation.

I get what you mean, but my DH worries endlessly about the situation, and it’s exasperating at times. What is the point of fretting about something we can’t control ? Maybe humans fall into two camps , the worriers and the ‘ just get on with it ‘lot.

There is a world of difference between a hug and an ear.

If you are wracked with anxiety and you want a hug. I'll give you a hug.

If you want me to sit and listen to your catastrophising then no, no I am not up for that, well not more than once. I am especially not up for that if you expect me to act like your out of control anxiety is well-founded and to somehow magically walk the line of being respectful of your thinking, bringing you back to rationality and being seen as dismissive. No. You won't actually appreciate it. You'll be more upset because I've not got my response 100% right, even though I could never be right because you are in an anxious irrational state. And before you know it you are ignoring the actual problem and are posting on MN about how I'm a git.

And you still won't have come up to me and just said "I'm feeling so stressed about the whole situation. Give me a big hug please." Then had the big hug without starting the no-win "conversation". It's like asking "do I look fat in this". The other person thinks "run away, it's a trap."

Stoicism. Buddhism. CBT. AA and many other treatment programmes. The idea of the “dichotomy of control” is a key to them all: distinguishing between what you can control and what you can’t.

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.“ Epictetus.

If you endlessly focus on problems or situations that you cannot control, you will never be happy. But if you focus on the things you can control, then there is a way to find peace. The Stoics wrote a lot about illness, death, suicide: it’s worth reading.

Oh dear! I am like this!

I don't worry about things I have no control over, not at all.

I do worry quite a lot about the things I Do have control over though, so there's no actual letup