Why am I like this?

[FlakyAquaQuoter]

Sorry for the leading title. Didn't really know what else my question could be.

I've noticed lately that I've got some funny strategies to cope with stress and I just don't understand them.

Breif history is that I've had some fairly severe depression/anxiety in the past. I've not been medicated for around 5 years now. I am doing better by far (though still with some anxiety around certain things. Social situations and asking for things when the answer may be no are two main ones).

Recently I've had a period of stress. A missed miscarriage following IVF and a subsequent IVF cycle that had some complications. Plus other fairly inconsequential things.

My immediate response has been to look for a new job.
I like my job. It's great for me and my toddler. Working three days a week, mon-fri, 8-6. No weekends, nights or bank holidays. I'm a qualified healthcare practitioner so this is like hens teeth. And close to home too!

But any stress in my life culminates into me wanting a big change.
Previously those changes have been:

• Moving 3 hours away from home into my own place. Having never once been there.
• Traveling round Europe on a bike. I couldn't even ride a bloody bike.
• Going to uni as a random last minute thing.
• Moving 5 hours away to work somewhere.
• Moving home again.

I'm a mother to my wonderful DD now, who's 3. So Moving house doesn't seem fair. So I change my job. Not just a little bit. I've applied to everything outside the NHS as a totally new start.

When I look for others who do this, all I find are articles on "how to manage the big stresses in life".... those are my safe place. I like Moving house and changing job. I like the fresh start.
But it can't be sustainable.

Why am I like this? What causes this? How can I find a more sustainable way to manage?
I'd love some therapy, a lot, but NHS therapy is mostly focused on people in desperate need, a place I've been before, and absolutely it should be. My mild curiosity isn't a need as such.

I just really don't understand it, which means I can't find a way around it. Anyone have any insight?

Stress is not an entity in itself, it's an emotional response to circumstances or events and the way we deal with often reflects the way we observed our parents/carers react to problems when we were young. Maybe it's the case that your Mum and/or Dad thought that the best way to deal with difficulties was to have a completely fresh start, to deflect or to do a complete 180 turn?

In AA and other addiction fellowships we call this ‘doing a geographical’. It’s a response to difficult feelings. You react by making a big change - physically moving house or job, or starting a new, big project ie. trying to run away from the feelings you don’t like, deflect, throw yourself into something new.

It’s pretty common!

Have you thought about meditation or mindfulness? I know that gets trotted out a lot these days as some sort of cure all and it can sound lame, but I’ve found it really powerful in helping me accept and sit with difficult feelings (and figure out eventually what actions I can take to look after myself) rather than jump into the next big distraction.

Have you heard of the drive threat soothing system? We all move between the three states of mind in various degrees.
I by default live in the drive mode constant in fear of the threat and the soothing system allows access to things that are too raw to deal with so I head back to drive. Drive keeps me safe but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's good on a long term basis. I did a compassion focussed therapy course which was meant to help access that soothing system more often but this made me far too exposed because of previous life experience and then too unwell to engage with the course. So I'm back with the drive system trying to find safe and contained ways to access soothing. For me soothing has to be using my hands with a bit of focus so the mind doesn't have too much free space to go to the dark places. For me this is jigsaws, colouring and cross stitches.