There’s a forum I hang out on—yes, Otto, the-forum-that-shall-not-be-named—and there’s one section that’s basically about people asking for life advice. Many of those asking questions are younger, usually in their early twenties. I find myself giving a lot of advice, from the perspective of my advanced years. I can boil most of my advice down to one phrase. It’s applicable to almost every situation, and it’s applicable to thee and to me.
And that advice is: STOP THE DRAMA.
Stop the histrionics. Stop seeking approval or acceptance or admiration by dialing all of your emotions and experiences up to 11. Start looking at your life as though you have a modicum of control over it, because you DO. You CAN choose how you respond to things, both emotionally and physically. You are the one who will decide what you do right now.
Having drama in your life is having heightened emotions. It’s about how something sounds rather than the truth of what is.
A lot of us, particularly when we’re younger, are addicted to the dramatics of a situation. We confuse feeling emotion about a situation—“He done me wrong!” “She talked about me behind my back!” “She stole my shoes!”—for the relative importance of the situation. We run to our friends and want their commiseration or even their admiration for how totally crazy our lives are.
We all have the friends who have crazy crap happen to them left and right, and we think, “How come their lives are so much more dramatic than mine is?” Because they’re CHOOSING to be that way. It makes them feel alive, like they’re the star of their own story. When in reality…they’re allowing themselves to be buffeted by external events. Past the age of 25, it’s not cute any more. Get a grip on reality, accept that you’re in charge, and act accordingly.
When I was in college, I got involved with this guy I’ve charitably described as a “sociopath.” Using words like that is being dramatic about it. At the time I got a lot of mileage out of feeling used and abused, out of the drama of how he was going to treat me this week, out of the choices of how I was going to live my life because of this one guy. I made him the bad guy and me the victim.
Whereas if I were going to cut the drama and really engage in what what happening, I would allow myself to feel sad that I had spent so much time with this guy, I would feel compassion for myself that I allowed him to make me feel like dirt, and I would say, “You know, I don’t need this kind of person in my life.” No late-night crying with friends, no histrionics. Move on. I would take control and realize that it really is better to be alone than in bad company, and then I would see that I had opened up space in my life to have better company.
Take this test: Pick a situation you feel highly emotional about right now and you want to call all of your friends about. Here’s what I want you to tell your friend: “Okay, I’m going to tell you about something that happened. Here’s what I want you to do: nothing. Don’t respond in any way. Don’t agree with me, don’t comment on what this other person did, just listen to me.”
If your reaction to that scenario is, “Why would I tell someone about this if they weren’t going to side with me and tell me that I’m the victim here?” then you’re still caught up in the drama.
Here’s another test: do you use exaggerated comparatives to describe your situation? That is, is it the “worst” thing he’s done, the “scariest” thing that’s ever happened, the “best” relationship you can imagine having, so you have to hold on to it, at all costs?
(A friend–who lived a fairly dramatic life himself–once coined, “It was the WORST thing that’s EVER happened to ANYONE in the history of Western Civilization!” He was kidding. I think.)
If you’re using these kinds of terms to describe the situation, you’re being dramatic. You’re more involved with having a good story than you are with what’s actually going on.
STOP. Take a few minutes to sit quietly. Relate the facts of the situation: not “My boyfriend humiliated me in front of every single important person in my life!” but “Bob said some really mean things about me in front of lots of my friends.” Then ask yourself how you truly feel about this situation, here and now, not acting out in front of anyone. Now ask, What are you going to do about it?
There is nothing wrong with feeling emotion about a situation. If your friends from college turn out to be bad, unstable roommates (as happened to me), feel sad because your friendship wasn’t what it was…and then make plans to move elsewhere. No need for drama. Take control.
And looking back at it… I’m sure I was no prize as a roommate either.
The more you harness your own energy and spend it on the important stuff in your life rather than making every little upset its own vortex, the easier it gets, and the more powerful you get. If someone tries to drag you into their drama, you say, “This is not for me,” and you leave them to it.
It can be scary though. If you give up having drama in your life and choose to face your emotions and your reactions head on, here’s what’s going to happen: you’re going to be the one in charge. You have no one to blame, because if a friend goes nutso on you, you can’t run around and say, “Gaaaaah! What do I do?” You can’t have screaming arguments about who’s right and who’s wrong. You get to decide how you’re going to handle it, without making a good story out of it.
You’re also going to lose friends. Friends who put up with your dramatics so they can touch the electric wire of crazy emotions. Friends who are used to dumping their drama on you. Once you start responding to their stories with, “Wow, you seem really upset about that. What are you going to do about it?” you’ve just punctured their drama. You’re not their audience any more. They’re going to go elsewhere.
Trust me. Finding other adults who can deal with their own emotions and lives like, well, adults, is a real treat.
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