Where All The Ladders Start
You hear a lot in mental health about people being unique – this is an individualistic age. And, obviously, it’s true: people are different. But, equally obviously, people are similar – there wouldn’t be much point in psychology otherwise. Similar physiology, same cardiovascular system and, it appears, at least in terms of the principal structures, the same brain. So, you would expect there to be psychological mechanisms which are shared too – universal features of the human mind, the tectonic plates on which the geography sits.
When things don’t go your way, when you don’t get what you want (which isn’t meant to sound trite since things not going your way might include relationship breakdown, serious illness or injury or bereavement, though it can also include a badly misguided set of expectations and a regular diet of disappointment and frustration) part of the reaction is always a challenge to self-esteem: an assault on your sense of self and worth.
This might take the form of blaming yourself for what’s happened or feeling inadequate for how you’re dealing with it but there will be ideas, which feel intensely personal, about you not being good enough. That’s an extremely unpleasant idea to have and creates intolerable levels of anxiety, so there will be an immediate reaction away, towards a sense of grievance (it’s not your fault) and aggression, which may come out or stay banked down in unspoken resentment. And the feelings of inadequacy, the anxiety and the aggression produce a sense of isolation and loneliness.
When things don’t go your way, you turn on yourself and then you turn on everyone else. It may not (obviously) come out on the people around you and there will be lots of other things going on in your head but this mechanism is always part of the picture. It’s much worse when a marriage fails than when you miss the bus but the processes are essentially the same. And when people become so unhappy that they come for help, they are dominated by ideas of their own inadequacy and unfairness and grievance and isolation and loneliness.
Your capacity to avoid being sucked into this cycle, or stuck in it, depends upon your reserves of self-esteem at the time and how hard the knocks have been. Most of what people do most of the time is (unintentionally) designed to keep them away from these rocks. But sometimes the reserves can never be enough – no amount of self-esteem (even when supported by loving relationships, consistent achievement and what feels like a secure sense of worth) is going to keep you entirely safe if your child dies.
Tolstoy was completely wrong: underneath it all, people are always unhappy in the same way.