Six Alternative Explanations for Why You Feel Like Crap

It might be because you're broken beyond all repair…or it might not!

Like most humans, I have a tendency to make a bad feeling worse by leaping to terrible conclusions: Feeling anxious? Must be an undiagnosed psychiatric disorder. General malaise? Repressed childhood abuse. Inability to focus? Brain tumor. Definitely a brain tumor.

These (il)logical leaps come in various names and flavors—rumination, catastrophizing, cognitive distortions—but what they all share is an assumption that the bad vibes have one deep, and deeply upsetting, cause. And to be fair, they might! Mental illness and trauma are real, and—I truly can’t emphasize this enough—a serious problem absolutely requires a serious course of treatment. 

However…the truth is that moods are complex, multidetermined phenomena, and there are a lot of steps in the assembly line before the little gnomes in your head are able to slap a “Happy” sticker on your brain. It only takes one aspect of your life being out of whack, in other words, for you to be having a really bad time overall.

I’m just a guy with a blog, not a mental health professional (and again, I am NOT advocating for denial of major issues)—but if even 5% of your existential angst can be explained by low blood sugar…that’s still something, right? Have a snack!

In short, the six questions that follow are simply a personal checklist I like to run through before, you know, trying to work on myself. You’ve probably got your own list, but I offer mine in the spirit of solidarity, or a concerned Jewish mother—whichever you prefer:

1. Are you hungry?

2. Are you sleep-deprived?

3. Have you gotten exercise recently?

4. Are you getting enough social stimulation?

5. Have you been consuming a lot of sugar/alcohol/other things that are bad for your body?

6. Do you just have a lot of work right now?*

*(Ok, this last one isn’t reeallly a simple fix in the way the others are, but my point is, sometimes tasks do just pile up, or multiple deadlines happen to fall near each other—and this isn’t necessarily cause for alarm. If you’re overwhelmed all the time, that’s obviously a sign to take a step back and reassess your life. But in isolation, it doesn’t mean something is fundamentally misaligned.)

Usually when I run through this list, it turns up at least one hit. This is some comfort because it offers a clear strategy for mood improvement, or at least a sense that the storm will pass—rather than the more daunting task of trying to disentangle the web of culture, upbringing, and genetics that is my current mental state. Not to get all preachy about it. (To be fair, sometimes you have a snack or take a nap and feel just as shitty as before. But then you can at least cross that explanation off the list, which will help you identify what the real issue is—so that’s worthwhile, too, right?)

In closing: If your computer was acting glitchy, would you immediately assume you were the victim of a cyberattack—or would you first just try restarting it and making sure your router was plugged in? So, too, with humans.

TL;DR

Just a little hump-day reminder that there are many reasons that could explain why you’re feeling psychologically unwell—why not start with the low-hanging fruit? (Therapy is good, too!)

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Addendum from my friend Jordan, an actual therapist:

Gilad is right, kind of. Emotional awareness and healthy coping practices are skills, just like riding a bike or producing a well-written essay. They happen to be the kinds of skills that are taken for granted, as not everyone has to be taught these skills explicitly in order to become aware of them and start implementing them in their daily lives.

Unfortunately, however, many of us were not taught these skills implicitly, either because they were not modeled for us or were not taught in a way that was conducive to our learning. In that case, emotional awareness and healthy coping practices are skills we need to put active effort into learning.

The wellness activities that Gilad describes above, such as adequate sleep and social fulfillment, all contribute to our ability to tolerate distress. When we are tired, hungry, hungover, or overburdened, we make ourselves more vulnerable to distress and have a more difficult time self-soothing. In this way, Gilad is right. It is important to check in with oneself, and to ask these questions, because sometimes a snack does help! If our basic human and interpersonal needs are not being met, we are unlikely to be successful in addressing higher-order concerns (hello, childhood trauma). Moreover, we are not fortified against life’s inevitable hardships if we have not taken proper care of our body and mind.

However, I do have some points of contention with Gilad’s advice. First, when someone is ill enough, it can be difficult to accomplish these wellness activities that are the “low hanging fruit” of the psyche—depression can cause insomnia or hypersomnia, can crush our appetite or lead to insatiable hunger, and it can even lead us to isolate when we know we would likely be benefitted by some social contact. Therefore, for some, the aforementioned list may not feel like the “quick fix” it does for others.

My second point of contention is perhaps unfair, given his insistence that he does not encourage people to minimize their experiences, but was nonetheless a visceral reaction when I read this post. While TraumaTok is on the rise, leading many to wonder which of their experiences may be undiagnosed illness or manifestations of trauma, so too is our awareness of the mental health epidemic, rising suicide rates, rising drug and alcohol use, social injustice and global unrest. I have many clients who have presented in my office feeling distressed and also feeling bad for their distress, as perhaps others have it “worse,” or because they benefit from various forms of privilege. The existence of other problems or other people with different problems does not invalidate your problems.

I believe that Gilad and I are actually in agreement, that minimization is not a helpful tactic, but I feel a sense of obligation to speak to those who may feel wounded by his encouragement to consider less catastrophic reasons you are feeling crummy. For those people, I might encourage you to think about other forms of catastrophic thinking you may be likely to engage in, such as a tendency to feel like a failure because of a setback or an assumption of being unlovable because of a rupture with a friend.

In sum, Gilad is right: Consult the checklist before consulting TraumaTok.