Everything is going wrong: possible causes and what to do about it

A reflection on the feeling that everything is going wrong in our lives, and advice.

There are times when there is not a day in which we don't wake up with the wrong foot. We go to work or school and we are already late. Once there we have a huge pile of work that is harder and heavier than usual. We try to wake ourselves up by going to the coffee machine, it swallows the coins and deprives us of our caffeine fix.

"The day is going badly for me..... Are we bad luck magnets? Are we no good at what we do? Are we worthless? and other such phrases come to mind. We assume that if things go wrong for us, it means there is something wrong with us.

Why does everything go wrong for me, the big question... Is it fate?Is it fate, is it us, what's wrong, what's wrong? Here are some possible answers.

Everything goes wrong!

It has happened to all of us that we have a time in which nothing of what we had proposed to ourselves goes as we wanted. We stop doing what we were doing and we ask ourselves, frustrated, "What the hell is going on? Everything is going wrong!". Life is not a straight and stable line, but is marked by ups and downs, and in its lows we tend to see the lows as the lows of life. and at its lows we tend to see things in a more pessimistic way, as it seems that the world is in a bad way.It seems that the world is conspiring against us, or that we are no longer competent and become useless.

These bad patches are normal. We cannot expect that we will always be happy and that everything will go well for us. However, although we can keep this reality in mind, in many occasions when we see that nothing goes right, there are continuous disappointments and it seems that what we had proposed is not going to be fulfilled, it is inevitable to think that everything is going wrong. These are moments that do not stop hurting and attract demotivation, listlessness, apathy, anxiety and depression.

People are dreamers and we set all kinds of goals in various spheres of our existence such as work, partner, friends, personal projects and goals to succeed in life. When something bad happens and it seems to sabotage our dreams, we inevitably wonder if there is something wrong. it is inevitable that we wonder if there is something in our lives or something in our own way of being that has generated a whole situation full of misfortunes and misfortunes. Is it that we have a bad attitude or is it that we are really not worth it?

Before getting obsessed and becoming even more bitter about the negative situation in which we find ourselves, where disappointments cloud our vision and do not let us see the light at the end of the tunnel, what we have to do is to reflect and calm down a little, stop the machine. As far as we can, we must rest a little, both physically and mentally. Resting and slowing down a little are very good for acquiring a more global and adjusted image of what is happening, as well as stopping that runrun, that mental rumor that tells us all the time that everything is going wrong.

What is happening to us?

We live in a society of extremes. The media and all kinds of organizations tell us that we have to be happy, idealistic, optimistic and energetic people.. The message that we have to be "happy" 24/7 is very nice and, at the same time, toxic, basically because it makes us clash with our realism. People are not happy beings all the time, since depending on our personal characteristics, education and the context in which we live, we will see life in one way or another, changing according to the time we live in.

No matter how optimistic we consider ourselves to be, sooner or later there come periods in which we are a little sadder. We should not think that this sadness is depression, since that is a relatively long mental disorder in case it is not treated with adequate professional help, but we are talking about euthymia, that is, changes in mood within the expected normality and not pathological. There are days when we are happier and others when we are sadder.

When we are in one of these stages, it is normal for our vision to be more pessimistic, especially when applied to what we do and what happens to us. Naturally, it is during these times that our mistakes and misfortunes in our daily life will be seen in a more exaggerated way, seeing as if everything is really going wrong.We will see that everything is really going very wrong. Every mistake will make us think that we are worthless, and every misfortune that the world, God, destiny or whatever has turned against us.

But sooner or later the bad patches fade away and the good ones come. All the pessimism we had shown in the previous period is replaced by optimism and motivation: the light at the end of the tunnel, which had never stopped being there, has arrived. We learn that anyone has a bad patch, that we are worth a lot, that there are many things to be happy about and that the good always compensates for the bad and even surpasses it.

However, although stages of certain pessimism are normal, this does not mean that they are harmless and, in fact, if they are prolonged or if we focus too much on all the bad things that are supposedly happening to us, we run the risk of getting stuck in them. The reasons for this are varied, although they are usually personal, such as our own way of being, our self-esteem and self-worth. If we do not stop with the runrún of the bad thing that happens to us we are going to stretch it and stretch it until it is a serious problem..

Possible causes

There are several causes behind the thought "everything goes wrong with me". One of them is impossible to control, capricious and unpredictable: bad luck.. Bad luck is a variable that, even without being measurable, we know that it is there, not to annoy us but because in life there are moments of luck and moments in which we are not so lucky. It may be the case that, due to pure bad luck, what we had set out to do does not work out, and there is nothing we can do about it.

But leaving aside the bad luck, there are many personal factors that influence our way of seeing the realityThese factors can be changed both with the effort of oneself and by seeking professional help. Among these factors we can find the following:

1. Phenomenon of filtering.

It is common that behind the belief that everything goes wrong there is a cognitive distortion. People perceive reality according to what they "want" to see. If we insist on seeing everything bad that happens to us and what we do, that is, we have a very negative view of reality, it is not surprising that we see that many things go wrong for us.

The phenomenon of negative filtering refers to a situation in which people focus on the bad and leave aside the good, which undoubtedly also happens.which undoubtedly also happens. People are human beings and it is in our nature to make mistakes, but we also often get things right and do things right.

2. Learned pessimism

As we have already mentioned, we live in a society that sells us the message that in order to be fulfilled we must always be happy. The problem is that this same message clashes with another one issued by our closest circle of acquaintances, especially family, friends and significant others, which is nothing less than Murphy's Law: if something has to go wrong, it will.

This pessimism is a cultural trait, as is language, traditions, gastronomy or any other and, therefore, it ends up being learned. It is difficult to get rid of a pessimistic mentality if we have been brought up from a very young age receiving this type of messages and expecting the worst from the world and from ourselves, even in a minimal way. and expecting the worst from the world and from ourselves, even in a minimally healthy way.

3. Lack of self-esteem

Naturally we cannot talk about the thought "everything goes wrong for me" without talking about a profound lack of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is not a state that a person reaches from one day to the next, nor does it have to be preserved.nor does it have to remain that way for life. Self-esteem can weaken, vary over time and with experiences, experiences which can make us doubt our worth and cause us to have a negative self-concept.

If we have very low self-esteem and our self-concept, that is, the way we see ourselves, is negative, it is not surprising that we attribute everything bad that happens to us to ourselves. We think that not only bad things happen to us, but also that we are the ones who attract them.

Low self-esteem and negative self-concept are aspects that should be worked on in a psychologist's office and by carrying out an important exercise of revaluation of oneself.

4. Covert disorder

The feeling of "everything goes wrong" can actually be a symptom of a psychological problem, a mental disorder that requires psychotherapeutic intervention. requires psychotherapeutic intervention. Mood disorders such as depression and anxiety may be the origin of a pessimistic mentality.

The common pattern in depression is to blame oneself for the bad things that happen and to attribute any good that happens to luck. Depressed people tend to think that the misfortunes that happen to them are their fault and that they actually deserve it, while any merit they may get they think is because the situation has been very benevolent to them. This way of thinking is very dysfunctional and needs help from a psychologist.

5. Hard times

Finally we have the idea of hard times. Sometimes bad luck manifests itself in all its splendor and extent making us live a period in which things are not going well. a period in which things do not look good objectively speaking.. The economy crashes, our company goes belly up, we have broken a leg and any other misfortune can happen, deeply affecting our lives.

The world changes and, sometimes, a series of coincidences and the fact of being in the least indicated place and place causes us to have a misfortune that makes everything go wrong. It is to be hoped that sooner or later our situation will improve and, for the time being, all we can do is live the difficult times the best way we can. Life is not easy and waiting for it to be perfect will only make us more bitter.

What can we do if everything goes wrong?

As we were saying, it is normal to notice that we are going through a time when everything goes wrong. Even so, we should not we should not stay with our arms crossed and think about all the bad things that are happening to us, but we should see how we can change the situation.We must see how we can change our situation and what degree of control we have over it. To focus on what we are unlikely to achieve for now because bad luck does not allow us to do so is to torture ourselves. The best thing to do is to stop the physical and mental machinery for a moment, calm down and reflect on our situation.

The first thing we should do, taking advantage of this pause of body and mind, is to ask ourselves: what aspects depend on us? Is there something external to us that has influenced it? Can we control it? This step requires deep meditation, a reflection that will allow us to clarify what has happened and find out what negative events that have been chained together have made us fall into the pit of "everything goes wrong".

Once we have seen what depends on us and what does not, we must accept the idea that there are things that are not within our control. Since we cannot control them, it is not worth being bitter about them. It is true that sometimes life is very unfair and brings us really cruel events but, even so, what is the use of regretting over and over again? Isn't remembering the bad things is reliving the harm that was done to us? Difficult times eventually pass, but they will never completely pass if we do not stop thinking about them.

Some times are more complicated than others and we have to accept that. Let's accept the complexity of the world.. Bad luck will truncate many of our projects and objectives, but we must not give up and give in to the idea that nothing is going to work out for us. In the same way that something does not seem to work out, there is another option that will. When a door closes, a window opens.

It is also necessary to pay some attention to the type of thoughts we have. Having seen the possible causes that make us think that everything goes wrong, we should ask ourselves if we are applying a negative filter to our reality, that is, if we pay too much attention to bad things that we undoubtedly do (like everyone else!) and ignore the good things that we also have. As we have said, focusing only on the bad and neglecting the good is a bias, it allows us to see reality objectively.

With all this in mind, we stress the importance of taking a break, whenever possible. The mind and body are exhausted when they are overused and fatigue causes us to apply the filter of negativity.. The machine that is our being has to be greased and recharged from time to time. Once we have done this we will have energy again, more vitality, a not so pessimistic view of the world and full of optimism.

Bibliographical references:

• Beck, J. (1995). Terapia cognitiva: conceptos básicos y profundización. Gedisa Editora.
• Bellino, S.; Patria, L.; Ziero, S.; Rocca, G.; Bogetto, F. (2001). "Clinical Features of Dysthymia and Age: a Clinical Investigation". Psychiatry Review. 103 (2-3): 219 - 228.
• Goic A (1991). Depression in disguise: Medical face of psychic depression. Rev. Med. Chile 119 (3): 321-326.
• López Ibor J.J. (1972). Masked depression. Brit. J. Psychiatry. 12: 120-245.