This post was co-authored with Marcia Gralha, MA.
When was the last time life bumped you off course? Maybe it was a minor inconvenience, like a flat tire on your way to work, or something more significant—a project you poured your heart into that failed or a heated argument with someone you love. Life’s “bumps”—unexpected negative events or stressors—are as inevitable as death and taxes.
We all face these bumps. Yet, how we react to them can vary wildly. For one person, a flat tire might just be a small blip in their day, while for another, it’s enough to spiral them into a frustrated, depressed mood. Why does the same event affect people so differently? The goal of this post is to shine a light on the root of neurotic suffering—emotional struggles that overlap with depression, anxiety, relationship problems, trauma responses, and low self-esteem.
What determines how we cope with life’s bumps? Many factors come into play: the intensity of the event, the resources available to us, our dispositional tendency to experience negative reactions, and the coping skills we’ve developed over time. The general pattern of neurotic suffering can be understood through the lens of “bumps, bruises, and loops.” Bumps are negative situations that lead to negative feelings. Now let’s consider how bumps relate to bruises.
When Bumps Turn Into Bruises
Of course, not all life’s bumps are created equal. Some are mere annoyances, while others are major traumas. But people also differ greatly in their tendencies to be reactive to negative events. Consider that after a traumatic event only a small percentage of people develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while others may find strength and growth in the aftermath.
Why do some of us get thrown off course more easily than others? The answer lies in a mix of factors. Chronic stress and limited resources leave people in a vulnerable state, such that even small bumps become overwhelming. There are also dispositional differences between people. Those with higher levels of trait neuroticism are also more susceptible to intense negative emotions and struggle to bounce back after a stressor. People also differ in their coping skills and capacities—we will return to this point.
But it’s not just about our present circumstances—it’s about our past, too. Life leaves bruises on us, emotional scars from previous bumps that haven’t healed. These bruises interact with the bump and make us more sensitive to react. Imagine bumping your hip against a table. It hurts, but if you already had a bruise there, the pain is sharper, harder to ignore, and lasts longer. Similarly, an argument with your spouse might be manageable—unless it hits a bruise left by an abusive ex-partner, which might amplify the distress and make it harder to cope.
From Bumps and Bruises to Neurotic Loops
What is the best way to react to bumps that hit old bruises? Before answering, let’s describe the common reality: It sucks to be injured by life. And when life keeps bumping into our old wounds, it can feel overwhelming, especially if we’re already generally stressed and overwhelmed with few psychological and social resources.
Given this, what do people do? A common response is to generate a secondary negative reaction—one that justifies why the situation, the self, or life in general sucks. When the self-reflective portion of us gets pissed, flustered, frustrated, depressed, critical, exasperated, and hopeless, we get stuck in a closed loop and our psychological functioning takes a nosedive.
This cycle is known as a triple negative neurotic loop. The first negative is the bump. The second is the negative feeling that the bump triggers, which varies based on our past experiences, resource level, and dispositional tendencies. The third is where we fall into the trap: our self-reflective response to our feelings and the situation. These secondary reactions lock us into neurotic loops, amplifying our suffering. Importantly, it’s not the initial negative feelings that cause the problem. Rather, it is the secondary reaction, one that is typically judgmental, resistant to change, obsessive, tense, and controlling, that pushes us into a downward spiral.
The ABCs of Neurotic Loops: Avoidance, Blame, and Control
We have identified the three most common problematic reactions that drive neurotic loops: avoidance, blame, and (misguided) control—the “ABCs” of neurotic suffering.
- Avoidance: People avoid or deny when they cannot accept the reality of the situation and how they feel. They bury the problem, only for it to resurface later.
- Blame: People blame others to find a culprit for their suffering or blame themselves to make sense of their failures.
- Control: People often have a hard time recognizing that much of what happens is outside their control, so, in an attempt to regain a sense of order, they ineffectively double down on things they can control, often making things worse.
These strategies might seem logical at the moment, but they only add fuel to the fire. Imagine trying to put out a grease fire in your kitchen with water—it impulsively makes sense but ends up being disastrous. The water ends up feeding the fire and causing it to spread. Neurotic loops work similarly. When we avoid our feelings, blame ourselves or others, or try to control what we can’t, we only make the situation worse.
There are, of course, things that one can do. But that is not our focus here. Rather our focus is on increasing awareness of this pattern. Use this post as a set of lenses to help you see patterns of bumps, bruises, and loops in the world. If you can learn to observe these patterns, and accept that they are there and without avoiding or changing them, you will have made an important step in the process.
Life will keep throwing bumps in your path. But understanding how those bumps interact with your bruises—and how your reactions can either amplify or lessen your suffering—gives you the power to break the cycle. So, the next time life bumps you off course, pause, take a breath, and notice your responses.
