Feeling irritated is irritating, plain and simple. You feel irritable, which makes everything around you feel irritable too. You don’t want to be bothered, but can’t help it, because everything is bothering you. You’re on edge, you’re uptight, you’re moody, and you’re just irritated.
The most irritating part of being irritated is when you cannot figure out what exactly you’re irritated about, which ends up becoming quite irritating in and of itself. Not only can you not figure out why you’re irritated, you can’t seem to stop being irritated, which simply makes you more irritable and everything else, including your current state, more irritating.
Irritability is common when we are living with symptoms of trauma, including PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. Trauma cannot be defined in any one way, meaning our trauma looks different depending on who we are and what has happened in our lives. Our mental health can be affected, our physical health can be affected, and the many uncomfortable, painful parts of our life can vary. Survivors of trauma have reason to experience the occasional bout of irritability. Staying irritable, however, can have negative consequences because irritability is a negative energy state.
Irritability doesn’t have to last, once we realize we are in fact irritable and are in need of a quick mood change. One of the fastest ways to combat irritability is to identify what is irritating us and why. If we can’t pinpoint the details, we have to accept that we are irritable and realize we are in power to change how we feel. Next, we can find gratitude for as many things as possible in our lives. Irritability is hard to maintain in the face of gratitude. When we are grateful, life becomes less irritating.
Gratitude changes our chemical composure, our disposition, and our mood. Gratitude helps us relax, and see the good instead of the bad, whereas irritability keeps us on edge, narrowing in on the negative instead of the positive. Shifting our perspective to gratitude changes more than our outlook: gratitude is proven to change our physical state as well. Settling into gratitude, we find that we are less irritable and find perspective on what was bothering us in the first place. Most often, it wasn’t that irritable to begin with.
Trauma is most often the root cause of many emotional, behavioral, and mood disorders. Until you can heal your trauma, you will find great difficulty finding the healing you need to live a life of recovery, health, and wellness. At Khiron House, we provide effective residential treatment and cutting edge therapies which seek to transform mind, body, and spirit from the effects of trauma. Call us today for information. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours) USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).
