"I guess we probably all do, right? Especially at this stage in my life - a grown-ass woman with a tween and a teen who have the drama thing on lock in our house - I try to be pretty proactive about protecting my peace. And yet, somehow, chaos seems to find me. Or could it be that I'm subconsciously seeking it out?"
"Many of us claim to crave stability, and yet we can't seem to stop inviting chaos in. So, why is it that just when life finally starts to feel calm, we wind up courting more drama? Maybe it's picking a fight with your partner or overpacking your calendar, but it all ends up in the same place: making you feel like life is spinning out of control. According to therapists, it isn't that we secretly love stress."
"In reality, the pull toward chaos is often deeply ingrained in our nervous system and shaped by early experiences. If you grew up in an unpredictable household, or if intensity was tangled up with love and attention, calm may feel strangely unsafe. (Oof, that tracks.) For better or worse, the nervous system learns to interpret chaos as familiar - and what's familiar often feels like home."
Many people who claim to prefer stability nonetheless repeatedly invite chaos into their lives, often through fights, overcommitment, or other self-sabotaging behaviors that make life feel out of control. The tendency to court drama is not a secret love of stress but a pattern wired into the nervous system by early experiences. Growing up in unpredictability or where intensity equated to love can make calm feel unsafe and chaos feel familiar. Healing and sustained calm require introspection, unpacking past trauma, and learning new nervous-system responses so that stability becomes genuinely felt rather than feared.
Read at Scary Mommy
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