A Helping Hand Can Be a Ray of Sunshine in a Cloudy World

What are the behaviours that tell us something is not quite right?

If there is one thing that has become abundantly clear about life, it’s that a very large percentage of people are not happy with the direction of their lives. In fact, I might even wager that it’s most people I see in day-to-day.

When I interact with people, I remind myself that they are probably struggling with the way things are.

These signs, in particular, are the ones that tell me that someone is fairly deep in throes of disappointment with how their lives turned out in one arena or another.

Here are some of the indicators that I see:

They put people down, abuse others, or go out of their way to make people hate them.

I see this all the time when I write an argument about something or critique an ongoing trend in the dating scene. When someone is very angry with how their life is going, they will go out of their way to ruin the days of people who they perceive as having it easier.

Studies show that school bullying rates have increased by 35 percent from 2015 to 2019. Now that it’s 2022, it’s safe to assume things got worse for kids. The thing is, it’s not just kids doing this. It’s adults.

Whether it’s negative comments on blog posts, women going “full Karen” in person, or spreading rumours like they did in school, it’s a sign that something isn’t right with them.

Now, obviously, people are in their right to retaliate in a legal manner here, although, it’s still reason enough to realise that the people pushing you down are well-aware that they suck.

People who are happy don’t drag others down. They have a need to control others or control the narrative.

Did you ever notice how articles about women’s issues always have a chorus of men calling the author a “manhater?” Or worse, men correcting women about their own experiences? Yep, this is a sign of something deeper.

When you need to control something, you’re acting out of fear. You’re worried that what you’re trying to control will leave or turn south. People who are scared often have a lot to lose, or don’t have much to begin with.

It’s an act of someone who is deeply insecure. How do I know? I’ve been there. Knowing this doesn’t excuse the behaviour, nor does it mean that you shouldn’t curb this behaviour. However, understanding the why can help it.

They’re drinking a lot, snorting things, and partying daily. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good party!

I mean, I was a club kid for many years of my life in various forms. However, I also mellowed the f#*k out after I actually got stability, respect, a partner, children, and other goals.

If you see someone who is drinking and smoking every day, they’re upset. In most cases, they feel alone. Or they just don’t know what else to do to escape from what their life is like. Or they drink and use to forget.

I’ve been there. It’s a trope because it’s a real thing.

They have sex or keep trying to push sex on people who are clearly uninterested. For a lot of people, sex is their drug of choice. A lot of men have sex as a way to dominate women they feel wronged them, or as a way to escape from things, or as a source of validation.

From what I’ve seen, sex addicts are never quite happy with themselves. The sex often deals with insecurities that they can’t deal with. Rather than hold up a mirror to themselves, they lose themselves in others as an attempt to find a level of security.

It’s not going to work.

They overshare.

Yes, I’m guilty, guilty, guilty of this.

Happy people typically don’t overshare, simply because they don’t feel the need to. (There’s an exception here for people who are not neurotypical. We don’t always know what the right boundaries are!)

Oversharing is often a sign that you’ve been lonely and isolated. In my case with my ex-co-workers, it’s a sign of feeling intimidated and desperate for some semblance of security.

When you haven’t spoken to people in a while, you tend to be prone to oversharing too. This is just what happens when your social life takes a fall. You lose the skills you learned. Once they get back in touch with others and bond with others, people stop oversharing.

They act out in ways that drag attention to them.

For me, I don’t understand why people ignore people who are crying out for attention. Generally speaking, people don’t act out in “attention-seeking” ways if they are emotionally well and have all their needs met.

When I was at my darkest, I’d act out and scream, throw tantrums, and do anything possible to get people to talk to me. Most people shrugged it off and called me an “attention-seeker.”

What I needed was for them to ask me what’s really wrong and ask me if I needed someone around. What I needed was for people to listen to me! Unsurprisingly, when I stopped being in need of basic human help and reassurance, I stopped acting out.

Shocking, right? Most people who act out are like this — save for people who have Histrionic Personality Disorder. I don’t get how people don’t get this. They’re literally making cries for help!

They withdraw into their own little worlds.

So, most people who are deeply upset with life are still somewhat engaged with people — or at the very least, try to reach out in one way or another. However, people who have serious depression, social anxiety, or angst may do the opposite. They may sink into their own little world.

If you notice that someone closed themselves off, it could be a sign that they need to talk to someone but that they don’t feel like they want to bother anyone. These people tend to have very low self-value.

Or, in some cases, they just decide they’ve had too much rejection from the world and that they’d rather live in a fantasy land that doesn’t hurt them. In these cases, the person is just tired of reality and feels helpless to change things.

Either way, if you see this, it may be time to reach out to your friend and ask if they are okay. They’re probably not.

I really hope that you have received value from this and can see others' behaviours a little differently.

It’s not about you, it is about what is going on for them.

What can you do to help?