I have recently been asked by friends and clients/patients if it is normal (1) to have negative emotions (eg. strong sadness, worries, intense dissatisfactions, strong regrets) and/or (2)frustration.
Mental health is defined as a physical, mental and social well-being . This "good" does not have to be equated with the "positive", as we often do.
Sometimes being "normal" means reacting to confrontation with stressful (negative) events with functional negative emotions. For example, when the person you love leave is "normal" to be very sad, terribly worried, may have regret and / or be very unhappy; all these are a sign of normality, and make you human. In addition, these emotions are functional because they help you face the negative situation and look for creative solutions to the impasse. It is not normal to react to such a stressful (negative) event with dysfunctional negative emotions. f you are depressed (not sad), panic / anxious (not worried), angry / aggressive (not dissatisfied), and / or overwhelmed with guilt (not regrets), slip into psychopathology, because these affective states do not help you find solutions appropriate to the negative situations you are facing; a depressed, an anxious, an angry man, or a man overwhelmed with guilt no longer seeks and / or can not easily find creative solutions out of the deadlock, because these emotions reduce our motivational capacity and affect our mental resources. Similarly, it is not normal to react to negative events with positive emotional states (eg, joy, calm and relaxation), and they neither psychologically nor biologically help us to overcome the trauma suffered (it is also counterintuitive). So in certain situations the "negative" is "positive", that is, it is good!
As for frustration, things are tinted. Frustration can also be rational or irrational. If someone "nagging" naughty and hard-working, your ideals and desires, for which you have put effort, you will be frustrated (desires have not been achieved). If frustration results from a rational, preferential and flexible formulation / conceptualization of wishes (eg "I would like to be terribly long and do everything that depends on me ... but I can accept the fact, even if I do not like it, that sometimes things are not what I want) and is followed by functional and negative emotions (eg sadness and / or worry and / or dissatisfaction and / or regrets) then frustration is rational and is a sign of normality for us. If frustration results from an irrational, dogmatic formulation (in terms of "must with necessity"), desires (eg "It must necessarily be ... and can not conceive otherwise") and is followed by dysfunctional and negative emotions depressed and / or panic / anxiety and / or anger and / or guilt) that prevents you from reaching your goals, frustration is irrational. So under certain conditions, when desires (unfulfilled) are flexible and emotional responses are negative but functional, being frustrated is a sign of normality!
So remember your reader that sometimes the "negative" is "positive," and in the next post I will discuss how the "positive" can become "negative." Until then be normal: allow yourself to experience functional negative emotions in problematic situations, and when possible you can be frustrated, but be a rational frustration!
