6 Petty Reasons People Who Always Complain About Living A Chaotic Life Never Do Anything To Change It
Sometimes people just choose to continue with the chaos as long as it benefits them.
Perfect Wave | Shutterstock Always living in overwhelm isn’t easy. Technically, everyone feels overwhelmed from time to time, and that’s completely normal, said VeryWell Mind writer Sanjana Gupta. However, if you’re living in a constant state of overwhelm, it can be harmful to your physical and mental health. According to clinical psychologist Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, mood swings and brain fog are some of the mental symptoms of prolonged overwhelm. Physically, it could cause fatigue, headaches, or shortness of breath.
Despite the disadvantages, some contend that some people just stay in overwhelm mode because they can. Felicity Morgan, an entrepreneur known as the “Shadow Work Queen,” shared several signs that someone is choosing to remain overwhelmed because they “secretly love it” in an Instagram post. Really, these are just petty excuses to not make any changes to a life one claims is chaotic.
1. It makes them feel morally superior
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Morgan explained, “You wear exhaustion like a crown because deep down, you believe the more you suffer, the more valuable you are. You’re not just tired. You’re apparently better than everyone who rests.” It’s true that productivity can be addictive, and someone could easily feel like their purpose in life was to get things done to the point that they would become burnt out. People who choose chaos and overwhelm let themselves get strung out like this.
Psychology professor Cindi May explained the “self-enhancement effect,” in which most people believe they are “above average.” According to May, “This self-enhancement effect is most profound for moral characteristics.” In other words, people tend to believe they are better than others when it comes to moral characteristics — the very definition of being morally superior. For someone who’s petty, feeling morally superior is nice. There’s no wonder they’d want to hold onto the chaos for that reason.
2. It gives them a chance to make others feel guilty
“You won’t directly ask for help,” Morgan said, “but you’ll use ‘looking overwhelmed’ as a weapon for people to feel sorry for you, then feel indebted to you so you can control them.” Obviously, this isn’t good for anyone. It means someone is weaponizing their overwhelm against those around them, which is horrible for those affected. It’s also not good for the person doing the guilting, as it can confuse them and cause them to question their state of overwhelm even further.
Kendra Cherry, MSEd, shared that causing someone to feel guilty can sometimes be unintentional. In this case, of course, it would be intentional on the other person’s part. This, she said, is manipulation. It can damage relationships and cultivate a sense of resentment. Using guilt to control someone else really is manipulative and is a sign that the person doing the guilting doesn’t think very highly of the other person. They are just a tool to them.
3. It makes them feel irreplaceable
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If someone is overwhelmed with a task, they can take it as a sign that they are truly indispensable and the only person who can do it. “If someone else could do it, you wouldn’t be special,” Morgan said. “Overwhelm is your proof that people need you and that soothes your fear of abandonment and insecurities.” By not allowing anyone else to take over, they feel like they are the only person who can handle it, so the overwhelm is worth it.
A study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology found that, naturally, people want to feel irreplaceable in romantic relationships. If they didn’t feel that way, they found it necessary to work at “strengthening the partner’s commitment.” This shows that people who think they are irreplaceable feel secure in their position and see no need to work to keep it because it’s already firmly theirs. Feeling irreplaceable is tempting, but doing so at the cost of overwhelm isn’t worth it.
4. It lets them avoid getting too close to people
Morgan said that living in a chaotic state of overwhelm means that you can keep your guard up with no consequences. “Being overwhelmed keeps you too ‘busy’ to connect, share, or be vulnerable. Your overwhelm becomes your strategy for keeping your walls up,” she described. If you’re overwhelmed and living in a state of chaos, no one is going to question why you aren’t sharing more. They’ll just accept that you’re doing the best you can as is and expect no more from you.
This could all have something to do with what Marisa G. Franco, PhD, called the theory of inferred attraction. She explained that we tend to like people when we perceive ourselves as being liked by them. If one thinks another person doesn’t like them, then they won’t like them back. It basically leads to a lot of people not liking each other. If someone feels like other people don’t like them, then they’ll see no reason to work to connect with them. Instead, they’ll just keep their walls up and hide behind them.
5. It allows them to hold the moral high ground
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“You become the one who ‘gives the most,’ ‘cares the most,’ ‘does the most,’ which keeps you above criticism,” Morgan explained. Again, someone can weaponize their overwhelm so that it appears that they are doing more than everyone else and deserve a major break because of it. This can lead to the moral high ground for them, because no one would dare criticize someone whose life is so chaotic.
In a study conducted by Jessie Sun, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University, she found that “nearly half of respondents said they were most motivated to become more moral for their own sake.” While people typically think of morality as something that you embrace for the good of others, Sun and her fellow researchers found that people felt it benefited their own well-being. This “self-serving” perspective of the moral high ground could explain why those hanging on to chaos for petty reasons would want to maintain that high ground.
6. It gives them the chance to control the room’s emotional tone
This goes back to someone using their overwhelm to manipulate others. Morgan said, “Your overwhelm becomes your go-to manipulation tactic to get others to tiptoe around you. You use your emotional capacity as a tool to get people to ‘be kind’ to you because you’re always at your breaking point.” If someone is living in a state of chaos, that means they can make others feel bad for them and stop them from treating them badly.
This is a form of emotional manipulation. According to psychiatrist Dr. Harold Hong, “Emotional manipulation is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to control another person’s emotions. It is often done through persuasion, coercion, or even emotional blackmail.” By appearing constantly overwhelmed to others, a person is emotionally manipulating others into being kind to them without question. It’s not healthy.
Being overwhelmed is not an excuse for behaving poorly.
If someone is coming from a place of chaos, it’s easy to give them a free pass for any bad behavior because of what they’re going through. However, it’s very possible that that is what they want you to think. They may simply stay in the chaos to garner your sympathy and attention. That’s not appropriate at all.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
