Exploring The Gray Area: Coping with Transitions and Change

Maybe not everything is a catastrophe? A concept that may seem obvious to some, but for me, and maybe some of you, this can be a hard realization to wake up to. A few months ago, I came to the realization that I’ve spent most of my life living in the “black or white” mindset; living between two extremes, and found myself exhausted, scared. This constant pull between an extreme positive case scenario and extreme negative left me confused and emotionally hyperactive. I found myself never being able to identify when I was actually in the extremes. 

As eye-opening it is to realize you’ve been suffocated by this concept of extremes, frankly, the acceptance itself wasn’t enough to move forward from this captivating mindset. Finding the root, the development, and now the crest of the problem, led me down a deeper maze that was overwhelming. 

A coping mechanism? 

It seems contradictory that something so harmful was developed as a coping mechanism to protect myself as a child, but thinking in extremes allowed me to emotionally process worst/best case scenarios just in case I needed to. This way, I felt prepared, ready for anything, even if the situation was mild/minimally harmful at its worst. 

Growing up with uncertainty left me to hold great fear over the unknown. The unknown, or as I like to call it, the “gray area,” was different from these common extremities I could run to. The gray area was that sometimes between always and never, it was the some between all or none. The gray area was foreign, confusing, and seemed unrealistic. These concepts were so hard to grasp, having lived in between extremes for so long. 

As I’ve gotten older, this protective mechanism has proven to no longer serve me. As a young student dealing with the complexities of relationships, jobs, bills, living alone, etc., lurking toward an extremity whenever dealing with uncertainty was becoming far too often. This becomes obsessive and unreasonable. With the consistent face of changes and transitions, I was left with no choice but to change my old way of thinking. 

If I can give any advice to the reader, it would be to be patient with yourself. Provide yourself with the support you would give to a loved one. You’re just a person, dealing with a complex life and complex emotions. Identifying where you can change is a positive, not a negative. Learning is the roadmap to life. Try to find the all or nothing vocabulary terms, and catch yourself when you begin to use them. Identify why you feel something “always” happens, or “never” does. Find rationality, and revisit the way of thinking. Finally, let yourself go with the change. It may seem inherently negative at times, or just purely unwanted, but let it flow, let it be. Remember that the falling of leaves in the fall doesn’t mean the trees are dying, it means they are preparing for a new season, but will be back again as time allows.

• anxiety
• change
• grief
• mental health
• transition