Normally, dissatisfaction is a sign that something is wrong, that you are going wrong, or that you are involved in a relationship that does not feel good. In any case, in a certain sense, it warns us that we must change something, in order to reach a state of greater satisfaction and well-being. From this point of view, dissatisfaction is not negative, on the contrary, it encourages us to change and improve aspects of ourselves or the situations that surround us. In practice, it pushes us to transform our resources to constructively redirect our steps.
However, when dissatisfaction takes on the characteristics of chronicity, it becomes dysfunctional and negative for well-being; it happens when it plunges us into a state of permanent sorrow and prevents us from focusing and fully living the present, because we are not satisfied with what we are, we do not fully accept our identity and the situations that, for various reasons, we live daily.
L ‘ chronic dissatisfaction leads to a split between an “I” ideal and the person who has or is perceived to be and it is clear that, if you can not match these two images, one can not achieve full satisfaction. People who suffer from a chronic sense of dissatisfaction in most cases struggle to find the source of their dissatisfaction, but report a more or less constant state in their life that leads them to be unmotivated , bored and generally in a bad mood. It is, therefore, a sort of deeply rooted “living sickness”, even if difficult to define, but equally difficult to overcome, which at times can also become invalidating.
This sense of chronic dissatisfaction usually has distant origins, which refer to the first relational experiences, where images of oneself, others and the surrounding world are formed. To understand, and therefore manage, this dissatisfaction, it is therefore necessary to investigate these first experiences, trying to understand what are the beliefs about themselves and others that these people have been able to create and which still influence them today, in their present, making them always tend to feel dissatisfied.
If we try to read the main characteristics of chronic dissatisfaction in a more complete perspective, these can reveal the symptom of pathological personality pictures (often of a narcissistic type ) or of anxious and / or depressive syndromes ; in particular, the signals that can make us connect certain symptoms to certain psychopathological pictures are the following:
- Disappointment and frustration: dissatisfaction can be the engine that mobilizes energies, motivating us to go towards the realization of goals and desires that, once achieved, make us feel satisfied with ourselves, happy for being able to give us a small or great realization of ourselves . A chronic dissatisfied person, on the other hand, rarely reaches the threshold of satisfaction and even the eventual achievement of a goal is often experienced with feelings of disappointment or frustration.
- Tendency to perfectionism: which pushes us to do more and better every day, in an attempt to achieve utopian satisfaction which, however, is hardly perceived and which, in any case, involves a series of costs in emotional and practical terms, which in any case do not make it possible fully enjoy the result achieved. In these cases, even the simple organization or implementation of trivial projects can be a source of stress and performance anxiety.
- Hypersensitivity to failure: those who suffer from chronic dissatisfaction find it hard to tolerate any experience of failure, even the most common, especially if they have done everything to be able to obtain a certain result. When a goal is not achieved, or not achieved as hoped, the guilt , of responsibility and frustration seem to be the only possible emotional reactions; on a cognitive level, however, rumination is confirmed to be the most used mental strategy, whose central nucleus resounds in the head as: ” I should have done things differently!”. Failure, rather than being an opportunity to draw a positive lesson for the future, tends to plunge the dissatisfied into a negative emotional cascade from which it will have difficulty in getting out, due to the maintenance of a real vicious circle.
- Tendency to complain: the dissatisfied never misses an opportunity to complain, alone and with others. He is almost never satisfied, even when he gets what he wants, and never misses an opportunity to point it out in a plaintive manner. For these people, it will never be a good time to do something and they will never get the right answer. This is because those who suffer from chronic dissatisfaction tend to continually think that they would like things to be different, better, more functional, done better, etc., thus taking refuge in the inflated concept of “nothing is ever good!”
- The obsessive nature of chronic dissatisfaction: in some cases, it is the feeling of dissatisfaction itself that takes on the characteristics of a real obsession; this happens when most of the person’s thoughts, emotions and consequent behaviors revolve around this central concept without stopping and without any use, so as to allow him to take up much more space than would be appropriate.
- Excess of self-criticism: the chronic dissatisfied is focused on success, otherwise it inflicts harsh criticism and possible punishments. The attitude to criticize oneself is markedly associated with dissatisfaction and this could also be attributable to an education centered on giving greater importance to errors (focus on sense of duty, responsibility, attention to performance, social approval, personal value, etc.) rather than individual gratification and progress.
- Absence of verbalized expectations: More or less we all have a tendency to expect others to meet our needs. The central problem of the chronic dissatisfied is double because, if on the one hand his expectations turn out to be objectively high (excessive standards), on the other the probability that they are satisfied is drastically reduced by the fact that they are in no way communicated to the other, with the conviction that the other must necessarily know and understand them. Those who suffer from a sense of chronic dissatisfaction send, from their own point of view, a series of signals but without really providing the other with the possibility of perceiving them and responding to them adequately (communication difficulties in the relationship, emotional dissatisfaction, etc.).
- A utopian happiness: “It would have been better if…”is the mantra of the chronic dissatisfied. Spurred on by the imperative need to have more and more and more and better, the dissatisfied finds it almost impossible to be fully happy. Something inside it always pushes him to continue his relentless search for something else that he has not yet obtained and that he feels he deserves: the dream job, the perfect romantic relationship, etc. The difficulty is inherent in not being able to think that there is already a “here and now”, which could be a source of happiness for him, thus remaining in the sense of chronic dissatisfaction .
- The unattainable goal: for the chronic dissatisfied the goal to be achieved sometimes exceeds the capabilities of which he has, thus creating a gap between the dream and reality. It may also happen that the goal he wants to achieve is blurred, unclear or defined and that its achievement requires the use of all individual resources; despite this, the final result almost never corresponds to full satisfaction, with all the resulting frustrations.
- Messages from others: While those with chronic dissatisfaction are convinced they can never do enough, the people around them may send them completely different messages, such as: “Do too much! Enjoy this moment, don’t you see how well we are ?! ”. These feedbacks, especially if repeated with constancy and insistence, can be perceived as criticisms that denote a lack of understanding on the part of the other; they rarely seem to help, since the chronic dissatisfied person does not have the ability to take the necessary distance to try to read their behavior from a different and healthier perspective.
It is not obvious that people suffering from chronic dissatisfaction come to the attention of specialists with a clear awareness of what and how they work, mostly complaining of depressed mood , tiredness, fatigue, poor understanding from others and frustration in relationships. The main task of the clinician, once other causes have been excluded, is precisely to grasp what may be behind these general symptoms and accompany the person on a path that takes into account the personological aspects and specific characteristics.
