Comment: My dad, when confined to a wheel chair in a nursing home knew that his situation was far from ideal. He so strongly missed my mom. He got some pastoral help and also benefited from a low dose antidepressant. He still complained but seemed newly capable of finding the glass half-full. Some time later I asked him, “Dad, are you still feeling depressed?”
His response, “No but I ought to be!”
The article below seems quite balanced to me in stating, ” Yes, it’s good to complain, yes, it’s bad to complain, and yes, there’s a right way to do it,”
From the NYT by Margot Bastin: We’ve all done it: Whether it’s about traffic, our boss or our partner’s annoying habits, complaining “is just something we do, like breathing — though hopefully not as often,” said Robin Kowalski, a professor of psychology at Clemson University.
Even though it may come naturally, griping isn’t necessarily always a good thing. Ruminating on negative feelings, and reinforcing them through constant discussion with other people, can lead to catastrophizing, which “is something that can contribute to depression,” said Margot Bastin, who studies communication between friends at the department of School Psychology and Development in Context at the Belgian university KU Leuven.
This can happen because “the more you do something, the more entrenched that path becomes in your brain and the more you continue to do it,” said Angela Grice, a speech language pathologist specializing in the use of mindfulness-based practices and who previously researched executive functions and neuroscience at Howard University and the Neurocognition of Language Lab at Columbia University.
Constantly complaining can be an easy way to frustrate our confidantes, but there is research that shows it can also be a useful tool in bonding and helping us process emotions like stress and frustration.
Good to know.