Drama and gossip

I will try to explain this as best as i can. Pretty much my whole life if i look back on it i have been a drama queen. Everything was always dramatic and demanded attention from others. Dont get me wrong i have always been quite a positive person even annoyingly positive sometimes but again i when things were not going well, i certainly knew how to amplify it or overdramatize it to the max!!! The smallest problems would become BIG problems as i would feed into it and make it become overwhelming. Later on in life for quite a few years i got caught up in gossip with a bunch of so called friends and without noticing i become really negative, always bitching about everything, there was always something going on. It is only once i started therapy and stopped hanging out with those friends that i realized how i had become and how much it affected my life. The amount of stress that left me was astonishing to me!!It was amazing and quite a relief for a while. A few months later i found myself bored, really bored. There was nothing to gossip about and no one to gossip to and nothing dramatic going on in my life. It's then that i realised i was pretty much addicted to drama and gossip in many ways my whole life. I can now see clearly that gossiping and dramatizing everything was a perfect way to avoid my problems, my issues and also a perfect way to avoid being alone with myself. By gossiping about others issues or problems well i avoided dealing with my issues and problems. Being dramatic about everything also got me attention from others but i see now not very good attention and i also can see very clearly how draining this can be on friends (real ones) and family members. I was also always throwing myself to help others to the point of draining myself. Again another way to avoid dealing with my problems when you are completely focused on helping others all the time. Don't get me wrong i will always be a giving person that enjoys helping others but now i know i have to have bounderies and be able to say no and not help others to the point of forgetting about myself. Then when i was not doing well, i did not understand why others did not do the same for me. Well i now see clearly that none of those people ever asked me to give up my whole life to help them, and be there 24/7 etc etc. And i do NOT in any way whatsoever have the right to demand these things from others. It is not healthy for me or for them either way. Now when a problem arises I am getting better at trying not to make it into a huge deal where everyone around me has to stop their lives and give me attention or help me. Yes i do need help and people to support me but i see now that they can only do so much, they have lives to live as well and their own issues. They are not there to fix things for me or pick me up and take over every time i fall. I have also realised that if i am always always talking about my problems and complaining about them, it becomes draining to others but to me as well. By dwelling on things, or being negative or helpless or playing the victim (which i used to be oh so good out without noticing, but i see it now looking back...makes me ashamed just to write it) i am only making things worse. I now see that when an issue arises i dont have to blow it out of proportions with panic. I try to use my radical acceptance skills if you have read my previous posts...pretty much stop accept and now find a solution to the problem. Every little thing DOES NOT have to be dramatic. I now have a hard time with people who complain all the time about everything and never see the good in things. My very positive self is coming back and i am enjoying it quite a bit. I will give a few examples that i have shared in another blog. So i can chose to make my dayno non dramatic if i want by chosing to react differently to things around me. Now if i get into a cab, instead of thinking, oh god i hope he is not chatty etc etc. I actually join into a conversation or spark one up. I will chat with people on the bus. I know the people at my corner dep and coffe shop very well. Same as the pet shop and pharmacie. They have become aquaintances that make my day nicer when i go out into the world. If i have a problem with something small, i now see it doesnt have to become big. I chose to react to the person or problem in a calm positive manner if they chose to do differently i have the chose to not let it affect me. A big lesson is i will never ever be able to change other people but i can certainly change the way I CHOSE to react to them. I can do differently. I dont have to let every little thing affect me. Same applies to my past i can never ever change it but i can chose to change the way i react to it or chose to not let it affect my present anymore as well. I know i am kind of going back and forth on this post but my head i seem to be having a hard time saying what i am thinking, i hope this makes some sort of sense to someone out there hahah. Bottom line is gossip, dramatizing every little thing and being negative are choices, and to me they are bad ones and only affect you in very unhealthy ways and prevent you from moving forward in life. This is not easy to do at the begining at all but i find with practice and noticing the way i react to things and doing differently then i normally do i am starting to get the hang of it sometimes. I am hoping with more and more practice it will become a habit. I really try hard to see the good things that happen in my day because even though a lot of days are really hard, if i look hard enough there is always something good or at least a leson to be learned. My mom always says that the beauty of life is that you can change it at any second. I kind of like that thought. Thank you for reading me i hope i made some sort of sense :o) ps. Listen to yourself talk for one day or notice the way you interact with people in one day, you might be quite shocked or surprise as i was to find out how negative your thoughts, actions and words are and how draining they can be on others and how unhappy they end up making you. REALLY listen to yourself.