I Have Developed an Allergy to Drama

How to Get Off the Merry-Go-Round of Constant Crisis

Jeff and I walking along the beach with our kids in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Jeff and I have a skillset we wish we didn’t have. We are both very good at navigating a crisis.

When high drama takes over, Jeff and I can step into the chaos and take care of everything. The higher the stakes, the calmer our efficiency. But this isn’t something we’re necessarily proud of.

This is something that is often learned in childhood. When the adults should have been taking care of the kids, the kids had to take over and take care of the adults. This is backwards and dysfunctional, but this is what “works” in the midst of dysfunction.

But then those kids become adults. And oftentimes, those adults continue to live on a merry-go-round of constant crisis because that is all they know. They know how to “fix” problems, including family drama. What’s more, those adults are oftentimes heralded as the “heroes” in their family because they’re the ones who can keep it all together when it feels like everything is falling apart.

Family Roles…

If you’ve ever studied Family Systems Theory, you know that family members often assume certain roles.

These roles can include:

• The Hero (the one who performs for achievement or applause)

• The Scapegoat (the one who is different and is often blamed for the family’s problems)

• The Mascot (the one who diffuses conflict with humor or deflection)

• The Lost Child (the one who survives by being as invisible as possible)

• The Enabler/Caretaker (the one who constantly needs to “fix” others)

In a healthy family system, individual family members are able to grow and take on new roles — even roles that may take them further outside the family.

In a dysfunctional family system, individual family members are not encouraged to grow or take on new roles. They already have a role, and everyone in the family relies on everybody else staying in their fixed role. This is how they maintain a false sense of equilibrium.

The Skilled Crisis Manager…

The Hero in a family is also sometimes the Caretaker. I call this the Skilled Crisis Manager, and this skillset can easily become one’s identity within the family system. Then codependence reigns, where the Skilled Crisis Manager finds personal fulfillment in helping the needier family members find their footing again.

In these scenarios, the Skilled Crisis Manager can become addicted to crisis because everyone looks to them with admiration over how much they help everyone get through the crisis at hand. And the cycle continues.

Getting off the Merry-Go-Round of Constant Crisis…

At one point in my twenties, I felt like bad things kept happening to me. Once again, I was in crisis. But when I looked at some families I knew at church, I didn’t see those families going from crisis to crisis to crisis.

Why was my life filled with constant crisis?

Because that is how I was raised. And at some point, crisis and chaos become your normal. It becomes your way of life. And on some level, there is satisfaction in being the person who can navigate the chaos with a degree of efficiency.

But I didn’t want to be Crisis Girl, so I prayed a prayer.

I literally prayed, “God, please crucify it. Whatever it is inside of me that draws me towards the next big crisis, crucify it. Kill it. Destroy it. I don’t want to pass this on to my kid.”

And God was faithful. Slowly, but with deliberate intention, I learned how to make choices that didn’t lead to yet another crisis. It’s one of the main reasons I clung to my Bible throughout my twenties. When I didn’t have adults in my life to seek advice from, I sought God’s leading through his Word.

Then I met Jeff. He too had learned to navigate his own crises, and we both had to learn to lay down our roles as Skilled Crisis Managers. We didn’t want our lives going from one crisis to the next. And we didn’t want our kids growing up feeling like it’s normal to always be in a crisis.

We embraced a different way to live: A way of life without being in constant crisis mode.

Sometimes it was hard. Sometimes it was awkward. And sometimes we had family or friends who didn’t understand what we were trying to accomplish.

But twenty years later, we are so glad to have left behind a life of constant crisis mode.

Social Media and the Crisis-Attention Economy…

I can tell you honestly, social media did not make this easy. The value system that encompasses social media is the ability to put one’s personal crisis on display for other people’s consumption and entertainment. And the algorithms reward people for their “authenticity” and “vulnerability.”

In other words, social media is an ecosystem that thrives (where people can go viral) when there is high drama.

Even the publishing world will reward people for growing online audiences, and one of the fastest and easiest ways to grow an online audience is to share with real time updates the latest news in one’s personal crisis. This could be a health crisis or a marriage crisis or a church crisis.

The bigger the drama, the more likely that people will want to tune in (and the more followers a person will have). And the more likely that certain publishers will want to offer a book deal.

This is just how the world works.

(Personally, I am thankful to have worked with publishers that didn’t prioritize drama.)

From the earliest days of social media, I had a natural distrust of social media and its algorithms. I enjoyed reconnecting with friends from high school, especially during the early days of Facebook, but very quickly I saw the way the masses used social media. It was a means to take the drama of our everyday lives and turn it into blog fodder or Instagram fodder.

But I could never use social media in that way because a life that feeds on drama is the very thing God delivered me from.

For me to turn around and use social media as a means for broadcasting the drama in my life would have been the same thing as swimming back across the Red Sea to go back to Egypt.

God had answered the prayer I prayed in my twenties. God had delivered me from living in constant crisis mode. That is my Egypt, and I won’t go back to Egypt.

When a New Crisis Occurs…

Now, every once in a while, a genuine crisis will occur. And when it does, Jeff and I automatically spring into action. We know how to handle the practical matters that need addressing.

But even when something does occur, we are quick to say, “Let’s get back to normal. Let’s not stay in crisis mode.”

This doesn’t mean we ignore the actual trauma we have walked through. We understand that healing is a process. We simply want to de-center the trauma.

Understanding PTSD and Moving Forward…

Several years ago I read a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. Actually, I listened to the whole thing on Audible. It takes about 16 hours to listen to the entire book, and I listened to one hour every day for a couple of weeks while walking around my favorite park in San Dimas, California.

When we experience trauma, our bodies remember the triggers and the sensations. And sometimes our bodies will relive the trauma with a fresh wave of fear.

One of the things I have learned about trauma is to ask myself:

Am I remembering the trauma? Or am I reliving the trauma?

This is key. A healed person can remember the trauma without a fresh surge of adrenaline rushing through their veins. A person who is experiencing PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) will sometimes relive the trauma with the actual physical sensations accompanying it. But this doesn’t have to be permanent. Healing is possible.

In my 15 years of writing online, I have never written about this, but I am doing so now for four reasons:

One, I want to give God praise for answering my prayer twenty-five years ago and delivering me from a life of constant crisis mode, which involved a lot of drama.

Two, I want to encourage you that, with God, hope and healing are possible.

Three, I want to explain why I never used social media in the typical ways; in fact, I’m not even on social media anymore.

And four, I want to share why my writing rarely involves the high-drama of a roller coaster ride with real-time updates.

I must honor what God has done in my life.

By God’s grace, I have developed a healthy allergy to drama.

It’s a big reason why I choose to embrace the quiet life (1 Thessalonians 4:11), which is the subject of my book Sanctuary. I like the quiet.

To God be all the glory.

Shalom.

~ Denise

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