Sometimes life throws endless challenges towards you and you may feel stuck and unable to move further. You may ask yourself ‘What is wrong with me?’
An inner call is trying to tell you loud that you are overburdened with emotional upheavals. It’s time to release those blockages to move on with your life.
But whatever it is, remember that you are not the only one in the pitfall. All of us have experienced such feelings at some point of time in our lives.
Your inner critic is trying to make you realize that carrying a burden of negative emotions and troubling thoughts can actually make you behave in odd ways. It can make you feel lost inside out, clueless about how to manage things.
Hold on! You are all-powerful and capable to take charge of your life and living, the way you want.
What is wrong with me?
SUMMARY
‘What is wrong with me’ is a set of troubled and misleading thoughts, coupled with negative emotions and pessimism that may crop up, when nothing seems to go ‘right’ and ‘perfect’ in your life. Your life sulks and you are unable to deal with those weird feelings.
When you feel that nothing is going right in your life, you may sit down and question yourself ‘what is wrong with me?’
Every moment you are living in utter distress and confusion but nothing seems to fall in place. Perhaps, people around you have started asking you “what is bothering you so much?”, “Is everything fine with you?”
As the answers to these queries are unknown, it makes you feel more awkward and jittery. The problem with mental health conditions is that there are no set rules and guidelines that can define ‘normality.’
What is considered normal for you may appear totally absurd, abnormal, or weird for some other individual!
Our society judges us on some set behavior patterns that it considers normal. Whenever you fall short of those parameters, you are considered out of the way, and it makes you feel bad about yourself.
People around you may tease or bully you for being different from the rest. Your family, friends, and spouse want you to behave in certain ways. Actually, you are pressured to live life on certain terms and conditions that they think are ‘right.’
Research done on behavioral sciences has shown that some deviations from normal and thinking, behaving in some other ways can be healthy and lead to better adaptation and adjustment.
The problem occurs when your ways of behavior do not match with the concept of ideal mental health and as such, it is creating a lot of pathology in your daily life.
Feeling like something is wrong with me
What is wrong with me can cause problems and issues if it interferes with adjustment, coping with changes, social interaction, relationships. If you see these patterns regularly in your everyday living; it’s time to self introspect and visualize things from a different angle.
No matter what problems you are facing right now, you are still in a hard time that is affecting your inner peace and happiness. In such a circumstance, it is a good idea to seek help and guidance from a counselor or mental health professional.
Being different is not the problem but if it poses a threat to your personal well-being and makes you fall deeper into the pitfall of darkness and depression, you may suffer more.
The skill lies in managing things successfully by seeking help from support groups, connecting with family and friends who understand more and criticize less.
In this way, you will learn better ways of coping with stress and turmoil. It is a bold and first good step towards emotional healing and recovery.
How do I figure out ‘What is wrong with me?’
It is important to understand that your thoughts, perspectives, beliefs, feelings are all genuine and are a part of you. There are many symptoms that may hint at a problem.
You can’t figure out what’s going wrong. You can just note down the below-mentioned symptoms to analyze your personal state of being. The warning signs could be:
1. Mood swings
Your mood may go high or low at times but if it changes too frequently and you ride on an emotional roller coaster every now and then, it must be a cause of concern somewhere beneath.
Serious mood shifts affect mental well-being and disrupt normal living. You may become emotionally sensitive and suffer from fear or anger more often than usual.
2. Anxiousness
You may suffer from intense worry and fear symptoms that are interfering with your daily life. It is impacting your social relationships, workplace adaptation, and much more. You may have dreadful feelings, restlessness, and anticipation for some worst happenings in life.
Most of your fears are based on faulty beliefs and irrational thoughts. The worrying can consume your time and work efficiency leaving you tired and bewildered.
3. Procrastination
This means laziness and a lack of interest in the everyday work that you do. You always put off things that you were supposed to do. This leads to delaying actions, apathy, inactivity, and an unwillingness to complete an activity.
This is a purposeful delay that you do only because you do not want to do it. If this condition disrupts normal life, it can become a cause of concern.
4. Feeling restless and lack of inner peace
You may feel emotionally restless and agitated. This takes away your peace of mind and happiness. A sense of worry lurks high on you.
Your wandering mind takes you from one problem to the other and it seems as if your problems are actually endless. You are unable to calm down even if you want to.
5. Troubling thoughts coming to and from
Intrusive thoughts can be a sign of an underlying mental illness. If you get troubled by your thoughts quite frequently, you will feel upset and anguished.
Unwanted thoughts can come from nowhere. It leads to more worries and diminishes your concentration levels. These thoughts can bring fear, agitation, shame, and self-doubt.
6. Feelings of guilt and self blaming tendencies
Feelings of guilt are due to poor self-esteem. You are blaming yourself for every wrong thing happening to you. You are overly sensitive and prone to make wrong decisions. The more you blame yourself, you lose your ability to self love and self validate your feelings.
7. Decreased energy
If you are suffering from chronic fatigue, poor health, and mental exhaustion, you may have decreased energy levels. There is a loss of interest, everyday tasks may seem difficult. You may feel tired all the time without any identifiable medical condition.
8. Decreased appetite and reduced sleep
Your constant worries and irrational thoughts are taking a toll on your physical health and mental wellness. It may lead to poor appetite, lack of proper sleep, insomnia, difficulty in falling asleep. Your food habits are unhealthy and have led to poor immunity and ill health.
9. Body aches and stiffness
If you are not feeling right mentally, it will have an effect on your physical body. You may suffer from stiff muscles, lack of physical fitness, and frequent body aches and spasms.
You may suffer from extreme fatigue. Body muscles and bones may ache and it can keep you mentally restless.
10. Remembering past hurts
When you feel ‘what is wrong with me’, you may remember the past emotional pains and hurts.
You are dwelling on past happenings that can only bring grief and agony. It is better to let go of the pain and move ahead in life. Free yourself from past hurts and heal those wounds that have broken you from within.
11. Not living in the moments
When you feel that something is wrong with you, you will tend to either focus on past happenings or future goals. You are not living the moments you are in. This robs you of your present happiness. You are not mindful of your present existence.
As you dwell on past thoughts or future fears, you are unable to experience the joy of ‘here and now.’
12. Inattentive
If you feel nothing is falling in place nowadays, you may get distracted easily. Worries and anxiety about unknown things can make you emotionally restless.
Your attention span suffers and your concentration ability decreases. You can have problems doing quiet activities. This symptom is found in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
13. Poor decision making
Lack of mindfulness and inattention can bring poor decision-making. You are unable to solve problems rationally and arrive at good decisions.
This can be due to emotional problems, social incompetence, and personal inadequacy. If you have poor decision-making skills, you may not be able to accomplish your goals easily.
14. Long lasting sadness
If you feel that something is wrong with you, you may feel overwhelmed with many negative emotions. There can be long-lasting sadness, grief, and pessimism.
You may feel empty from within. A feeling of being broken and lesser from within pervades your psychological makeup. You can even suffer frequent breakups, fights with colleagues, problems with parents.
15. Social withdrawal
Social isolation can be an effect of mental health issues. If you are sad and unhappy, you may feel like avoiding people and social situations.
There is a fear and anxiety with making new social connections. This may be because of poor self-esteem, low self-confidence, and an inferiority feeling. It can cause mental distress and social segregation as well.
Is there something wrong with me – 12 crappy feelings that say so
You have been bothered by goddamn and ugly feelings. Right! These challenging everyday moments have overwhelmed you emotionally, leaving no space to experience happiness and inner peace.
Remind yourself that you are indeed not alone. You are neither wrong nor broken but you are human.
The feeling will come and go. Few of them will disturb and overwhelm you, others may bring joy, and the rest could be awkward and appear weird. Let’s look into a few nasty feelings that made you feel that there is something wrong with you.
‘I am flawed and do not deserve love and respect’
This feeling makes you believe that you are the only one with flaws and shortcomings. People around you must have criticized you; this made you feel awkward and different from others.
Over time, feelings of unworthiness and lack of respect have taken their toll on you. It was enough to lower your self-esteem.
You relied on others for self-validation. It also made you a people pleaser. No one is perfect and we all have character flaws. So just chill and be ‘who you are.’
‘I worry continuously, can’t stop it’
Your anxiety is a harsh truth that you must be experiencing. It wrecks your sleep, diminishes appetite, and gives you a good share of emotional insecurities to deal with. It also ruins attentiveness. These excessive worries are hard to accept and cope with.
You may not be able to pinpoint the main reason for your anxiety but it’s there, troubling and killing you from within.
‘Am I not good enough?’
This feeling comes from the society that you belong to. From your childhood days, you have been trolled and broken with criticisms. This was enough to reduce your self-confidence. It made you feel unworthy of yourself and lacking in everything that you do.
As you were compared with others, you were taught to become perfect and flawless. But to be real, it’s not possible. Perfection is a myth. You need not be perfect to live a mentally healthy life.
Do not try to fix things only because others want it. Learn to appreciate your tiny successes and reward yourself with a positive affirmation. It makes you feel good about yourself.
‘My future is uncertain and I feel clueless about what will happen next’
When you get bothered by this kind of feeling, it means that you never live in your moments. You are either ruminating over past happenings or worrying excessively over the uncertain future. You are stressed out with thoughts of what happens next.
Remind yourself that life is uncertain. You will never know what comes next because it is unknown. There are things that happen only because they ought to happen.
So, if you are feeling “what happens if I lose my job?”, “What happens if my partner leaves me?”, “What will happen if I do not get a pay hike this year?”
These feelings rob you of your present happiness. Frankly, nobody can guarantee anything for you. So, just ease out and let go of thoughts that do not serve a worthy purpose.
‘I feel lonely and socially isolated’
Every one of us needs connection and bonding with our fellow beings. If you feel a lack of love and bonding, it means you are isolated and lonely.
You do not belong to community living. This feeling can make you sad and depressed. If you get these feelings frequently, you need to question your relationship-building skills.
Try out new ways of connecting. Spend time with friends and family members, show your support and concern for others. It is the time to foster positive relationships, but if it tends to fall apart, try to understand the causes and remove them.
Feelings of loneliness can have far-reaching damage to your mental health. So, it is advisable to sort out things on time.
‘My sleep pattern is erratic’
Are you the one not getting proper sleep? Does it make you physically tired, and mentally lethargic? Lack of good sleep is a symptom of an underlying mental health problem. It depicts that you are anxious and restless.
Sometimes, a bad mood, fear, sadness, and grief can also cause erratic sleep patterns. Sleep is a way to rest and heal. If you are not getting enough of it, try out some relaxation exercises such as So Hum meditation to improve your quality of life.
‘I feel angry at slightest provocation’
Anger is a primary emotion and we all do get it; but if it interferes with your daily life, it may become problematic and hamper relationships. You know that something is not going right. You may feel agitated, hostile, and impatient at the slightest provocation.
It may be difficult to calm down. In such a situation, try to find the underlying cause of such behavior. You need to release the tension and anxiety working within you.
For this, slow breathing exercises can help. It calms down your wandering mind and helps in emotional mastery.
‘I always remain emotionally high and overwhelmed’
If you feel so, it means poor emotional control. You are not able to handle the emotional upsurge and have become jittery and impatient. There may be various reasons for this. If you have strict deadlines, a lot of work pressure, lack of family support, you may feel this way.
Poor emotional control can meltdown your personal and professional life, you need to find a way out of it.
Good emotional skills can be maintained by following a proper routine, focusing on one task at a time, not making a last-minute rush, to take breaks from work, when needed. All these help to improve your efficiency and lower the overwhelming feelings.
‘I lack motivation to do anything’
You may lack motivation some days and that’s absolutely normal. If it becomes a regular pattern, it poses a threat to your mental health. A boring job, daily household chores can bring monotony and you may lose interest and motivation to carry on with routine tasks.
Though there is nothing wrong with it, in order to fall in tune with a system, you can try it out by setting small goals that you can easily achieve. This will improve your motivation levels as you will learn to appreciate success.
You can even plan out doing things that you like so as to get back the lost rhythm in your life.
‘I feel lost and lack a purpose in life’
When you feel lost and stuck in making good decisions, you may face problems with accomplishing goals. You do not have a clear-cut vision of what to do next.
At times, perfect decisions are not needed, so never try to make things perfect. If you fall short on certain aspects of life, your life will not suffer a setback.
But if you suffer from it and it continues for a long time, you should seek help from a counselor to understand the underlying problems. These weird feelings should not take away your happiness and poise.
Do not harbor negative feelings and give them an indefinite stay. After all, life is about moving on with a purpose.
‘I feel my body is not looking nice’
Sometimes you may feel unwell and may not appear fit but if this feeling is regular then there is something wrong with it. It shows your poor self-image and lack of self-love. As it affects self-esteem, you need to change your perspectives.
Little self-care can do wonders for you. If you feel your body is not good enough, you should seek professional guidance to work on your broken self-esteem.
‘Nothing seems to fall in place’
When nothing goes right or seems to go your way, you may feel that life is out of control. You find yourself in a whirlpool of emotional upheavals from which respite becomes difficult. You are forced to feel that there is something wrong with you.
No matter how hard you work, certain things are just out of your control. So it is better to accept it as it happens and let go of things that appear to be uncontrolled.
If you spend your time changing something that’s impossible, you will lose inner peace and happiness and can even feel worse than ever before.
What is wrong with me mentally?
The stressful life situations can make you feel ‘What is wrong with me.’ Your emotions take over. You may feel overwhelmed with a lack of control. You seem to be fearful and anxious, helpless and in utter doubt. Life becomes difficult to deal with.
You can’t explain what exactly is going wrong. There may be overlapping psychological issues or any core mental disorder that makes life difficult and unworthy.
Let’s analyze a few mental health problems that can make you feel ‘what is wrong with me mentally?’
Anxiety disorders
A hectic lifestyle, busy schedule, stress at work, and a long to-do list can bring a lot of anxiety and worries. Anxiety is caused by fear; uncertainty, social maladjustment, etc. Are you struggling more these days? Has it affected your health and work efficiency?
If you feel that something is wrong with you, the first issue that comes to mind is anxiety. You are worrying too much these days, and it is slowly consuming you. A few typical signs of anxiety disorders that can be self-diagnosed are:
- Excessive worrying
- Feeling restless and agitated
- Mood swings
- Erratic sleep
- Poor appetite or binge eating
- Poor attention span
- Frequent forgetting
- Tense body muscles
- Social isolation
- Panic attacks
- Irrational fear
Anxiety disorders can take any form- it can be generalized anxiety disorders, phobia, OCD (Obsessive-compulsive disorder), panic attacks, PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder).
In case you feel you are suffering from excessive worries, you should visit a professional to uncover the hidden issues underneath and develop appropriate coping strategies to live a healthy life.
Issues with sadness, loss, and unresolved conflicts
When you feel that something is wrong with you mentally, it could be due to loss or grief. Things may get worse if you suffer a breakup, loss of a loved one, loss of job, etc.
Perhaps you don’t have adequate support around and that makes you feel overwhelmed and anxious. The best way to resolve lost feelings is by accepting them as much as possible.
Talk more about your loss and share your feelings with family and friends. It makes you resilient from within. Contrary, if you hold on to emotions and entrap them within you, it causes more suffering.
Keep a journal and note down your inner conflicts. It helps to understand your thoughts well and helps develop good coping skills.
Depression
Do you feel weighed down emotionally? Do grief and sadness suck you every now and then? Could you be depressed somehow?
If you are not feeling right for some time now, it can be due to depression or bipolar disorder. You can self diagnose by checking out a few notable symptoms:
- Frequent mood swings
- Excessive crying, irritability
- Pessimism and loss of interest
- Feel guilty and apathetic
- Lack of concentration
- Slowness and inactivity
- Feeling sad
- Suicidal thoughts
- Weight gain or excessive weight loss
- Insomnia
- Poor eating habits and symptoms of eating disorder
- Substance abuse
- Worries and overthinking
The above signs show that things are not right emotionally. You need counseling or psychotherapeutic intervention if the symptoms last longer and start to interfere with adaptation and adjustment in your daily life.
Problems with poor self esteem
Do you see yourself as a valuable and worthy being? Are you the one playing a blame game with yourself? Self-esteem plays a very vital role in mental wellbeing. Thus, if you consider yourself inefficient, unworthy, and helpless you will form negative self-esteem.
You will feel unwanted and broken from within. Since, you have the ability to empower yourself, to control the way you think and feel. you should need to realize that your inner value is still there. It just needs your acceptance and self-love to get nourished and bloom.
Personality disorders
Getting to know you is not that hard actually. If you feel burnout, pause for a while and start introspecting. Certain lifestyle changes, coupled with self compassion can make you feel better and worthy.
Personality disorders are a group of conditions that leads to false beliefs, unhealthy thought patterns, irrational fears, anger outbursts, and mood swings. The common one is borderline personality disorder.
You may have a hard time dealing with everyday problems. If you observe these patterns frequently, seek help from support groups or a psychologist. Timely intervention in the form of CBT, behavior therapy, and talk therapy will help to reduce symptoms and mental agony.
Ways to help yourself if you know ‘What is wrong with me’
We are humans and ought to feel emotions. That’s natural. It makes sense to accept days or moments of odd feelings but it’s harsh to continue in it for a longer time. When sadness and hopelessness hit hard, you want to feel safe and secure.
So, here are a few ways to help you in times of emotional distress.
- Appreciate and accept your feelings as it is.
- Give yourself permission to let go of negative emotions.
- Never judge or try to change the way you feel.
- You can do something that makes you feel at ease instantly in moments of distress.
- Use positive affirmations to rebuild your broken self-esteem.
- Close your eyes and remember the happy moments spent with your loved ones.
- Listen to good music
- Watch a good movie or settle in with a book.
- Forgive yourself for the mistakes committed.
- You can practice meditation and relaxation exercises.
- Seek help from family and friends in times of bad mood.
- Write a gratitude journal and be thankful for all the good things in life.
- Art therapy can help to remove negative emotions.
- Practice self-love and self-care, whenever possible.
NOTE
If you are bothered with excessive worry or confused thinking too often and it interferes with your ability to function in day-to-day life, seek expert advice from a psychotherapist. As each illness has its own set of symptoms and causes, an expert can guide you through the treatment options more easily.
Parting words
When you walk in the path of self-introspection, you are proactively engaged with yourself. Remember, that feeling lost at times can help you find the true purpose of life. It makes you a better person.
Perhaps, make sure that you let go of worries and be present in your journey of life. ‘What is wrong with me’ may hint at a passing phase in this ever-changing world.
Article Sources
1. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-wrong-with-me-5094673
2. https://www.nami.org/Personal-Stories/What-is-Wrong-with-Me
3. https://www.supportiv.com/tools/what-is-wrong-with-me-how-to-feel-less-broken
