How to Make Yourself Miserable by Dr Windy Dryden

Why would anyone want to make themself miserable?

We do it all the time - make ourselves depressed, jealous, anxious, hurt, envious and angry. And there are payoffs - you get plenty of sympathy and help, people don't ask you to do difficult tasks, have high expectations of you or make demands of you. And best of all, if you fail at anything, you can simply put the blame on the fact that you were miserable.

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, you need this book. And if, despite the advantages, you'd prefer not to make yourself miserable, but take a fresh look at your life, and make some real changes, you'll find between the lines some excellent advice to help you take charge of your life.

Dr Dryden is an expert at getting people to solve their own problems.

Contents

Introduction

• How to make yourself anxious
• How to make yourself depressed
• How to make yourself feel ashamed
• How to make yourself feel guilty
• How to make yourself feel unhealthily angry
• How to make yourself feel hurt
• How to make yourself feel unhealthily jealous
• How to make yourself feel unhealthily Envious
• How to maintain emotional disturbance: Some concluding advice

I have written this book for those who are psychologically healthy and who wish to make themselves emotionally disturbed. You may be wondering why anyone would wish to choose emotional disturbance over psychological health. Let me let you into a secret. There are a number of advantages to be gained by being emotionally disturbed and a number of costs to being psychologically healthy. Let me list some of these respective payoffs and costs to show you what I mean.

Payoffs for being emotionally disturbed

• You get sympathy from people.
• People will help you out with a variety of tasks.
• You can get time off from work and still get paid.
• You may get early retirement on health grounds and get your pension paid early.
• People won't ask you to do difficult tasks.
• People won't put you under stress, so you will have an easier life.
• People won't have high expectations of you.
• You may be able to get people to do what you want them to do by reminding them verbally or by your actions that you suffer from emotional disturbance.
• Some people will look after you.
• If you are a student you may be able to get your degree without doing any work by dint of being emotionally disturbed (such a degree is called an aegrotat).
• If you fail at anything then you can put the blame on the fact that you were emotionally disturbed ('It wasn't me, it was my illness').

Costs of being psychologically healthy

• People will expect much of you and will be disappointed in you if you fail to live up to their expectations.
• You will be expected to carry the workload of others who are off sick (including those who are away from work due to psychological problems).
• People will ask you to do onerous tasks because they think you are healthy enough to cope with them.
• You will get little sympathy from people if you show how emotionally healthy you are.
• People will expect you to look after them. They will certainly not want to look after you.
• Few people will offer to help you with things.
• If you do fail at anything you will not have anything or anyone to blame for this but yourself.
• People will not make allowances for you.

I hope you can see from the above that being emotionally disturbed leads to an easier life and being psychologically healthy leads to a much harder life. With this in mind, welcome to the world emotional disturbance. This book will teach you how to make, yourself emotionally disturbed in the first place and how to maintain your disturbance in the second place. Follow the steps that I outline in these pages and practise the skills that I teach. If your goal is to be emotionally disturbed, you won't be disappointed.
Windy Dryden

About the author
Windy Dryden was born in London in 1950. He has worked in psychotherapy and counselling for over 25 years, and is the author or editor of over 120 books, including How to Accept Yourself (Sheldon Press, 1999) and Overcoming Anxiety (Sheldon Press, 2000). Dr Dryden is Professor of Counselling at Goldsmiths' College, University of London.