Dealing with a Moody Person | HealthyLife

How are you Dealing with a Moody Person

We all will go through this experience of having at least one friend or a family member who behaves weird or moody. In common words “they drive us nuts” or “why are these people being so difficult?” What exactly is moody? The definition is -It is the unpredictable changes of mood, especially sudden bouts of gloominess or sullenness of a person. You cannot predict when a person becomes moody and cold towards you. You will not understand many times why they have become moody. Reasons can be many or none. Common reasons are:

Family matters – People carry their family unpleasant matters in their mind and can become moody.
Work pressure – Work or job pressure, colleagues behavior, demand of boss can make people moody
Personal look – If a person all of a sudden will start feeling about their body in a different way
Comparison – Comparison with other friends or siblings
Seeking attention – The most common factor – to be center of attraction. If a person is not giving us the support we want, we try to control him through our behavior.
No reasons- Absolutely no reason at all.

The dilemma is how to handle these friends who often becomes moody? Throwing friendship away is not an option. Because they are good, helpful and may be you have a long history of friendship or may be childhood friends. Also, the moodiness may be the recent development. What effect someone’s moodiness might have on you? Feeling neglected, trying to constantly please the person, neglecting your own happiness , you becoming angry or sad (because you don’t know the reason) or you may feel you are the reason for your friend’s behavior.

Let us see how you can keep your mind happy and stress free and how you can manage these situations.

Take off for couple of days from the person: You need to relax and unwind away from the stress. So, engage yourself in an activity where your friend or family member cannot get involved. Avoid the cold person and embrace the warm person. This way you will feel better and will give the moody person a chance to feel your absence and not to take chance with you.

Tell the person how you feel: The mood swing behavior of the person may bother you a lot and eventually will affect your social and family life. Tell them – firmly and in a polite manner -how their mood swing is bothering you. This will help the other person to understand your feelings and they may watch their behavior with you and other people. They may even open up to you and let you know what it is that is causing them to act that way.

Show them how it is to be moody: Not to take revenge but, if this moodiness behavior of the person is happening often and bothering you too much then, show them how it will be if you become moody. When that person sees what it is like they are able to see from your point of view. This will help them to understand the other person feeling and may start explaining themselves better or may let the moodiness behavior may leave them.

Do not pay attention: If someone is constantly moody around you then you should try to act exactly how you normally would and do not pay any attention to his or her moodiness. If you feel that, this is the right thing to do then just do it. Just talk to them normally as if you have not observed their moodiness or mood out behaviors.

Do not blame yourself for others moodiness: Remember you may not be even the reason for someone’s behavior. You may be just in front of them when they are upset or moody as a bystander. If you feel so, ask the person right away and tell them to be honest with you with their feelings and moods.

Stand your ground: Some people use their bad mood to control others. This is the way they might have been behaving their entire life. Do not give in to the game. Make it very clear that you do not tolerate mistreated. Communicate to them that you will consider their suggestions, but not because they are demanding it from you.

Remain positive and upbeat: Sometimes your behavior of being positive and energetic brings the person to normalcy. Open up common topics for discussion that are interesting for both of you. Do not participate in the blame game with moody person. It may affect your relationship with others.

Communicate & lend your ears: (Continuing with second point) Talk to the person – many a times people who are moody might going through tough time and may not even know how to express themselves.Talk to them with kindness and compassion. Sometimes in future we may be in their shoes and we may need someone to talk. For benefit of happiness of both minds- talk, listen and help.

Everybody has good and bad days. Each one of us will suffer from a bad mood from time to time. Occasionally moodiness is acceptable. However, if someone you know, seems to be constantly mood off and on the verge of an outburst, chances are they have some problems that your friendship isn’t going to solve. To keep you and others happy and upbeat, before jumping to solve the problem and / or coming to a conclusion- handle matters carefully with moody people and analyze their problem and the depth of the situation. Success in relationships really is as easy as knowing which strategy to use with friends and family depending on what is going on.

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