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No matter how resilient and
strong you may be, you can experience stress when faced with a challenge
that exceeds your past experience and current capacity to cope. The
challenge is to break through when possible and retreat when necessary.
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A Closer Look at the 5 Alternatives at the Threshold of Tolerance:
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Life had never been better. Yesterday, Katherine had been bombarded
with unexpected good news. She had finally been accepted into a
master's program at the Rhode Island School of Design, and the love
of her life had declared in Central Park that he wanted to marry
her. 
But this morning, she didn't feel like moving. Her body ached,
she felt an unusual tightness in her chest, and her eyelids felt
as if someone was sitting on them. There is nothing physically wrong
with Katherine. She is simply stressed.
When individuals like Katherine are faced with new or difficult
challenges, the mind faces 5 basic alternatives:
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Katherine might experience escalating stress
symptoms such as anxiety, anger, physical symptoms (such as chest
pains and inability to sleep), depression and psychosis as challenges
she faces go unresolved.
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Katherine might break through the barriers
of defense, overcoming the challenges she faces and achieving a higher
level of adjustment. Free of distressful symptoms she could successfully
resist retreat, alcohol, drugs or suicide/homicide.
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Katherine can withdraw or retreat from
the immediate source of stress by cooling things off with her fiancé
or asking for a deferral from her master's program. She will face
the consequences of such retreat and may face the same challenge later.
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Katherine might opt for a stopgap measure
or symptomatic relief (such as alcohol or drugs) to calm her nerves
or temporarily escape reality.
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If Katherine becomes convinced that she
can neither retreat nor break through, and she cannot stand the mounting
stress anymore, she might choose suicide or homicide in desperation
to escape painful symptoms of distress. Given Katherine's example,
the decision to take her life may seem absurd. However, stress is
not triggered purely by objective external events. It is Katherine's
internal subjective response that counts.
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To learn more about the choices
we have at our threshold of individual stress tolerance, see my eManual
"Breakthrough Intimacy -- Sad to Happy through
Closeness".
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