Stress. It’s something we all experience, right? But how stress manifests is different for everyone. I, of course, like a lot of people, am an emotional eater. When stress arrives, so do unwanted pounds. I get cranky, and some might dare to say…bitchy…, my temper is about as short as my willpower, and things that normally don’t bother me about my loved ones drive me completely batty.

Our family is going through some stress right now. We’re moving out of state. It’s a big thing, let me tell you. Emotionally draining, exciting, scary, grief-filled, adventurous all rolled together. Moving is rated among the top stressors, right up there with death and divorce. This will be our sixth move in seventeen years of marriage, and for about two months we’ll be homeless.

With our five kids.

Not fun in anybody’s book, I imagine.

So, I’ve been cranky, and bitchy, short-tempered, and a little batty. And I’m not the only one. The husband has had a few of his own moments of battiness and a few more outbursts that are out of character. Things that shouldn’t be a big deal become huge. Little obstacles somehow come to define our entire day ~ and not in a good way.

This all got me thinking about how other people handle stress, both within and outside of relationships. In real life, people can go off the deep end because of stress. They often act in unheroic ways. What about our fictional heroes? Do we expect them not get stressed, or at least not to manifest it in ways that are too close to home for us? Do they have to be macho and deal with conflict with a “Yipee-kay-yay” kind of attitude? Do our heroes need to be a little better than their real-life counterparts?

And what about our heroines? Would I like one less, or think her unworthy of a hero, if she had a short temper? If she ranted occasionally? If she, gasp, was bitchy or ate a bag of Oreos in one sitting? In other words, if she was more realistic than we sometimes want to see, would we still want to relate to her, or would we prefer her to be better than we are ourselves?

Question of the Day:

Do we hold our fictional heroes and heroines to higher standards than we do our significant others? Can they show stress and strain in the realistic ways that we do in real life, or do their manifestations of stress have to be tempered and/or contrived to maintain a certain level of sex appeal?