How do I best cope with struggle and adversity in my life while being that outlet to others?

Hello and thank you for posting your question in this forum. This is a complex concern but we will attempt to help you deconstruct it as much as possible, given what you have written here. It appears you are experiencing some negative behavioral habits which you may want to delete out of your life. You did not note exactly what these might be so we can think of how you might proceed, in general terms.

The first thing you noted is that you have observed similar behaviors in close people/relations and this makes a lot of sense. The way we understand behavior to work in psychology is that your behavioral patterns will often mirror the behavioral patterns of the people in your direct social circle. This is essentially why you maintain the close relationships you maintain and even the intimate connections you maintain. You behaviorally validate them and they validate you, in the same way. This is true in most but not all circumstances. However, if you are finding that your behavior mimics the behavior of the people closest to you (and vice versa) this is quite natural. That is essentially how we find what is known as our ‘in-group’ or perhaps a more colloquial term: our ‘tribe’. The people closest to you (as is the case for all of us) will often display similar behavioral patterns and approaches as you. If this were not the case it would be hard for you all to be in the same in-group and you would not display the level of cohesion needed to stay in that group. Thus, this phenomenon is conducive to group cohesion.

That you find difficulty avoiding these behaviors, despite recognizing them to be maladaptive, also makes a lot of sense. Your close relations likely reinforce those behaviors in you, even if it is not perceptible by you. The group continues to reinforce its norms, for the sake of remaining intact, and this creates pressure on all the members of the group to continue forward with specific behavioral patterns. Now you might recognize these to be problematic but they will not be easy to change, in light of the aforementioned reasons. There may also be specific and individual reasons for why these behaviors are hard to change outside of the group norms we’ve addressed above.

Perhaps there are secondary or tertiary behavioral benefits which reinforce the maintenance of these behaviors. We could not examine more closely what this might be without delving into your specific concerns and we don't have that information. From what you wrote toward the end, it appears that your continued engagement with these problematic behaviors is producing a sense of depressed mood in you, as you lose interest in beloved hobbies and personal relationships. Certainly this can also be expected when we recognize that specific behavioral patterns are quite negative for us but we feel essentially powerless to give them up or change them.

The best path forward would be for you to seek therapy in order to process all of these issues in detail. You would also want to examine your past, your development, your childhood history, and your interpersonal interactions with family members. You would want to dive deeply to parse whatever could be parsed in order to help bring about greater insight and understanding in your particular situation. Doing this would also help to elicit possible solutions for actions you may undertake in your future.

No matter which path you choose I sincerely hope you do get into therapy and you process your concerns fully. Thank you again for posting your question in this forum. I wish you good luck in the future as well as good physical and mental health.