#coping skills

[thepeacefulgarden]

[only-knives]

that post that said something like people surviving horrible things aren't probably aren't going to have ways of coping that look "good" to others straight up changed my life.

like if someone's lost in the woods, you don't really expect them to cook a meal that's good & healthy for them, let alone something gourmet. you wouldn't chastise them for scavenging for berries or eating raw meat in the absence of other food sources.

it's less about the behaviors being risky/unhealthy, and more about the situation or environment being unhealthy for the person. simply removing the behaviors doesn't actually change the core issue, and it can even put that person at greater risk of harm to do so.

humans' psychological and social needs are just as important as their physical ones... and blaming people for those needs not being fulfilled is cruel.

[robertseanleonardthinker]

something my therapist told me that personally has been rather helpful is that coping skills are not to make us feel better. they are to create space between u and ur feelings. they r to help u cope and do what u need to do. they are not meant to resolve ur negative feelings. if they do, that's a bonus. but if they don't, that's ok. learning that honestly helped so much. i'm such a perfectionist that i can't even cope if it's not gonna be perfect and this like took a weight off my shoulders. if i use a coping skill and don't feel better, that's ok. i am simply trying to distance myself from my emotion. i felt like i wasn't coping correctly before i learned this. like maybe i was doing something wrong or there was just something wrong with me.

[sunbeams-daycare]

Meltdown Triggers & Meltdown Recovery ❤️‍🩹

(All credit to Lil Penguin Studios! Found on Pinterest)

[myheadisfullofholes]

Going through my mental illnesses and stuff the way people go through their collections like:

“This is my ADHD, I got it from my mother who got it from her father, it’s a treasured family heirloom.”

“This is my autism, it was put in here without me noticing by my father, who was given it the same way by his mother. We put it behind the ADHD and pretend they came as a set.”

“These are my people pleasing coping skills, I’ve collected a lot over the years from all the emotionally immature people in my life, and I would get rid of them but I don’t want to hurt their feelings…”

[hello-friends9500]

It's not a cure-all solution but it's something that helps me manage for the time being.

[headspace-hotel]

Update on coping with fear:

have realized that "calming down" coping skills seem to make things worse for me, and that the few things that have helped have been more like the "turn slow tigers into fast tigers" trick

with this in mind, when I was having a spike in anxiety before class, I tried something new: I gripped onto my bed post with both hands and clenched my hands around it as hard as I could, for as long as I could, until my muscles were tired

It did not immediately seem to work, but as I walked to class and in class, I noticed that I felt significantly calmer than usual, and I wasn't having the nausea and feeling of tension that I usually did

This is one of the few times I've used an "anxiety coping skill" and had positive effects continue after I was actively doing it.

I think it will be worthwhile to explore more coping skills that try to "flow with" the fight or flight response rather than "flow against?" Trying to calm down is fighting against my body, but simulating 1-5 minutes of intense struggle that I can pour all my focus into (like squeezing a bedpost really hard until I get tired) lets my body actually indulge that instinct and fight it out, which activates the "calm down" switch naturally afterward, as though I fought and won.

I think the reason the original "clench all your muscles and then release" trick didn't work is because it was focused internally on my body, whereas clenching my fists around an object in my environment is focused outwardly, engaging with my environment as if I'm actually engaging with a threat.

The only threat response that doesn't engage non-self is the "freeze" response. "Freeze" is the one I want to avoid, since it doesn't have a clear exit condition.

I feel that a lot of so-called "coping skills" for anxiety can actually activate the freeze response instead of deactivating the threat response entirely. Because "freeze" is the threat response without a clear exit condition, this could possibly lead to chronic low-level activation of the threat response.

Therefore, anxiety coping skill has to center on non-self objects, instead of centering on the body.