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The coping thread

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 9:35 pm
by Torco
Suffering is bad, and learning to deal with things that either do or would make one suffer is one of the best kinds of knowledge. Therefore, how do you cope with bad things.

For example, every day before going into the office, early in the morning, I sit down in a bench right in front of the building I work in and I drink a freshly-squeezed glass of citrus juice with my headphones on, sometimes a cig as well. It's 10 minutes I have to wake earlier and so on but, after rush hour traffic, it's a serene moment that's much needed. And it makes the whole stress of the day easier.

OR

Driving. not rush hour driving, but road driving, often helps me feel better. It makes me feel like the whole world is open and out there, waiting, and that perspective makes whatever bothers me seem less terrible.

OR

alcohol, fucking obviously.

So how do you deal with suffering?

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 9:38 pm
by Legion
I don't. It's always there, never lurking far, so I got used to it.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 10:26 pm
by vampireshark
For me, largely, time alone and getting away from the source of stress does help. Especially working on or doing something as a distraction, whether it be passport designs, banknotes, or conlangs; listening to music or playing video games also helps out in that regard. Going out for walks also helped a lot in France; unfortunately, the opportunities where I am now are limited for doing such things due to location and weather, but actually getting out of the house/whatever does work.

Also, venting to some other people does help. Problem is that there aren't many people I know who I trust enough to vent some feelings to; family is included in the lack of trust area (with different reasons and things for each person).

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Tue May 15, 2012 10:37 pm
by Jana Masala
Naked women.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 6:21 am
by Torco
Also, venting to some other people does help. Problem is that there aren't many people I know who I trust enough to vent some feelings to; family is included in the lack of trust area (with different reasons and things for each person).
yeah, family is often, however supportive, not really *safe*.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 6:34 am
by Astraios
I mostly eat too much chocolate, have sex, or just sleep in defiance of the fact that I've got too much stuff to do. Or a mixture of those.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 9:26 am
by The Count
I don't go too well with people. Especially not hordes of them. One, two or at least a group of people I know and/or like work fine, but a day in a mall....go figure.
When I was younger I used alcohol, sex & reckless driving as "vents". I could also get (unnecessarily) violent. Nowadays I try to solve things by preemptive means, i.e trying to stay away from people in general. If I really, really have to be in a large group of people (and especially if I have no real reason for being there) then I still use alcohol.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 10:38 am
by Radius Solis
Honestly, though I really don't like to admit this, dramaqueening about it to whoever will listen helps. At the same time I don't like to be that sort of person, so I try to limit how often and how much I do it. But this is the reason you all get e.g. detailed posts from me about my eye operation and stuff, where most people might instead have just vanished for a while and then mentioned it later only if asked.

With other kinds of stresses, just being completely alone for a while can help a lot. Especially social stuff - interacting with people is a major stressor for me (in meatspace anyway), and afterwards it's always like I need time alone to recharge myself and feel okay again.

Other forms of escapism can be good too. Books, internets, even a good nap, all can serve to remove the stressful issue from my brain for an hour or two, leaving me in a better position to return to it and deal with it.

I've used alcohol before too (though I've largely stopped drinking), but I think in a less common way - I think for most people using alcohol to cope is a form of escapism, to forget about stuff for a while and do something fun instead. Or just plain to forget and knock themselves out. But for me it's the other way around. Alcohol intensifies emotions, and since I tend to react to bad things by just going numb, it has been useful to help me feel things (e.g. grief) more fully and thus to work through them.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 10:52 am
by dunomapuka
This winter I was working at a Uniqlo branch in Manhattan. Usually I was scheduled for a 7am (occasionally 6am) shift and I would arrive in complete darkness, in 15-degree weather. But the Starbucks down the block was open, so I'd stop in there, warm up, sit down for five minutes. Also they had a pretty good store soundtrack - a lot of Depeche Mode, New Order, etc. I could have gone to the store break room, of course, but it was the last place I wanted to be. The best way to deal with work is to establish some psychic distance from work.

Drinking is good too, sure. For me it helps me enjoy just being alone and not doing much, rather than running off anxiously into other people's company. (Rather the opposite of Radius, being alone for long makes me depressed and anxious. unless I'm doing fun work - video editing, or conlanging.)

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 10:54 am
by The Count
Radius Solis wrote:I think for most people using alcohol to cope is a form of escapism, to forget about stuff for a while and do something fun instead. Or just plain to forget and knock themselves out.
I feel like it's softening the impact by numbing the senses. Otherwise one would go crazy from all the noise, visual input, smells & ...spirit (how stupid that may sound). I have the alcohol tolerance of an elephant so I rarely get wasted. It's more that "cushion" which is needed.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 11:35 am
by Cathbad
Books, climbing (difficult) mountains, and green tea.

If that doesn't work, texting ~3 people I feel I can talk to, and then dumping my troubles on them. It usually doesn't even get to that point though since I'm usually through with my crisis by the time I'm able to meet them, but just the prospect of being able to communicate my problems to someone helps, a lot.

Oh, and fasting, although that's probably more self-destructive than therapeutic (huh).

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 12:43 pm
by Jashan
I keep busy.

On the bad days (or bad months), that can mean anything and everything. From, say, August 2011 to about December, I was rarely at my house for more than 2-3 hours a day. I would sleep, wake up, leave and go to work; after work, go directly to the gym for an hour or so, and then possibly drive 30 minutes to go see my grandmother, or some other thing. I was never home before about 7pm at night, which then gave me time to eat something, shower, watch about an hour of TV, and then go to bed. In January I invited a friend over to 'take care of me' for a weekend, and repainted my entire basement. At one point I was too tired to continue, and sat down for a while to rest. I started crying after about 5-10 minutes of doing 'nothing', so I got up and worked another few hours until I pretty much was too exhausted to think. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The weekends were hard to deal with in that regard, because it's much harder to fill up a day when work isn't there to take up 8-9 hours of it. One day I drove 1.5 hrs to a town, went shopping for about 30 minutes, and then drove 1.5 hours back... just so I wouldn't be at home. I spent a lot of those weekends sleeping at my mom's house on her couch, and even a few times on the floor of my grandmother's room in the nursing home. Anything that meant I wasn't alone (because alone = thinking and having to confront things).

Nowadays, it's better. I still keep busy, but I can deal with being at home for an evening, as long as it's not every evening. I still usually go out on weekends and visit my mother or my grandmother -- I haven't mastered the art of being by myself for 12 hours straight. I throw myself into projects -- web design, writing, video games, whatever. Most of the time I don't get them done, but it's less about the result than the process. I still go to the gym, but ironically I've been so busy this month that I haven't really had time.

So yeah. I guess you could say that I don't cope. I stay so busy I don't have to. Or maybe that's a form of coping, too.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 1:35 pm
by Travis B.
Wait; things will be at least somewhat better soon enough, be that hours or months into the future. When things are particularly bad, sleep, provided I am in a mood that accommodates that. Take walks; when possible, this does not hurt either. Not a whole lot else can be done. (Alcohol might numb things temporarily, but it will make them worse in the long run, and it interacts badly with various meds too.)

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Wed May 16, 2012 11:28 pm
by Herra Ratatoskr
Things I've done to help deal with being down.
  • *Cue up 5-10 songs appropriate for the situation, put on some headphones, close my eyes, and just mentally "swim" in the music for a while.
    *Drinking a couple beers and browse Youtube for a bit.
    *Take a shower, do some laundry, and clean my room.
    *Get $10-$15 in cash and, if it's a weekend with nice weather, go garage saling for a couple hours.
    *Take a nap
    *Lay down and let my thoughts just wander for a while
    *Play a couple old NES/SNES games
Sadly, I've had plenty of opportunity for practicing these the last few years :roll:

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 7:37 pm
by Anguipes
I fail at coping. Hence I am a barely functioning wreck. Maybe all this could have been avoided if only I had acquired a taste for alcohol (seriously, that stuff is foul).

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 8:41 pm
by Torco
Anguipes wrote:I fail at coping. Hence I am a barely functioning wreck. Maybe all this could have been avoided if only I had acquired a taste for alcohol (seriously, that stuff is foul).
Humm... yeah, the hard part about coping with stuff is that it's not easy to know what might make one feel better: I mean, my orange juice thing sort of grew on its now, from the lady with the juice cart and my own desire not to go into the office, so juice started out being an excuse to procrastinate.

Perhaps that's the virtue of procrastination, wishful thinking, and lazyness: they connect you with whatever might make you feel better. I've never had the experience of rationally deriving coping strategies. And that's why being lazy is a good thing, and being like one of those people who value effort and that make an effort all day every day and like try and shit are just selling their own fucking souls.
xD that started sounding wise and degenerated into teenage babbling, didn't it ?

Jashan: doing random shit to forget painful shit is certainly coping.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 10:51 pm
by Christopher Schröder
Herra Ratatoskr wrote:
  • *Cue up 5-10 songs appropriate for the situation, put on some headphones, close my eyes, and just mentally "swim" in the music for a while.
    *Take a shower, do some laundry, and clean my room.
    *Get $10-$15 in cash and, if it's a weekend with nice weather, go garage saling for a couple hours.
    *Lay down and let my thoughts just wander for a while
    *Play a couple old NES/SNES games
Those are all very nice; I also read excessively, which is a very good Means of escaping whatever Problem.

I think I cope a little too well — so well that I sometimes ignore Problems until far past the Time for dealing with them.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Thu May 17, 2012 11:30 pm
by Shm Jay
I have a bunch of big plush predators: a lion, a wolf, a smilodon, a cheetah, a jaguar, and a polar bear in the winter that I like to plop on top of me while I read, so that's two methods of coping at the same time. Yes, I know it’s weird, but it’s cheaper than having a pet.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 5:27 am
by Miiil
I improvise on my piano.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 12:03 pm
by Herr Dunkel
Milloniare wrote:I improvise on my piano.
That.
Or blast death metal thru my studio headphones or just get laed.

Which reminds me...

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 7:33 pm
by Herra Ratatoskr
Elector Dark wrote: or just get laed.
Braggart.

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 1:57 am
by patiku
I mostly vent my rage by composing entries in my memoirs. For example:

One day I invited some reporters to interview me about my work as Emperor of the world! They were all strip searched and escorted by armed guards and given scripts to read from which consisted of soft ball questions about news stories from the state media and fluff about my workout routine! As they asked the questions I had written, I became incredibly bored and started responding with quotes of entire sketches from Family Guy and American Dad despite the fact that those shows had long since been forgotten in my decades of brutal rule and nobody understood the signifcance of my "deaf guy" voice and over pronunciation of the letter H!

Even as they got more and more confused and nervous, none dared go off script, for to do so would surely invite my wrath! One of the reporters then asked an astute and hard hitting question about one of my many massive, failed public works projects to construct a 100x scale model New Berlin atop the ruins of the former United States! Upon realizing his mistake, he looked back at his script and noticed the note I had written underneath the question, "Don't read this one ^^ OR ELSE!!!!" and he looked back up at me and seeing my darkening visage realized he had made the last mistake of his life! He started flipping through the rest of the script to try and find something to say to diffuse the situation but then realized that after the first page the rest of the pages where all blank and he had nothing to use!

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 1:40 pm
by Thry
I evade in my inner worlds

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 10:11 pm
by Nortaneous
cigs, fights, booze

Re: The coping thread

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:21 pm
by Torco
Nortaneous wrote:cigs, fights, booze
cigs and booze are allright as far as coping goes, but I don't think you'd make a good fighter, for some reason.