Coping mechanisms. What exactly is a coping mechanism? Simple really it’s something we do to deal with feelings, thoughts and the actions, usually actions of others.
Everyone has coping mechanisms. They can be anything from counting to cross stitch. Yeah I don’t know where that came from, but the point is we all have ways to deal with, to cope with things that happen in our lives. The truth is not everything we have to use a coping mechanism for is a bad thing. There are good things that happen in our lives that can be overwhelming emotionally or physically and even in the joy and excitement of whatever that thing or moment in time is we have ways of dealing with it. We cry or laugh or dance or sing. Positive ways of expressing and coping with the good things, I’m sure there are more.
Then there are the cruddy things that happen in our lives. The hard things, the sad things, the things we have to walk through that are just not fun. Many times, when we are in the middle of them or when we are watching someone else in the middle of those hard things, people around us will shake their heads and in their mind or under their breath they will say things like, what else will they have to deal with what else is going to happen to that poor person. I know I’ve said those things before. Usually when I begin to notice that I should be reaching out to someone it’s because one of their coping mechanisms is not so great. I watch them going down a road that they have gone down over and over, I watch them and I cry for them because I know it’s a bad way to deal with the thing that is hurting or hard or even in their mind impossible. That one more thing mentality that grips us all at varying times when we just can’t seem to accept that another bad things is happening, another hard thing is starting and we aren’t even in the middle of the first hard thing.
The problem with unhealthy coping mechanisms is that they only offer a temporary jolt of serotonin. They work for a moment but just like most things that are unhealthy for us, they come at a price.
The thing that gets me is the acrobatics that I and others, and I mean, not to point fingers but I’m guessing you as well dear reader, go through to justify whatever our unhealthy coping mechanism is. As with most things that we deal with in this phase of our journey through this life self justification plays a huge role in what we are doing. It offers excuses to ourselves and those around us for the thing we are doing.
Donuts make me happy, I enjoy a good donut, there’s just something about them that makes me smile, I mean my mouth is just watering now thinking about it. There is nothing wrong with a good donut. Especially when the light at Krispy Kream is on. One of those warm pieces of ambrosia and a good cup of coffee just makes me all warm and fuzzy. Donuts in and of themselves are not an unhealthy coping mechanism. A dozen Kirspy Kream donuts, eaten from the box that is sitting open on the car seat next to you as you drive down the street, making sure to go slow enough to hit just enough red lights so you don’t have to share with anyone else. That is an example of an unhealthy coping mechanism.
I am a tech head and somewhat of a geek. I love what technology can do. I enjoy taking a piece of technology and figuring out ways to make it do things it’s not supposed to. There is nothing like the smell of opening a box with some form of technology in it, be it a laptop, or an iPad, or a monitor, or a game system or game for that system. There is nothing wrong with technology. It can be an amazing tool to get work done. Right now I’m writing on a computer, it enables me to communicate, to use my healthy coping mechanism of writing to work through the things in life that are good, bad, and even sometimes just plain silly. Technology is not a sin or a problem, it’s a tool, and a toy. The problem is not the things the problem is the supposed need to have new and more things, even when I don’t need them. There was a temporary jolt of happy when I would buy a new piece of tech. Opening it setting it up, adding the Bible software I used and the photo editing and publication software, charging it up for the first time, but then…Unhealthy coping mechanisms always come with a huge price tag, in this case literally and figuratively. As soon as the new shiny thing was all set up and ready to go, this feeling of guilt and shame would slam into me. I would look at it and shake my head and say to myself. What is wrong with you? You have a perfectly good fill in the blank already set up, it is configured just the way you like it, it does everything you need and want it to do. That’s the thing, there would be that serotonin hit to my brain that would lift me for a moment out of the depression and angst and all the things that are wrapped up in my mental health issues but then it would disappear and I’d be left looking at it and just feeling helpless and hopeless.
The really messed up thing about unhealthy coping mechanisms is that even when a person, even when I, hated it, when I knew it wasn’t going to last I still turned to it because it felt good for the moment. Short term fix, long term destructive behavior.
It’s funny how the brain works, how there are certain things that our body produces that allow us to function in acceptable healthy ways. It’s interesting to me that sometimes our bodies just don’t work right in that way. Just like a diabetic has to have help with insulin, just like a person with a blood clot has to take blood thinners, just like a person with asthma needs their inhaler, or an epileptic needs their dilantin, a person without enough serotonin being made needs help.
Now that I have that help the clarity is amazing and frightening all at the same time. Frightening because I see just how awful things were and how awful my coping mechanisms especially the need for stuff had gotten. I stopped looking at my phone or computer or tablet as a tool, or even as a toy that could offer a distraction when I needed one. Instead they all became trials. My head was always down, if you think back and if you had any interaction with me you may remember that I would grab my phone at every little ding or buzz. I realize now that I would look through people even when I was talking to them.
I would head to breakfast with my pastor friends or to coffee with my buddy Patrick (also a pastor) and I had to have my laptop and my earbuds for the 5 minutes I would be sitting waiting. I would be drawn to the electronics department in Walmart, or wander around Best Buy. There were times that I would look around and I would force myself out of the place. Proud that I had beaten the urge only to return a day a week even a month later and reach for that coping mechanism, reach for that serotonin boost. Then came the spiral and all the stuff I mentioned earlier. Guilt, shame, anger, remorse.
I did it all wrong. I cut people out, I isolated myself, I left myself vulnerable to the attack that the enemy knew to use.
Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
See what that says. I’ve underlined and made it bold just so neither of us miss it. The enemy of my life, the one that wanted to render me ineffectual, knew all the buttons to push and knew just how to push them and the tragic thing is I let it happen.
The beginning of that verse tells us that we are surrounded by a crowd of witnesses. I used to read that as people that have gone on before. This idea that Josie, and my grandparents from great to just plain grams and gramps, my friend Phil who was taken by cancer way too early, those were the crowd of witnesses, watching me from above, shaking their heads and wiping their eyes as I failed over and over. But that’s not it, sure it may be a part of it but it’s also the people in my life that I’m supposed to be doing life with. The ones that I’m supposed to confide in, to talk to, to pray with and to ask prayer from.
The verse goes on to say let us strip off every weight that slows us down. Mental health issues are real. They are just as serious as physical health issues. There are things that I need in order to be okay, and I was asked and told on a regular basis to get help for those things. I was encouraged to talk to someone, to see if I needed more, to get medicine if that’s what it would take. I wallowed in my disease for years for a myriad of reasons. I did not strip off the weight of Depression and PTSD by getting the help that I needed. Instead I used retail therapy for that momentary feeling of control and happiness, only to come down the other side and be deeper in the issue than before. God told me in his word to get help, Hebrews 12:1 says it all.
Now that I have that help, now that I have the things I need to replace those chemicals, I look at the stuff, at the game library (digital) at the sun glasses, and I am grossed out by myself.
As I actively throw off the weight of depression and ptsd through prayer, medication, and therapy all these things that I have are back in their proper place. They are tools, and at times toys but they are not trials any more. If you see me out and about, and if I’m wandering dangerously close to the electronics department or you see me getting out of the car and winding my way to Best Buy, do me a favor and grab my arm and ask me if I’m present, if I’ve taken my meds, if I’ve kept up with my physical real life connections. I am not going after things anymore, I’m not self medicating anymore either but accountability is always a good thing and the more trustworthy people we allow in our lives to ask us the hard questions the stronger we become in our relationship with God and others.
Thanks for reading.
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