These are my personal opinions always secret professional when you're making choices about your mental health and well -being Got a great question from the Facebook group it's called the overwhelmed brain empowerment group Probably the longest group name you'll find I just thought of it now it's just very long I could probably change that but that's what it is for now if you want to join that it is on Facebook you can find it just by looking up the overwhelmed brain.
You'll see it. But the person asked the question, they said, I'm new to this.
And they didn't say what they were new to.
But what are the examples of coping mechanisms that would be used in childhood?
So I've talked about coping mechanisms. I've talked about survival skills that we develop in childhood, which is basically where coping mechanisms come from.
And I'm gonna tell you from personal experience, because I've done a lot of these coping mechanisms. I've also worked with a lot of people on their coping mechanisms in my Heeled Being program.
That's the program where people doing emotionally abusive or controlling or manipulative behavior, that's where I help them stop doing those behaviors, show up as the best version of themselves they can be for themselves and in relationships.
If you are in a relationship with somebody who is controlling or manipulative or in Anyways abusing your emotional state where you feel bad a lot of the time or responsible for all the problems I also have another podcast called love and abuse over at love and abuse calm And I also run that program healed being over at healed being calm so just a quick little side note on that before I talk about this, but The question about coping mechanisms is an important one It's actually a very good one because it is the groundwork.
It is the foundation of a lot of what I talk about on the show.
For the last 11 years, it is the foundation of a lot of stuff that I had to heal myself.
As a child, when we face a challenge, we don't know exactly what's going to happen.
We might have a fear of pain, a fear of any type of suffering, a fear of being unloved or left alone.
There is a lot of things that can run through a child's mind, but as a child you don't know because you don't have the life experience, what might happen when a difficulty or challenge comes along.
So, unless somebody teaches you, you have to figure it out yourself.
If you're on the planet for six years or even three years and a big challenge happens Mommy or daddy yell and you don't know what to do with that because they've never done that before or you're not You haven't seen that happen before What does a child think what does a child do in that moment?
How are they supposed to respond?
It can be very scary to some children probably to most children.
It can be very scary to hear anger some sort of upset and then when they hear it, what do they do with it?
I remember I was My earliest memory.
My earliest memory is four years old and I Remember being held down by my stepfather.
I couldn't move my arms. I couldn't move my legs and I apologize too much information but he was rubbing my dirty underwear in my face.
I was four years old.
That's my earliest memory of him.
What the hell does a what the hell does a four -year -old do with that?
How does that get stored in their brain?
And what happens later on in life when they have some sort of challenge like that.
Some sort of abusive situation or even something minor.
Being locked out of their home.
You know, something that you wouldn't even think was a problem.
It could be a big problem to them.
I'm locked out, I feel unsafe and it reminds me when I was four years old.
It can happen and it does happen.
The minor situations in our life today can be huge and triggering.
So when we're We run into these very difficult situations because we've never dealt with them before, or they're just awful because somebody is being awful, someone's being abusive or neglectful or hurtful in some way.
Or maybe even they're not being neglectful or hurtful and they're just doing something that makes the child scared and they don't know what to do with it.
So the child develops a method of survival.
I mean this is my own research this is my own study into this I do understand how this works because I went through it I went through it for many years discovering all my coping mechanisms that stemmed or originated from trying to survive as a child this is what happens to a lot of us some difficulty will occur and then we will figure out how to get through that difficulty so that if and when it occurs next time we can feel like we survived it or we can avoid the pain.
And so for me after that incident thankfully it never happened again but wow I mean again what does a child do with that so after that incident I actually just this is just coming to me now I remember having issues with not wanting to go to the bathroom.
I'm just maybe putting some pieces together here real time.
I remember when I was really young, my mom fed me Kool -aid and mineral oil.
I think that was the combination.
It was disgusting, but at least it had Kool -aid to get me to go to the bathroom, and I remember having bathroom issues for, I don't know how long, it was a long period at a time because I didn't want to go to the bathroom and you can probably guess why because of what happened to me when I was a child.
And that really messed with my brain obviously and caused some quality of life issues and worried my mom and she tried to help and we went to the doctor and things like that.
So eventually I was starting to go to the bathroom normally and I was in good shape after that however i i became highly phobic around that area of my body i didn't want anyone to go near again too much information i didn't want anyone to go near my butt so i held that phobia for a long time i mean really long time way into adulthood this is what happens is that something will occur in childhood and then we will take that with us for the rest of our lives unless we address it and even when we address it sometimes it It won't go away until maybe we get professional help, or we address it in some
way within us that we haven't done before, we haven't healed fully.
So it's just a fascinating thing for me to, again, put these pieces together in real time.
I think I've thought of that before, but having it come up while I'm talking about this surprises me, but it's there.
Let's come back to the original question, which is, what are some examples of coping mechanisms?
and I wanted to say that the coping mechanisms that we have as we grow up stem from the decisions we've made as children.
For example, one of my coping mechanisms was to repress and withhold.
Now in that case it was going to the bathroom repressing withhold but that also went into repressing and withholding my emotions.
Ever since I was 1, I lived with an abusive alcoholic, so It was very difficult to express myself freely.
I was afraid. So what I learned to do, to survive, to avoid pain, to avoid any type of situation that might hurt me, I decided to repress and withhold.
And then later on in life, guess what I did to deal with the stresses of life I repressed and withheld how I really felt.
And that was, it turned into Emotionally Abusive Behaviors.
And this is on my list, we'll get to this list. I actually wrote down a number of coping mechanisms that you may have today, and maybe I have today, that might affect you in a bad way.
Or at least might not be resourceful to you.
Might not, these coping mechanisms if you have any of them, they might not be Helping you they not they might not be serving you in life They may just be something you do that you don't even realize you do And it's important to know and realize that it might be something that stemmed from childhood whether you know that or not That could be affecting your life in a negative way So this isn't a full list, but I want to at least I'll talk about what I wrote down here First one being people pleasing.
I've talked about that a ton on this show because that's my whole history.
Coming from an alcoholic family, people pleasing came from withholding and suppressing my thoughts and repressing my emotions and obviously not wanting to create conflict, wanting to keep the balance so that nobody fought because that's the environment I grew up in.
So people pleasing is you prioritize other people's needs over your own.
Like I said, it's to avoid conflict.
You want to be liked.
You want to get along, you want other people to get along so that it doesn't put you in harm's way.
And harm's way may be, I just don't want to feel pain.
I don't want to be alone.
And people pleasing often leads to a lack of boundaries in your adult relationships when I got into my first real relationship instead of saying what I really felt, how I really felt and how I really thought, I would instead do people -pleasing behaviors in order to maybe coerce, influence what I wanted from the relationship, from the other person, because I was too afraid to speak up.
People -pleasing is sort of that passive way to get a need met inside of you without meeting those needs directly or asking the person how to meet that need for you.
A minor example is at work, I would say yes to working on the weekend when I really didn't want to work on the weekend.
Why? Because I wanted to avoid conflict, I didn't want to get fired, I wanted to be liked, if I was liked I could get a raise or promotion at least that was my belief and so I had all these beliefs around this behavior that as long as I did the behavior that that my life would continue going in the direction I wanted it to go.
Again, the problem with people pleasing is that you'll burn out.
This is what I was telling my friend the other day, I used to burn out every four years on a job because I never really spoke up.
I never really told people what I wanted and what I needed.
So people pleasing is very draining on you.
And if you do this behavior, think about what you did in childhood that might have led to that behavior.
And that's gonna be the common question for every one of these.
What did you do in childhood that led to this behavior?
And if you can't think of anything in childhood, sometimes we develop these coping mechanisms later on in life.
Maybe we deal with some other challenge that we've never faced before and now we have to survive that challenge, so we make a choice to do a certain behavior, show up a certain way, react or respond a certain way that turns into a pattern that we take with us throughout our life.
So these coping mechanisms can happen whether you're a child, a young adult, or an older adult.
Just depends on what difficulty you ran into, a challenge came your way.
So people pleasing, that's one of them.
Emotional suppression, I talked about that.
That is another coping mechanism.
If you learned to stuff your emotions down to avoid punishment or any negative responses when you're a child, that can lead to not being your authentic self as an adult, and that might mean you hold back what you really want to say or you're very careful not to say things that might upset others very similar to people pleasing.
Probably a byproduct or a sub -level of people pleasing, but I don't know how many times I've held back something I felt and hadn't shared it and instead stuffed it down so that I wouldn't have some sort of negative outcome in the moment but how many times have I done that how many times have you done it hopefully none but if you've done it does it always come back in some other way in a destructive way that has for me it always comes back so if I hold in anger towards somebody I may care about and I don't want to express that anger now for the fear of the consequences it will come out later we'll
be in an argument or I'll get upset about something and the anger that I had held in will come out I may not know the anger is about that specific thing that I used to be angry about because sometimes we can hold on to emotions for so long that we forget what it's about.
So when you get angry today it could be about something that happened 30 years ago and maybe you've held on to it for so long and you forgot that you were angry about that and it gets replaced with something else because what's happening in the moment makes you angry and it connects to that old anger and that old anger comes out today.
them today. So emotional suppression went the way we repress or stuff down our emotions.
Just like when I was a child, I stuffed down my emotions to be careful not to evoke my drunk stepfather and his explosive reactions.
Didn't want to evoke him.
So I made sure not to express anything that might have been negative in his perception.
That was how I survived as a child because I didn't know what would happen if he knew I was upset.
Another coping mechanism that you may do as an adult or somebody you know is avoidance.
Some people cope by avoiding situations they just avoid it I don't want to talk about it it's almost like stonewalling I don't want to talk about it and let's just not bring it up ever again.
My mom's great at this she used to be she's opened up a lot but she just wanted to avoid anything that had to do with certain subject matter.
Because it made her upset, it made her sad or made her angry but it's usually sad.
She didn't want to deal with it.
She didn't want to deal with it so she coped by avoiding it.
I'm not saying that all of these coping mechanisms are necessarily bad either.
Sometimes they do serve us.
Her avoidance served her to get her through some very difficult times.
If she could avoid the reality of her marriage to my stepfather for, you know, a few hours, maybe it helped her for those few hours live a life with some sanity and some maybe happiness, even.
And if that helped her in that time of her life, then sometimes coping mechanisms are exactly what they are.
They help you cope and sometimes they serve you.
The issue with coping mechanisms though is that you probably shouldn't use them indefinitely meaning long term.
They should be something to help you get through moments and after you get through those moments then you can reflect on those moments and ask yourself, okay how could I handle that better, what can I do differently, what could I have done that would have changed the outcome?
And one of my favorite questions, what would I do or say if I had absolutely no fear of the consequences?
Or what would I have done or said if I had absolutely no fear of the consequences?
And then there's a truth inside you when you ask that question, well what would I have done if I had no fear of the consequences?
Well I would have said this.
And then When you think about saying that it's in alignment with the truth inside you It's an alignment with who you want to be or who you wanted to be in that moment So avoidance is Kind of the opposite of that.
I don't want to be that person in that moment.
So I'm going to avoid it Another coping mechanism is very similar to avoidance is withdrawal Where you retreat from?
social interactions and conversations and you just remove yourself so it's not really avoiding you just removing yourself from that situation you don't want to deal with it it is again like avoidance but it becomes like the groundwork for introversion and I speak from experience there I withdrew with a child and wanted to be alone almost always we had maybe a couple friends across the street but whenever I wanted to go play it was almost always alone gonna go play with my matchbox cards gonna go walk to the store yes I was walking to the store when I was 10 years old I was walking miles to the bowling
alley by myself not safe I don't recommend it but I just wanted to be alone I would walk through the woods alone that's what I wanted to do that's where I wanted to go away from people so I did those things and it took me a while to develop friendships every time I went to school and even when I developed friendships there were there were very few I was not the extrovert that made a lot of friends so I was very withdrawn from the world in some ways not many ways, but some ways.
I didn't want to attend group gatherings.
I didn't want to attend parties.
So that that's the kind of withdrawal I'm talking about.
Like I said, it's the groundwork for introversion.
And I'm not saying that we're not born introverts, or extroverts, or both.
I'm just saying that it can contribute to being more introverted, which leads to more isolation in life.
And I don't know if you've heard maybe a recent episode I did where I talked about the more introverted you are the more isolated you are the more difficult some things in life can be because you don't have enough people in your life enough of a network to have resources meaning some people know how to do certain things and they know other people that know how to do certain things and they have access to certain resources that you might need And if you have only one friend, you better hope that friend has a lot of resources if you need them.
Unless you're very self -sufficient.
I find myself very self -sufficient, very resourceful.
But things they come a little bit more difficult because I don't have a huge network of friends.
I'm not saying that you should do this.
I'm just saying it just seems to be a little bit more difficult as an introvert with few friends to get a lot of things done unless you're one of those special highly resourceful people that can really churn things out.
But I have noticed in my life everything just takes time.
Everything I do just takes time and it doesn't mean I exclude people it just means that's how I've learned to do things.
I maintain, I churn I continue to go down the path on my own.
Even when I'm fixing something in the house, I'm just gonna watch a YouTube video.
And my wife, Asha, she says, just call my dad.
He knows how to do that.
I'm thinking, I'm gonna learn this myself.
I'm gonna do it myself.
That's who I am. And so I'm a little stubborn like that sometimes, but I get things done.
And if I have to, I'll reach out.
But that's what I'm talking about.
The withdrawal can lead to a bit of isolation.
And that could be in friendships.
That could be in your social circles and such. One of my favorite holiday traditions is picking out and decorating a Christmas tree with my wife.
She actually loves it a lot more than I do, but because of that I love seeing her excited about it, and it fills me with warmth and happiness.
When I was alone and struggling, when I was all by myself after a big breakup in my life I found immense comfort by opening up to a therapist. I had to talk to somebody.
I was able to find a therapist that helped me through that time.
And talking about coping skills, therapy empowers you with positive coping skills and teaches you how to be the best version of yourself no matter what you're going through.
It's not just for major things.
Everyone can benefit from an objective viewpoint.
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That's better help H e l p dot com forward slash brain find comfort this december with better help Another one is over responsibility that's something I can totally relate to and that also stems from people pleasing and this isn't just about like being over responsible in projects and work and trying to make sure everything's perfect for everyone, it's also being responsible or feeling too much responsibility for other people's feelings, other people's thoughts and actions.
Like you taking responsibility for how they think and feel.
Talk about stress. That would be very stressful to do because somebody else's thoughts and feelings are your responsibility.
But when you take responsibility for them, you take on too much. I look at overly helpful the same way.
If you're overly helpful, that means you're trying to help someone that might not need it or might not want it.
And you help them in many ways like, oh let me get that for you.
Oh let me get you a glass of water.
You look so thirsty.
And some people might take that the wrong way and a lot of people can grow resentful toward people who do that.
You're always trying to be helpful and by doing that, what ends up happening is that the people you're around they feel like you are taking away their autonomy.
I mean they can, they can feel that way.
They can feel like they can't make their own decisions for themselves.
They feel like you're not listening to them like you say or you ask the question are you thirsty and they say no I'm okay.
You look thirsty I'll get you some water.
No I'm okay. Well okay but here's the water if you need it.
I'm fine. So that can grow resentment toward that and I used to be that way too but that is something that may not be a healthy coping mechanism because you may actually be turning people off when your goal might be to accommodate them and make them comfortable and happy.
And it might have the reverse effect.
So something to consider if you are anything like that.
Another coping mechanism is hyper vigilance, where you are constantly on guard. You're in alert state for potential threats and conflicts.
And you're just always looking out.
You're always looking out and trying to judge people and what are they going to do next?
And what are they going to say?
And when you're in that state it can heighten your anxiety.
You can feel like you just can't get down off of the guard tower to take a break, to relax.
Maybe because you're always vigilant.
Now I'm not talking about existing current threats.
If you experience any sort of trauma or abuse as a child, Then one of the coping mechanisms that can come from that is some sort of hypervigilance, hyper awareness of what's going on in people, what's going on in your environment.
And that's important to look at because if you feel that way, that must be feeling always on edge.
That must be something that just never goes away because you're always waiting for the next brick to be thrown or the next shoe to drop.
My wife Asha told me about her previous marriage and how living with somebody who is emotionally abusive is like waiting for that next brick to be thrown.
She said every time he was nice to me I knew he was going to throw a brick at me.
So that created a hypervigilance in her where she was always watching her front and her back she's just being very careful and it's no way to live and Sometimes you have to when you're in that situation, but that can be a coping mechanism that is not always needed in most situations.
So that's just something to consider if you're dealing with that.
Okay, we got five more.
Next one is dissociation.
This is something that many abuse and trauma survivors know how to do unconsciously, because especially as a child, if they are attacked, If they are abused, the trauma can be so intense that they actually dissociate from their body.
If you've not heard that term, you probably have, but if you haven't, it's like being out of body.
It's like they're getting away from their external senses that their body is experiencing and going inward or getting away from that space and being in an entirely different space.
It's sort of like a safe place inside them.
Some people may call it the feeling of an out -of -body experience.
Some people just feel disconnected.
It's just like I don't know what's going on out there.
I'm safe in here. I'll just wait till it's over.
And I don't have too many adults that dissociate.
I haven't met too many that dissociate, but that survival behavior that usually starts in childhood at a very young age can be continued in your adult life in situations that you might experience as an adult especially when it comes to something intense something that you know you can't handle and you have no control over so you'll disassociate you'll disconnect and then when it's over you can come back and you know sometimes you don't have a memory of it some some people will dissociate and not have a memory of what happened.
Some people would dissociate and remember what happened but don't remember certain details.
They may not know what it felt like because they were so disconnected but they remember what happened.
Just depends on the event and what occurred but again some of these coping mechanisms are helpful.
Some of them yes you probably need in the moment I'm not saying you should just get rid of everything because some coping mechanisms can be a good resource To help you through a situation I'm talking about using these in every day sometimes benign sometimes very Normal everyday interactions.
I was a people pleaser in my normal everyday interactions when I didn't need to be I'm not saying people pleasing is ever helpful.
But when you're in sales It can be very helpful to have these tools that you can choose to use instead of feeling like you have no choice but to use because you fear some consequence.
That's the difference between a coping mechanism and a personal development tool that you can use on command.
People pleasing is definitely a personal development tool that I can use on command now because I don't let it run me.
I run that when I need it.
I use it when I need it.
And it is something that has helped me throughout my life.
Not when it was a day to day coping mechanism for normal things, for normal interactions, but when it became useful in very specific interactions.
So just like dissociation doesn't sound like something that would be very useful in everyday interactions but if you're going through a lot of pain or you're going through some sort of abusive situation or heavy trauma in the present moment and you know you can't control it and you are stuck you know you're stuck you can't get out of it.
It might be something it probably wouldn't happen voluntarily who probably happen involuntarily.
But it might be something that helps you through that moment.
And if you can dissociate on command, you are a special person.
If you, maybe meditate and you can learn to dissociate.
But I believe in staying aware, staying present, staying conscious, so that you can stay in control of your life.
Because if anything dangerous comes along, you want to be able to take action and get yourself out of that danger if possible.
So, there's that. We have those seven so far, let's go to number eight, which is perfectionism.
If there's one thing I did, from childhood on it is try to avoid criticism, and is wanting to be liked, people pleasing, helps there.
But also trying to avoid criticism and trying to feel worthy, trying to feel important.
And I believe that being perfect would please others.
If you do everything you can to be perfect, you probably find that a lot of things don't get done in your life.
You probably have very high standards that you place on others.
You might be critical and judgmental of others.
You might find that nobody can ever do as well as you, so you're going to do the job.
there are a lot of caveats to perfectionism but probably the biggest one is you'll never be as happy as you can be because is anything ever really perfect I've come to fall in love with the phrase progress not perfection I really enjoy progressing instead of trying to make something perfect in fact if I tried to make things perfect I would probably never get an episode out I would probably never be able to publish any articles.
I'd probably, would still be working on the mean workbook that I created, the healed -being program I created, because I would think there's always more to add.
Here's the thing, there's always more to add.
Always. In fact, if you think it's perfect today, you're going to find something more to do about it tomorrow.
I've learned to give up perfection and it's changed my life.
I prefer progress. So if you have a coping mechanism of perfectionism it might have to do with wanting to please others wanting to avoid criticism.
Where did that come from?
Who wanted you to be perfect?
Who criticized you when you were younger?
I mean these are things that I've thought about in my own life.
What are my coping mechanisms and why am I doing them and where do they come from?
how did they start?
Why did they start?
And as I got to the origins, I decided to see what happened if I stopped doing them.
The ones I discovered.
Like what would happen if I said no to working on the weekend?
What would my boss do?
That's literally what I started doing.
I started doing the opposite of what I used to do.
If I said no to my boss, to working on the weekend, because I didn't want to, if I used to say yes because I believed he or she would fire me, what would happen if I said no?
I wanted to know. I wanted to learn what would really happen.
So one day I said it and nothing bad happened.
And then I said it again one day and nothing bad happened.
And then pretty soon I was able to be really honest and just say I don't want to work this weekend or I would love to work this weekend because I need the money now it doesn't mean I'm going to say yes you look fat in that dress I'm just gonna still find ways to say things that are supportive and caring but you know if Asha asked if she said does this dress make me look fat I would say um it's not that you look fat it's just not appealing on you or something like that because she prefers the truth.
She really wants to know.
She does not want me to lie to her.
And so, I won't, but I won't answer certain direct questions that are definitely gonna get me in trouble later.
I won't say that. I'm definitely not gonna continue talking about this because I'm already crossing some lines.
So, anyway, we've got perfectionism, and I was talking about how I started to do the opposite of what I used to do.
Because I wanted to find out what happened if I did do, or say, what I really felt and didn't have a fear of the consequences.
I might've still had a fear of the consequences but I wanted to see what happened if I chose to speak my truth.
What would happen because up to that point when I started testing this, I Made up in my mind.
What would happen? This is what we do Sometimes if we make up what might happen so we don't say what's on our mind Oh, I know that person will get mad so I won't say it Well, maybe they will get mad and maybe it'll resolve the problem too, or maybe they won't get mad and something else will happen Like one day I stood up to my boss in front of the whole team because he was being a jerk.
I he didn't get fired.
It was weird. And he just ignored it and moved on.
And after that I was still employed and I even got a raise later on.
So everything I feared would happen didn't happen.
And that's what we do to keep these fears with us.
Not doing what we really wanna do or not saying what we really wanna say.
Thinking that if we do or say those things what we fear will come true.
And sometimes it will definitely, sometimes what we fear will come true, but I've learned and this is this is true I have learned then 99 % of the time.
Every time I follow my truth I'm in alignment with my truth and I do what I feel is right and good for me it works out better.
I used to have a fear of conflict.
It was especially with my stepfather and the one I saw him as an adult after not seeing him for a lot of years he showed up at my mom's house my old coping mechanism of wanting to keep the balance keep the peace and avoid conflict and people -pleasing was leading me to say oh hey hi come on in because I didn't know what would happen if I said no you're not allowed to be here but instead of doing that I decided to test it I decided to say sorry you're not welcome here that's scary.
I'm not saying that was easy, that was so scary, but I was also tired of living in fear.
I was also tired of living with insecurities.
I was also tired of having to rely on my coping mechanisms. I didn't want to have to do that anymore.
And if you hadn't heard, he did the opposite of what I thought he was going to do.
He instead of hitting me, which I believed would happen I was willing to take the risk I believe he was gonna hit me he walked away it shocked shocked me I couldn't believe it he just walked away he shrugged his shoulders walked away and I thought I did it I finally stood up I finally spoke my truth to him you're not welcome here great now I can do it again in the future maybe not with him but in my life in general I passed that test so So when another challenge comes along that is just as difficult or maybe not as difficult as that one because that was probably the biggest challenge of my life,
but if something else comes along where I get to speak my truth, I know I can get through it, even though there's a risk.
But to me it's worth the risk to be in alignment with my truth.
I'm not saying that you should do this, because there is risk.
There is risk, but I have learned that 99 % of the time when I do this my life always turns out better and my life has gotten better every time I've aligned with my truth.
Let's go to the next one.
We got three more, sarcasm and humor.
I can relate to this, maybe you can, but I've used sarcasm and humor to deflect.
It was very useful to deflect any emotions that I didn't want to feel or deflect a conversation.
I still use sarcasm and humor, especially when de -escalating situations.
If somebody is getting heated or, you know, there's an argument or maybe a fight's about to break out, I will find something funny or think about something funny and say it, to deescalate the situation because humor is a good tool.
It's one of those coping strategies that I've used to deal with some hard stuff in my life.
Oh, you know, I have to deal with my abusive stepfather.
Let's laugh about his, you know, the way he looks, things like that with my mom and my siblings.
It was easier to laugh about things than to cry about them or be so depressed about them because we didn't know what to do so we would find humor and my mom she is she has found humor and everything she knows how to find humor and every little thing if you've listened to me a while I have her sense of humor and we get along splendidly because we laugh about a lot of things and I do realize that some of the stuff that she laughs about she will it'll be an avoidance tactic it will be her coping mechanism to use that humor so she doesn't have to deal with it I mean we laugh about her funeral talking
about something serious that her funeral you know when she dies we'll find something funny about it oh they're gonna play this song and I hate that song you know things like that she she loves it she loves talking like that and I go along with it, and I think it's fine.
So that's something that can be a coping mechanism and can be a very useful tool.
In fact, I remember having...
I worked with somebody once that used that tool to avoid having to talk about some very serious things in their life.
And we finally got through, I said, you do use humor a lot to avoid, you know, getting to the reality, the real feeling underneath that you feel.
And once we get to that real feeling, whoa, there was some heavy stuff.
There's some heavy stuff under there that needed to come out, that needed to make them feel more authentic, make them feel more alive because they might have used humor for a long time to cope and again can be helpful and also can prevent progress.
So that's just something to look at if you are dealing with that.
Got two more. This one is substance use or abuse.
I think we all know this one pretty well.
Somebody smokes to feel better, somebody drinks to feel better, somebody takes drugs to feel better, somebody has a food addiction or sugar addiction to feel better, and they will binge eat.
They will find something to put in their mouth just to feel better, just because they had a lot of stress or they have to deal with a certain situation.
It's something that some people use when they have trouble dealing with the situation or regulating their emotions.
It's funny, I was just thinking yesterday that some of the nicest people I've known were alcoholics.
Believe it or not, if you aren't familiar with alcoholism and how this works, some of the nicest people I know are alcoholics or were alcoholics because if they were upset are angry they didn't take it out on people, they repressed it and dealt with it later with alcohol.
I'm not saying everyone, I'm just saying that some of the nicest people I've known, not when they were drunk.
When they were drunk was a different story, but when they were sober, they were so nice.
There's a lot of people out there that are super nice, because they found a way to deal with their emotions, but the problem is now they are Jekyll and Hyde.
So, any type of substance that helps you deal with your emotions it can create kind of an alternate personality.
Not any substance like somebody with a food addiction might not have a different personality, but somebody who is chemically dependent on something like alcohol or any hard drugs or anything like that might change their personality when you know when they're on the substance.
So some of the nicest people I know are alcoholics at the same time you don't want to be around some of them when they're drunk and that's a problem.
So it's not, this is rarely a good coping mechanism it could be good situationally.
I've had long very difficult days where I said I need a drink and I would have a drink and say okay that's enough because I'm a lightweight but it is kind of a relaxer and I'm not promoting drinking or smoking I don't think that's a good way to deal with your emotions but any of these situationally might be something that you consider doing as a resource but again I'm not here to promote any of that and some people are dealing with alcoholism they have to deal with a person in their life or in even in themselves that alcohol is a big problem and when it's a big problem we definitely don't want
to utilize that as a way to regulate your emotions.
Substance use can stem from childhood.
I watched my stepfather drink alcohol until he passed out almost every day and that made such an impact on me that I decided not to touch alcohol for a long time until I realized alcohol wasn't the problem.
It was the person who drank it that was the problem or not the problem.
meaning a person is either going to know how to hold their alcohol or regulate their own alcohol use or not, so I stopped making alcohol the enemy and started trying to understand that alcohol affects everyone differently that changed my perception of alcohol on any substance really any substance out there that alters somebody in a way that I might I may not like or you may not like, but again, as a child, I witnessed that a lot.
I witnessed drug use and I wanted to stay away from a haul of that.
But some children will see that and realize, Oh, that's how I cope.
When I get angry, I'm supposed to drink.
Or when I drink, I'm angry.
So maybe I only get angry when I drink it depends on how the child processes it.
As a child for me, alcohol was a thing so I wanted to survive by avoiding alcohol because I realized alcohol turns people into monsters sometimes so in order to cope I did my best to avoid alcohol and even avoid relationships with people who drank alcohol and so that coping mechanism prevented me from some good relationships because it's the person what is the person doing not the alcohol is the person drinking responsibly or are they drinking to excess you know those are the questions I had to deal with and had to realize that it is not the alcohol that's the problem.
But substance use and substance abuse are a coping mechanism for a lot of people and we all know what the abuse of substances can do and in case you don't know if you do substances to deal with your emotions those emotions aren't necessarily gone unless your brain cells are fried maybe but they're still in there and this is why some people can't stop I mean I'm not going to claim to be an addiction expert here but I believe this is why some people can't stop besides the chemical addiction and all that but if you have some sort of anger or upset that you haven't dealt with and every time you feel
it you decide to drink or smoke or have some sort of drug, and you never deal with that anger or upset, it's still there, which means you might have to resort to that drink or smoke or alcohol again.
And that can also be part of the addiction because every time you do, you don't have to feel what you're feeling.
So that is not always the best coping mechanism obviously, and I don't have to tell you about drugs and alcohol and you know all that stuff, but it can be helpful to know that sometimes we do this to avoid feeling what's in there, and we might need to address what's in there, and in order to do that we might have to be sober.
I might be bad news for some people, but that's how it is.
We might have to be sober.
Let's go to the last one.
It is control and controlling behaviors, and this is a good one to end on because I was talking about emotionally abusive people before Emotional abuse stems, typically, stems from poor coping mechanisms or unhealthy coping mechanisms. If somebody is emotionally abusive, they're controlling, they're manipulative, it's because they don't want to have to either deal with something inside themselves or change something about themselves.
They don't have to deal with something inside themselves or change something about themselves.
so they will try to change someone else.
This is why some people want to control, manipulate and abuse you.
So if there's somebody in your life being controlling or manipulative or emotionally abusive, it's very, very likely that they did not learn healthy coping mechanisms, learning to honor their personal boundaries, learning to speak their mind, learning to tell the truth, learning to face conflict.
I mean if they haven't learned to cope with challenging situations, then when they have a challenge in their relationship, they may resort to trying to control or change someone else.
And that causes a big problem.
Nobody wants to be controlled.
So when you're around somebody who wants to control you, it's typically because they don't know how to cope with challenges themselves.
So they will try to control other people, change them into who they want you to be.
They will try to control you and change you into who you want to be.
So that they don't have to change themselves or deal with something difficult.
And this coping mechanism can stem from the childhood when you feel like you had no control at all.
Maybe you were brought up in chaos.
people fighting or some dysfunctional toxic people in your upbringing and when that happens and you feel like you have no control you might go overboard trying to control others trying to control outcomes trying to control your situation this is along the lines of perfectionism too trying to control everything to work out in your favor so that you don't have to face the chaos if If you can control what happens around you and how people respond and react, then you are in control of your own happiness.
You feel like you have power.
The problem with that is it usually doesn't make you happy, usually the opposite, and it definitely doesn't make other people happy and you will find that people will leave you.
you will be the common denominator of all the problems in your relationships and people won't want to be around you because nobody wants to be controlled or very few people want to be controlled.
If they do, that's a different situation.
But most people don't like the idea of somebody else telling them how to live their lives and what they need to do and not to be themselves.
Imagine being told that you can't be who you are And I know there are people listening right now that know they can't be who they want to be and who they really are, and I'm so sorry that you're going through that if that's you.
Because that is no way to live.
It's no way to live to be an adult and another adult controls you or finds ways to control you by manipulating you by making you feel guilty by making you feel responsible.
most people do not want another adult telling them what to do and how to live and how to think and how to act the removal of autonomy is the opposite of freedom and typically the opposite of happiness so I do hope you're not in a situation like that but again I know there are a lot of people that listen to this show that might be under a certain level of control but remember that you most of you that listen to our adults that you have the ability to make decisions and you may feel like you can't make some decisions or certain decisions and I understand that too you might feel stuck but you deserve to
be treated with respect and kindness something I always say on my other podcasts Love and Abuse and when you're not you may have to be so respectful and kind to yourself that you choose not to allow that in your life anymore.
For more and that head over to LoveAndAbuse .com.
That's something I talked about over there.
Anyway, I hope this helps this is my rather short list honestly of coping mechanisms but I wanted to answer that person's question in the Facebook group and also address it because I really haven't gone into detail with any of these and maybe you knew all of this already but for those who didn't it can be quite helpful to understand and even reflect on your own behaviors to figure out what you might be doing.
There could be a coping mechanism and maybe not helpful.
Maybe not serving you.
That's what I like to do.
I like to ask myself does this behavior serve me?
Does my reaction serve me?
And my answer usually comes in the form of outcomes.
What is the outcome of that behavior?
What is the outcome when I yell and scream?
What is the outcome when I withdraw?
What is the outcome when I avoid conflict.
Am I happier afterward?
Or do I feel like crap?
Do I feel like I'm carrying it on and carrying it into my future?
And I'm gonna have to deal with it again and again.
I don't like that feeling.
I hope you don't like that feeling.
And that maybe today gave you something to think about and reflect upon in your life and perhaps move forward and forget perfection and just make progress thanks for joining me today thanks for listening to another episode of the overwhelmed brain I want to thank crystal who decided to donate out of blue and say I have the best podcast ever her words thank you crystal I am so grateful for you I also want to name some of the patrons that have been giving every month I've stopped saying their names after every episode but I do want to take this moment to thank the following people.
Youme Cheyenne, Heather, Sandra, Tammy, Ashley, Maria, Denak, Winnie, Paige, Crystal, Wanda, Debra, Michelle, Angel, Christy, Brad, Zack, Steven, and Anna.
Thank you so much for your support over these months and sometimes years.
I know, some of these names were years old.
I am so grateful for your continued support.
If you find value in the show like these patrons do, head over to MoreTOB .com, and there are options to give back over there.
I appreciate all of you.
And for a show on how to navigate the difficult relationship, listen to my other podcast called Love and Abuse over at loveandabuse .com.
And if you know you're the difficult one in the relationship, join the program that is helping thousands of people heal over at healedbeing .com.
And with that, always keep your mind open because that's how you make the best decisions.
And be firm in your decisions and actions so that you can create the life you want.
always take steps to grow and evolve.
You are powerful beyond measure, and above all, and this is something I absolutely know to be true about you.
You are amazing!
