choosing not to cope well?

I think (for me) that coping is a learned behavior. It takes a long time to develop. I don't "choose" not to cope well, I just don't always know to do it. It is difficult changing the way we have been dealing with our issues for years. Almost like a left handed person trying to learn to use their right hand. Eventually it will happen, I'll gradually learn to cope, and that habit will form.

Does "not coping" necessarily mean doing something not good for yourself? If so, maybe it means that you don't know how to cope in healthy ways. I have unhealthy coping methods too, and when I'm not coping I do tend to fall back on those. But I think maybe the bigger problem is what I'm not doing - such as not speaking up for myself when I need to, not dealing with emotions directly, not using distress tolerance or mindfulness or other skills that I theoretically know since I teach them to other people.

In DBT you learn to think about what are the factors that reduce your effectiveness, because we probably don't just set out to fail. There are reasons. Such as:

Lack of skill - you actually don't know what to say or how to act or what will work.

Worry thoughts - you worry that if you do what you know you need to do for yourself, someone might not like it, or maybe you don't deserve to get what you want or need, or maybe it won't work effectively or be good enough.

Emotions - anger, fear, frustration, guilt, etc. can be so intense that the emotions control us or make it harder to control what we do.

Indecision - not being able to balance asking for too much vs. not asking for anything or saying no to everything vs. giving in to everything. Not sure what your priorities are.

Environment - sometimes skills don't work because someone else is too powerful or will be threatened or would punish you or not give you what you need, or at least not until after you sacrifice your self-respect.

Also, these things tend to build on each other and multiply the effect and make it harder to be effective/cope in a healthy way.

This was my experience. As I slowly uncovered and dealt with the reasons BEHIND my use of bad coping mechanisms, they slowly faded away.

I agree with Eileen, too. As a child and young adult, I was never taught any way to cope, and I didn't have any good examples around me that I could follow. When I was very little, I coped by dissociating...as I got older, I "coped" with SI, food, alcohol, drugs. It really wasn't until I started therapy that I began to learn other ways to cope...and it wasn't until I did some hard work on the underlying reasons for the *need* to cope that I was able to regularly use the new skills I was learning.

It takes time to unlearn a lifetime of anything.

You guys are really making me think, thanks for this. The reason why I used the word "choose" was because I didn't even want to hear T suggest other ways to cope. She was trying to say thing like, "Did you try to distract yourself? Maybe you could cook something the next time you feel that way / sew / go on a walk?" And I was like, "I don't even know why I'm here because I don't want to stop." But I don't know why I don't want to stop. I just don't want to.

I don't want to hear about tools I could use to distract myself. I don't want to hear about ways to cope with urges. So that must mean I'm choosing to do this.

Maybe it is, as you said sunrise, a way that I am dealing with the pain. And I don't want to hear solutions because it seems to me that this is working just fine. Except that one day I want to be a psychologist and, well, this isn't a great long-term solution for a psychologist. I suppose.

Maybe it's also that I didn't learn good coping so it feels unnatural to do healthy things. My parents didn't cope well, but they lashed out in anger. I am terrified to be angry and lose control, so I've always turned my anger against myself. So this could be internalized anger for sure. Maybe it's anger at my T that I am terrified of expressing. I don't know. I'm confused still.

I think sometimes it is harder to use good coping skills when things get really bad, because the good coping skills just don't seem to work as well as the bad ones.

I think of analogies a lot, and I thought of it being like eating a low cal version of a food when you want the real version. Like those 100 cal packs of oreo thin crisps? those are kind of tasty, and they are ok to have sometimes, but when you're REALLY craving the real thing they just aren't good enough. Maybe that's a silly comparison.....

But i think it's pretty complex, there can be many different reasons, and it might not be the same for everyone, or for every time.

Really good to think about this, though.

Hugs to you, Jexa.

The "bad" ones are the ones that evolution developed, and they are automatic -- they don't depend much on thinking! Just on that reptilian brain reacting! Thinking is harder!

When I first responded I wasn't thinking specifically of self injury. There are many other bad ways of coping.

But for me it has been a long hard road to realizing that way deep down there was a want/need/desperation for attention even if NO ONE EVER knew. And no one did know. I hid/hide it well. It's not for manipulation/attention. It's a cry for help. It's screaming inside. It's begging for someone to love me. It's punishment. It's wanting someone to hear me. It's wanting someone to take care of me. This is very hard to admit and look at and face. I do hate when people say it is for attention, but I think I hate if for myself because it is a tiny bit true. BUT wanting and needing attention is HUMAN and not a bad thing at all. I wish we wouldn't look at that phrase so negatively. Does posting here mean we want attention? Does dressing nicely mean we want attention? I don't know. I think in way those things are for attention, but NOT IN A BAD WAY. It's very, very, very human to want and need and crave someone to love us and take care of us and "see" us. I think for me self injury was and is partly that even if it is only something that I know and no one else ever does.

Well, you did listen, and you heard her because you can write out what she suggested.
When I'm emotionally tapped out, I sometimes don't have the energy for the "good" choice. I'm not choosing, I'm just going with the good old default, the standard way vs. one of these new ways. So, off to bed with ice cream. No energy for a walk or yoga or journaling. The bigger problem is no energy for making dinner for the kids or grocery shopping.
Less-than-optimal coping skills don't often work for the long term - in my case they start to interfere with the life I have and the life I want -- but you really have to practice, practice, practice and be really committed to making the change - you almost have to formally reject the old ways, set up a rewards system for using the new ways (star chart!). You can set a goal for a week - delay responding to your pain with your standard coping method by 5-10 minutes. So, you go and scrub the tub or start a load of laundry or send an email or read a few web comics. Then check your pain level.
So, I try to put off using the default method for a few hours, so I can go to the store and cook the dinner and help with the baths. By the time I've delayed the old coping strategy for another 2-3 hr, then often I just go to bed with the journal or talk on the phone. Or eat some ice cream at the table from a bowl

Your technique(s) may be working to cope with the pain, but are you also working on solving the cause of the pain? I think it takes both. I think treehouse and I have experienced similar, as she wrote. When you work through the pain, a lot of the need to practice either good or bad coping can go away. Because the pain has been reduced, you don't need to cope. You mentioned wanting to be a psychologist--especially then it seems like you would want to get at the root rather than only working on coping mechanisms. Jexa, it sounds like you are trying hard to work on the coping side of things. Does your therapy also include working on solving the pain? Sometimes people have to do the coping techniques part first before doing the deeper work (to make themselves stronger). But you want to be a psychologist. So I see how important it is for you! I am working right now on becoming a PNP. I use that to help motivate myself to do the work in therapy that otherwise I might leave undone. I think I have been to therapy long enough to do "well enough" out in the world. But I need better than that, because I'm going to be helping other people. I owe it to them to deal with all my stuff--down to the root.

I WAS trying to get to the root of this. I WAS working on that. I WAS going to solve the deep down stuff before I went to grad school. And then my T decided to move.

Now, starting over messes up my timeline. I have less than a year before I begin a PhD program in clinical psychology. I cannot go to therapy in grad school. I cannot afford it. And now I'm supposed to become a therapist, but I haven't gone to the root of things. Just like you said, sunrise. I don't want to be a therapist with this big, ugly root inside of me. The CSA, the angry, crazy parents, the chaos of my childhood, everything in my past rages beneath this smiling surface.

Yeah I was doing really well in therapy, coping really well, the tip of the iceberg had been shaped so prettily and was so very presentable to the world. But because of that I felt safe enough to venture deeper. Maybe she didn't realize just how far down we'd gone.. feel like I dove down so far, and now she's cutting off my air supply while I'm stuck below the surface. And I don't WANT her to just simply rescue me, pull me back to the surface. I want her to be my air supply while I am down here! But she can't be that for me, not anymore.

So that's why I don't want to stop. Does that mean I have so much pain, I can't take it, and I am asking someone to take care of me, like you said roseleigh? Or does it mean I'm trying to mess up the tip of the iceberg that looked all pretty, just to show the people up there on the surface that I'm stuck down here? Or is that the same thing?

I still don't know what I'm supposed to do.

I would feel abandoned and hurt if my therapist was moving away. And lost. That seems so painful. It would be hard to work on issues with that going on.

Jexa, that last post sounds like you are on to something. You want your therapist to know that you need help, that you are trying to get to the bottom of things, and you are hurt and scared. Maybe if you looked like you were coping too well, you wouldn't get the help that you need.

I relate to that. I have been in therapy all the way through grad school and two years later I am still in therapy and still not getting whatever is inside and still messing things up fixed. The way you described it sounds almost like a root canal on a tooth. I guess that's a good analogy. You can put a perfectly nice cap over it, but when the root is still rotting, it won't last very long.

You want to get better and be whole, not just come back up to the surface. Me too. I am a therapist and my wounds are not healed and sometimes it scares me. I can still help others, but I think I could do better if I could heal, and I don't seem to be able to do that. I think I should have learned by now, with 8 different therapists and 6 years with the current one, and a master's degree, and all the books I've read. Yeah, I know how to act ok, but that doesn't get my needs met. And none of those things have provided an adequate "air supply" to go down and stay down long enough to get at the root of everything. 7 of those therapists didn't understand me or help me at all - some of them were incompetent and/or unethical or just plain overworked and really didn't seem to care. The last one is giving up. It's been a long time, but three of those 6 years were limited mostly to email, and even after that, I've jumped around too much because I only see her once or twice a month and there isn't enough consistency. Not to provide enough support for deep dives, and that's what it takes when "returning" to mental health is meaningless because that's a place where you have never been.

Thanks for your question, and your insight. It has helped me, and I hope this discussion has helped you too. And if you aren't ready to stop therapy, find a way to keep it going. There are ways if you are determined enough.

(((jexa)))) I am sorry you lost your therapist in the middle of the work you want to do. I know how that feels to have your progress cut off.

It took me years to finally go for some therapy and like you it was working well until the day he said he was taking a leave of absense for a year because he was adopting a child. I put on a happy face for him but inside it was those same old abandonment issues eating me up. Here we go again. Of course you are leaving.

Same with family doctors. I have had 4 doctors in fewer years. I would just get to a place where I thought I could trust them with my story and ask for help to treat the bi polar and they would be gone. The news of their departure would hit me like a brick.

With each change of doctors by default I would choose to not cope well in the sense that I would choose to clam up again about the bi polar when I met a new doc. Putting my treatment and potential recovery on hold once again. I would limit appointment visits to thyroid checkups but never bring up the bi polar. When one replacement asked about the Effexor and Seroquel that were listed in my records I just said I wasn't taking them anymore and brushed off any further probbing.

My last doctor was special. I finally got the courage to bring up the bi polar with him and he was amazing. He knew so much about it and he was really gentle with me. We had only just begun to put a plan together when he left. He even managed to ease my fears of meds enough to include them in the treatment plan but we didn't get very far before he was gone.

So what do I do? I think I have two choices. I can default into silence again when I see the new doc next week for a thyroid check. This would be my norm. I can justify it easily enough. I've been doing it for a lifetime.

The alternative would be to not waste anymore time with my excuses and fears and talk about the bi polar with this new doctor sooner rather then later. Find out from the get go what this doc knows and if he isn't qualified to treat the bi polar then get a referal to a specialist.

I think I need to decide to walk through the fear and doubts and do the right thing. Make the right choose for me now not sometime down the road if and when the stars are alligned and he is wearing the right coloured tie and his hair is combed to the right and......

What do you do now Jexa.... I think like me you find another T and you get on with the work. You are motivated not to loose time or momentum so run with that. People move on. We get left behind. Its not abandoned. Its not personal. It happens. We keep on keepin on. It may take some work to find another therapist but another therapist can be found. Maybe your current T can recommend someone. The next T could be the one who guides you to the breakthrough you are looking for. Changing T's could be the best thing that ever happened to you. You don't know what the future holds. Just try not to let your past and the fears in you that were planted in your past hold you back from walking into your future.

Make the choose that will advance your goals. Trust your own fearlessness.

**trigger for SI**
So I'm at this place inside myself where I think I can stop at 40 cuts, since 40 is symbolic of suffering, a journey, etc. This way the scars will be meaningful to me. My T says she doesn't know how we're going to talk about other stuff if I am still using SI to cope, and I don't want to waste our time. I think this is hope? Maybe? Somehow the number 40 seems satisfactory. She handled our last session so well. Maybe two months is enough time to figure out what to do next, at least.

I'm not up to 40 yet -- well, actually I am up to 40, but I need 40 open at once to feel complete. I think I will feel okay then.

I feel really strange, though, about stopping now -- like somehow it will seem.. weak? Does anyone relate to this?

jexa, did you ask about phone therapy or isn't that an option? Can you see T more often before she leaves? I feel like there must be an answer for you. Please stay safe. Cutting so much doesn't sound safe. I'm afraid for you.

Jexa, which would be harder? Stopping your SI, or continuing it? If stopping is hard, then it isn't weak. I have felt that way too though. I was disgusted with myself when I got tired of it at 36, and had wanted more, or when my cuts are never quite severe enough. But it really is harder to not to it at all, so it isn't weak not to do it. What would be really brave is to face that deep root without SIing at all. Then you would be committing to dealing with the emotions as feelings, rather than making them into something more familiar. And , truly, emotional healing doesn't happen when we SI instead. It is a way to avoid the real work of therapy.

((((jexa))))))

Hi Jexa,

I am new to the SI thing myself (like 6 weeks)...however, I had my most break through moment with my T (and with myself) last session while part of our discussion was ABOUT SI (and some other things as well), but SI was a gateway to me being open about some of my feelings (not saying it is "good", just saying what happened for me in therapy session). So I guess it bothers me that your T said that she "doesn't know how the both of you are going to talk about other stuff if you are still using SI to cope"?

Obviously it is you showing your pain from the inside on the OUTSIDE, and I know for me I do it when I can't cope with the emotional pain and would rather deal with the physical. Anyway, I would hope you would be able to deal with everything with her, no matter what you are doing to cope, as it might help you through, over, and around the SI. Safe hugs to you as you go through this stressful and painful time.

Rapunzel -- it would indeed be more difficult to stop the SI than to keep going. But there's this part of me.. I just look at my cuts and they look pathetic -- I think, I could have gone deeper, I could have been tougher, I could have.. and the thought of stopping makes me grind my teeth. They're not ready! They don't look right! Not deep enough, not good enough. But then I think about it and I realize just how far I could take that. Never deep enough, never good enough.

*sigh*

traction, I think I misquoted T on this. I think she was saying something more along the lines of, we'll be more productive if you stop the SI, we can't really work well when this behavior is going on. I agree with her actually. This has to stop for me to do good work in therapy. I can't cut myself daily and think that I'm making progress.

It's just now that I've started again I feel like I started a train moving. And slowing it down is so tricky. Like I am scared that 40 won't be enough. Or it will be, but I'll keep wanting them deeper. And deeper. And then. I've already started the insane fantasies of ripping off my skin completely, of completely covering my body in scars, of cutting off my limbs.. this is getting more and more intense, very quickly.

Please God let 40 be enough.


Will my T still care about me if I stop? Will she understand how hard it was, if I can stop so quickly once I started? Will she roll her eyes at my melodrama? Will she wrap me up in a bow and tell me I'm just fine now?

I did it. Tonight I have 40 cuts on my leg.... I don't want to stop here.

(((((jexa)))))
I'm sorry reaching 40 doesn't feel as good as you hoped it would feel. I'm so sorry you're hurting so much. I wish I had the right words to say.

Jexa, I don't know how to help......

Jexa-
Please stop! The longer this goes on the harder it will be to stop. You don't deserve to be hurt. You will regret the scars. Please don't cause yourself pain.

Can you ask your T these things?
Will my T still care about me if I stop? Will she understand how hard it was, if I can stop so quickly once I started? Will she roll her eyes at my melodrama? Will she wrap me up in a bow and tell me I'm just fine now?

(((((((jexa)))))))
Are you sure? This is just hypothetical but: if God were to tell you that one had been more than enough, would you actually be ready to stop? Or are you just saying that?
I know one way to find out. Do you know others?

Thanks for the support (((zoo))) and (((rainbow))). It means a lot to me that you guys are here.

googley, I'm going to try to stop. I first wrote I'm going to stop, but I couldn't say that. I'm going to try. Okay, well, I'll at least save it up until after my session on Friday. If she can convince me to stop, then I'll really stop.

I don't think I can ask my T those questions how embarrassing.

FZ, if there were a God, I'd ask him to take away the urge, not to tell me what to do. I'd ask him to give me the feeling of satisfaction that I've been trying to find for so long. And yes I guess the only way to find out the answers to these questions is to stop.

Okay well first let's see if I can get through a day without doing it, before I make any kind of lofty goal of "never again."