Coping Mechanisms

[Recidiva]

The world is a terrible, cruel, random place. Humans can try to mitigate that terror, cruelty and random sense of events, but they can't eliminate it. They can also be more terrible, cruel and targeted in their venom that it seems like the world is fine but it's us that's wrong.

Mine are humor and entertainment where I can shut off having to think about all the wrongs in the world and let my brain deal with fiction for a while and relax. I try to choose smart fiction to give me the relationship with smart writers or creators and feel that there's good company on the planet and things worth appreciating and preserving. Good food, good company, dropping what I can if it's too much of a burden.

I also mitigate some of my interest in making the world a better place by putting the idea of free will in place. That way I resist the impulse to reach into someone else's life and try to move them into the "correct" position according to what I believe to be true.

I used to want to save the world and now I believe that even if the world needed to be saved, which is doubt because it might be right where it needs to be to get to the next spot in its evolution, there's very little I can do about it and most attempts to "change" people are tiresomely evangelistic and naïve.

So everyone is Creation's own special snowflake but I don't know what Creation is and I don't know what the snowflake's about, but if it tries to kill me, I will kill it back, otherwise leave it alone unless I feel I can make a real difference or symbolic difference that will add up over time if enough people participate.

How do you cope?

 

[RobDownSouth]

A positive mental attitude.
and Jaegermeister.

 

[Recidiva]

A positive mental attitude.
and Jaegermeister.

Jaegermeister is or was the coping mechanism of 94% of my relatives, so it is familiar. It doesn't work on me, I just giggle a little more, which I would have done anyway, and either throw up or fall asleep or both. It can also trigger migraines, so alcohol is not a go-to fix for happiness the way that rewatching "Firefly" might be.

 

[remy_lebeau8]

A very good amd at times very dark sense of humor.

Example. When we put my grandpa in the ground, I laughed a bit because the back hoe had firestone tires. This was the tailend of the recalls. I can't help but see the irony in that

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I strive to be a wood chipper for those who would kick me.

 

[Aphro]

I just concentrate on my own little corner of the world, and try not to get too caught up in the shittiness of the rest of it.

I used to let myself become distraught over the state of the world, the tragedies, the atrocities. It became almost unbearable after the birth of my children. I remember not being able to sleep for weeks after the tsunami of 2004. It happened when my daughter was just seven weeks old. I was obsessed with thinking about all those poor people. There was this story of a mother clinging to a tree, and she had her two children with her, and she couldn't hold on to them both, so she had to choose which one to let go. She chose the one who was the better swimmer. I remember being so horrified, it haunted me for months, trying to imagine that decision, as a mother.

I now try to focus on my family, and my closest friends, and I have had to let go worrying about what's going to happen to the world. I still do my recycling, but I'm not gripped in fear about global warming and the polar bears. I watch the news to be informed, but I try to not dwell on the atrocities. I try to find stories that make me feel good to provide balance. I sometimes wish I WERE religious, because I know religious people gain a lot of comfort from it.

 

[Recidiva]

A very good amd at times very dark sense of humor.

Example. When we put my grandpa in the ground, I laughed a bit because the back hoe had firestone tires. This was the tailend of the recalls. I can't help but see the irony in that

I remember my cousin at her father's gravestone saying "If there's no Budweiser in heaven, he is not there."

Humor is a very powerful coping mechanism and I think it is one of the most prevalent.

 

[Recidiva]

I strive to be a wood chipper for those who would kick me.

I recognize that behavior in you.

I am open to forgiving someone for kicking me if it was accidental, kicking them back in kind once if it wasn't, and then being a wood chipper if it persists. I will often offer them a tourniquet after they lost a limb, but not a ride to the hospital, though I may give them directions.

 

[colddiesel]

The world is a terrible, cruel, random place.

How do you cope?

No it is not. Live life, and stop this self indulgent codswallop.

Sometimes shit happens - get over it and get on with it.

 

[Recidiva]

I just concentrate on my own little corner of the world, and try not to get too caught up in the shittiness of the rest of it.

I used to let myself become distraught over the state of the world, the tragedies, the atrocities. It became almost unbearable after the birth of my children. I remember not being able to sleep for weeks after the tsunami of 2004. It happened when my daughter was just seven weeks old. I was obsessed with thinking about all those poor people. There was this story of a mother clinging to a tree, and she had her two children with her, and she couldn't hold on to them both, so she had to choose which one to let go. She chose the one who was the better swimmer. I remember being so horrified, it haunted me for months, trying to imagine that decision, as a mother.

I now try to focus on my family, and my closest friends, and I have had to let go worrying about what's going to happen to the world. I still do my recycling, but I'm not gripped in fear about global warming and the polar bears. I watch the news to be informed, but I try to not dwell on the atrocities. I try to find stories that make me feel good to provide balance. I sometimes wish I WERE religious, because I know religious people gain a lot of comfort from it.

I have successfully built myself about the best I could hope for and a great deal more than I possibly deserve.

I do my reacting, but I do try to let pain fade over time. Especially if it wasn't really my pain and I didn't feel it myself.

What you describe is comparable to my sister's reaction to the 9/11 media coverage. She was there, she does not want to think about it, she doesn't want to watch the news on that day. It is not because it is not personal to her, it is because it is so personal and so private that she feels that there is a "Grievier than Thou" air to it and she would like to be able to process it without a camera or a microphone.

It is difficult to have "grieving etiquette" but it has a big impact on people in their different stages and different abilities to take reminders from others.

 

[Recidiva]

No it is not. Live life, and stop this self indulgent codswallop.

Sometimes shit happens - get over it and get on with it.

Yes. Life is cruel. In my case it is due to chronic migraines that deeply affect my life and my ability to function and robs me of one of my favorite things, my own brain. It gives back pain I can't process because the illness ironically makes it seem as if all sensory input were the highest pain input. This is my own head doing this. It is cruel. It is not a test, I will not learn from it, I will not get stronger from it, I will only suffer the most pain I can, randomly, for three days at a time, for no reason except that the sun was bright that day. For parts of my life I would have three days of absolute torture, two days to catch up on everything I missed doing in those days while still nauseated and exhausted and trembling, and then it starts over. Not good. Not fair. Cruel.

For others it is different. No, I do not consider lack of cell phone coverage cruel. I do think that the starting conditions of life are, as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman said in their way in "Good Omens"

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”

 

[Aphro]

I have successfully built myself about the best I could hope for and a great deal more than I possibly deserve.

I do my reacting, but I do try to let pain fade over time. Especially if it wasn't really my pain and I didn't feel it myself.

What you describe is comparable to my sister's reaction to the 9/11 media coverage. She was there, she does not want to think about it, she doesn't want to watch the news on that day. It is not because it is not personal to her, it is because it is so personal and so private that she feels that there is a "Grievier than Thou" air to it and she would like to be able to process it without a camera or a microphone.

It is difficult to have "grieving etiquette" but it has a big impact on people in their different stages and different abilities to take reminders from others.

It was a really crap few months for me, and it's probably the closest I've been or will get to needing medication. I didn't, but, I was probably close to it. My father died just before I got pregnant with my daughter. I was close to my father, he was a great man, a kind and wise man, and I still miss him every single day. While I was pregnant, I would go weekly to my father's grave to think and put fresh flowers. Until one day I find that they have decided the plot directly next to his grave would be designated for baby graves. Tiny little graves of newborns, with cherub headstones and stuffed animals on them. It got to the point I was having nightmares about going to pic out tiny white coffins, and picking out tiny baby clothes for my dead baby to wear. I'm sure it was all exacerbated by the pregnancy hormones, but it was awful. I felt like a wreck, and I had to young kids at home to care for on top of it, when all I wanted to do was lie in bed and cry. In the end, I had to stop going to the cemetery. I just couldn't handle it. Then, of course, I have the baby and while my post-partum hormones are still all fucked up, that tsunami happened. It was crazy bad...I don't think I let that baby out of my sight for at least six or seven months. Even after she started sleeping better, I would wake up with my heart pounding and had to check on her every two or three hours.

 

[Recidiva]

It was a really crap few months for me, and it's probably the closest I've been or will get to needing medication. I didn't, but, I was probably close to it. My father died just before I got pregnant with my daughter. I was close to my father, he was a great man, a kind and wise man, and I still miss him every single day. While I was pregnant, I would go weekly to my father's grave to think and put fresh flowers. Until one day I find that they have decided the plot directly next to his grave would be designated for baby graves. Tiny little graves of newborns, with cherub headstones and stuffed animals on them. It got to the point I was having nightmares about going to pic out tiny white coffins, and picking out tiny baby clothes for my dead baby to wear. I'm sure it was all exacerbated by the pregnancy hormones, but it was awful. I felt like a wreck, and I had to young kids at home to care for on top of it, when all I wanted to do was lie in bed and cry. In the end, I had to stop going to the cemetery. I just couldn't handle it. Then, of course, I have the baby and while my post-partum hormones are still all fucked up, that tsunami happened. It was crazy bad...I don't think I let that baby out of my sight for at least six or seven months. Even after she started sleeping better, I would wake up with my heart pounding and had to check on her every two or three hours.

When my daughter was born she had a 1% chance of living at all, she had meconium aspiration which meant she inhaled her amniotic fluid after her first bowel evacuation and her lungs were literally full of shit and fluid.

I would sit by her side in the NICU and I would notice that other parents would only come in, stand over their preemie for a few minutes crying and then leave. Most had no visitors. My husband at the time couldn't stand to be in the room with her for more than a few minutes.

I couldn't even hold her hand because the medication she was on made it impossible for her to process touch without it being painful. She was in a medically induced coma. The nurse would tell me to take pictures and comb her hair because she wouldn't make it through the night.

The horrors that happen to babies are one of the most difficult things to face, and that's why for me I can't believe in any God with any benevolence, because there is no explanation for a crack baby that is born in the full throes of painful withdrawal and then dies. None. There is no grace from that, there is no blessing, there is no learning.

My daughter is now in graduate school, but she is a particularly kind person. Every time she sees someone insensate in a wheelchair she checks the scars on her arm that came from the surgical procedures and tries to give them an extra smile and hope they can process kindness.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I cope by controlling the things that I can control, realizing some things can't be controlled and accepting that idea.

 

[remy_lebeau8]

I remember my cousin at her father's gravestone saying "If there's no Budweiser in heaven, he is not there."

Humor is a very powerful coping mechanism and I think it is one of the most prevalent.

I also look at things and how they're gonna affect me. Shit going on half a world away I try to avoid. Has nothing to do with my little patch.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I recognize that behavior in you.

I am open to forgiving someone for kicking me if it was accidental, kicking them back in kind once if it wasn't, and then being a wood chipper if it persists. I will often offer them a tourniquet after they lost a limb, but not a ride to the hospital, though I may give them directions.

Even a dog knows when the kick is intentional or accident.

But what you don't know is how many years I turned the other ass-cheek for more kicks.

Now I do like Geronimo. He ignored some things and destroyed others.

 

[sweepthefloor]

I laughed wheeling a dead body to the morgue with my critical care tech. I kept saying: serious face, this isn't right.

 

[Recidiva]

I cope by controlling the things that I can control, realizing some things can't be controlled and accepting that idea.

That becomes very interesting in practice and involves my concept of free will.

So for me I do think drugs, prostitution, suicide, all manner of things that might or might not have a drawback on the person choosing to do them (yes, it might be that death is a drawback for suicide, but it is also a draw) but not otherwise have an exterior "victim" should be legal. An individual cannot be compelled legally to stop harming themselves after they've reached adulthood. Protect children from those things and then at a certain point, let it go.

Individual wisdom of knowing our own personal limits is a hard practice. I think that society is trying to help sometimes, but can also be misguided out of revulsion. It is not wise in its understanding of its own limits.

 

[Recidiva]

I also look at things and how they're gonna affect me. Shit going on half a world away I try to avoid. Has nothing to do with my little patch.

I invest in micro loans on Kiva and I can have a direct, personal impact. My son and I also tend to ask for contributions to charities like Red Cross during times of specific tragedy or Charity Water. He gave up his Christmas gifts also one year and asked for contributions.

I can affect it, I know I can because I know the value of a bottle of water. I can get someone a bottle of water during a hurricane. I can't save them from genocide.

We are interconnected but I have limited options. Those options that I can take, I will.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I just concentrate on my own little corner of the world, and try not to get too caught up in the shittiness of the rest of it.

I used to let myself become distraught over the state of the world, the tragedies, the atrocities. It became almost unbearable after the birth of my children. I remember not being able to sleep for weeks after the tsunami of 2004. It happened when my daughter was just seven weeks old. I was obsessed with thinking about all those poor people. There was this story of a mother clinging to a tree, and she had her two children with her, and she couldn't hold on to them both, so she had to choose which one to let go. She chose the one who was the better swimmer. I remember being so horrified, it haunted me for months, trying to imagine that decision, as a mother.

I now try to focus on my family, and my closest friends, and I have had to let go worrying about what's going to happen to the world. I still do my recycling, but I'm not gripped in fear about global warming and the polar bears. I watch the news to be informed, but I try to not dwell on the atrocities. I try to find stories that make me feel good to provide balance. I sometimes wish I WERE religious, because I know religious people gain a lot of comfort from it.

Pretty nearly all are certain I'm Hannibal Lecter but I'll let you in on a secret. I have 4 great kids and 10 excellent grandchildren, using whatever scorecard you like. A social worker who lives down the street (and disliked me) has two sons and a husband in their graves and a daughter who's trash. Another neighbor, most of her kids and grandkids have criminals records. And theyre typical. I'm the whacko with the stirling progeny.

I'm not religious, never go to church, and generally dislike clergy. But I discovered something 45 years ago. When things are awful its usually just you and God there on the scene. And if you believe that there's something like RIGHT and GOOD in the world, that's the God part, and you feel less alone.

 

[Recidiva]

Even a dog knows when the kick is intentional or accident.

But what you don't know is how many years I turned the other ass-cheek for more kicks.

Now I do like Geronimo. He ignored some things and destroyed others.

I do believe you. I think you've done some serious good and had some serious ideals and now you're glad you tried and you are glad you know what you know, but knowing that means you'd like to do things differently now and not throw your life and effort away on someone else's problems who is more likely to curse you for it than thank you.

I felt that way after joining a cult and seeing "Wow, these guys have a lot of great ideas, but everybody hates them and to be fair, some of them are complete assholes."

It seems you came that way through organized social services, I came that way through joining a cult in the same way that Nelly Bly joined an insane asylum.

There is nothing I can do about people's stupid. Many people that I want to help will only kick me for interfering. I will help...if asked, and if I can. I do not feel compelled to be a Superhero and right wrongs. As Mr. Incredible says "No matter how many times you save the world, it always ... Can we keep it clean for... for ten minutes!"

Ulaven once pulled his bike over to protect a woman who was being beaten by a man in a car on the side of the road. He pulled him out and started to hit him and had to stop because the woman was trying to kill Ulaven also to "protect" her abuser.

Many relationships on earth between people and their lives and ideas are entirely codependent and the only thing I will get for trying to provide reason is a punch in the face and a few nasty names for my trouble.

 

[SigmundFraud]

Sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll

 

[Recidiva]

I laughed wheeling a dead body to the morgue with my critical care tech. I kept saying: serious face, this isn't right.

I do review of medical reports all day long and when I first started doing this job I would cry...every day...every single day.

Then I thought I'm drinking the river, if I want to stand in the river I need to keep my head above it and just get a bucket or I will burn out.

I can't stem the river, but I can clear a few buckets worth. I can also laugh when a nurse practitioner thinks "gingkgo biloba" is pronounced "gingkgo dildoba."

There are also far too many G's in the word gingkgo.

Okay, other people drown and I got a bucket. I'm still in the river, I just whistle while I work more.

 

[Recidiva]

Pretty nearly all are certain I'm Hannibal Lecter but I'll let you in on a secret. I have 4 great kids and 10 excellent grandchildren, using whatever scorecard you like. A social worker who lives down the street (and disliked me) has two sons and a husband in their graves and a daughter who's trash. Another neighbor, most of her kids and grandkids have criminals records. And theyre typical. I'm the whacko with the stirling progeny.

I'm not religious, never go to church, and generally dislike clergy. But I discovered something 45 years ago. When things are awful its usually just you and God there on the scene. And if you believe that there's something like RIGHT and GOOD in the world, that's the God part, and you feel less alone.

Personally I don't find the Hannibal Lecter part to be a drawback, but I'm weird.

I do think you have approximately the same sense toward the rude and the ignorant and the mindlessly destructive.

I don't think you kill and eat them, I just think you're willing to play it up and say something horrible to scare people that already think you're horrible.

 

[Recidiva]

Sex, drugs and Rock-n-Roll

I remember watching that movie with Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon that were once groupies and how AWSEOME being a groupie was and why aren't we groupies now!

She saved Susan Sarandon's stuck-up life by bringing groupie back! Go "Banger Sisters!"

I always say "Thank You Irresponsibility Fairy!" to those ridiculous stories.

Act like those chicks and you'd have been dead 15 years ago to all sorts of fun diseases. Same goes to the pretty ladies in "Sex And The City"