Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about coping mechanisms. It seems that almost everyone has multiple coping mechanisms that help them get through the hard times. Anything from cell phones to talking for hours with those around them to playing games to excessive exercise can be used to cope. In this post, I’ll share some of my thoughts on all this based on the current point in my healing journey.
I’ll start by saying that I think coping mechanisms are only used when pain is present. After all, why does anyone turn to coping mechanisms? From what I’ve seen, it’s to avoid dwelling on, or becoming overtaken by, anxiety, depression, anger, and other negative emotions. I’ve not heard of someone needing to cope with feeling happiness, joy, peace, or any other positive emotions. If coping mechanisms are only used to avoid pain, then they are unnecessary when there’s no pain.
There have been plenty of coping mechanisms I stopped using once the pain they were helping me avoid went away. Halfway through 2020, I experienced the worst emotional pain I’d ever felt up to that point in my life. For weeks, I felt anxious, nauseous, and depressed almost all the time. Distractions were the only thing that temporarily dulled the pain, and I used a generic version of Pepto Bismol almost every day to settle my stomach. Once I finally worked through all that pain toward the end of the year, I no longer needed anything to help me cope with it. Even before all of that particular pain was gone, I still gradually wound down the use of coping mechanisms as I released bits and pieces of pain over the course of several months. Once that pain was totally healed, there was no longer any need to do anything to manage it or avoid it.
I can see a temporary role for coping mechanisms right after someone has experienced a monumentally painful event. Although I started working through the pain right after my dog Sawyer’s death, I also used lots of coping mechanisms and distractions when the pain was the worst. I rarely use them anymore since the pain is only a fraction of what it once was. Once the worst of the pain is gone, continued use of coping mechanisms at that point seems more likely to prevent healing and keep one stuck at that level of pain.
Similarly to the 2020 pain, the pain of losing Sawyer has gone down tremendously as I’ve worked through it. That said, this pain is taking longer to fully release since it is much greater than the other pain, but the difference between how I felt the day Sawyer died and how I feel one year later is night and day. I have no doubt that continued inner work will one day result in the total release of all pain around Sawyer’s death; at this rate, it seems like that’ll happen before next April.
Whenever someone tells me “The pain never goes away,” I now understand that they are simply speaking from their own experience. Not everyone knows how to release deep pain. Among those who do know how, not all of them put that knowledge to use. Even after I learned how to let go, there were still times when I did little to none of it or ignored some major issues for anywhere from a few months to several years. All of that has changed recently. However, even before those recent changes, I still didn’t let anyone else limit my ability to heal, and I won’t limit anyone else’s ability to heal.
Since I have learned how to heal my emotional pain, I no longer take to heart what anyone else tells me about the healing process. However, I still feel frustrated when I see negative messages about healing being passed around. So many folks are hurting and many die from copious amounts of grief or take their own lives due to overwhelming pain. I can’t help but think that at least some of them bought into the messages of hopelessness that they heard from others who also hadn’t healed their pain. Nobody knows how many out there are just hanging by a thread and how easily that thread can be cut, such as by hearing that their crushing, devastating pain will never end. That’s why I want to see more messages of hope alongside useful information about different ways to heal, which include but are not limited to the following: the letting go technique from Letting Go by David Hawkins, inner child work as described in Homecoming by John Bradshaw, EMDR therapy, various breathing techniques (especially Wim Hof breathing), animal therapy, and MDMA or psychedelic therapy.
MDMA therapy is particularly incredible since it has been shown to heal PTSD. Not manage PTSD or treat its symptoms, heal it and get rid of it completely. No more PTSD means there are no more painful PTSD symptoms, no more drugs to manage PTSD symptoms, and no more additional drugs to manage the side effects of the initial drugs. By healing the PTSD at it source, the healed person is left feeling much lighter, freer, and more joyful. That is such a huge game changer in mental health and it’s a shame that hardly anybody seems to know or talk about it.
I have no idea where I’d be if I hadn’t found the letting go technique when I did and used it to release so much pain over the past several years. Others have made similar progress using one or more of the above methods, as well as options not mentioned here. The more people heal their trauma, the more at peace they’ll be with themselves and the more at peace they’ll be with those around them. Imagine how things would be if even half of all people who were traumatized found complete healing from that trauma. Imagine how much less angry, fearful, and violent the world would be due to the sheer amount of joy, contentment, and love. There are many to get there, and I hope more people learn about and avail themselves of those ways.