Topic: Coping Skills

Since my co-author, co-crazy isn't here, I thought I'd blog about coping skills.

Believe it or not, we all need to have ways to deal with life's hardships.  But how we deal with them shouldn't be out of anger, depression, or other negative, destructive emotions.  We need positive things to focus on.  These positive things do help us through tough situations so we're not crushed.

It wasn't until I was hospitalized involuntarily that I realized a truth about myself: I have coping skills.  I just wasn't aware that's what they were.  They're essentially the "Swiss Army Knife" of mental health.

So what are some of these coping skills?

Goal-setting is one of them.  They showed us in group not only how to set goals for ourselves, but what stands in the way of that goal being fulfilled.  So in order to power through or work around the obstacle, you have to think of what will chip away at the obstacle.  That item will become your next goal, and so on, until you have some achievable steps to work with.

Leisure time is another.  It's important to work leisure time into your daily routine to help cope with life's stress factors.  Some leisure activities are cheaper than others.  Some can seem like work, like making arts and crafts stuff and selling it for profit.  But whatever it is, the leisure activity is what you do to relax and just enjoy life.  It can be relatively cheap (like walking) or expensive (like a sport that needs a lot of equipment).

Relaxation/Meditation Techniques is a coping skill that I'd already known about, but don't consciously practice.  The idea is to "breathe right".  There's a right way and a wrong way to breathe.  We're supposed to breathe by expanding our abdomens.  Don't use the ribs for breathing; expand and contract the abdomen slowly to relax.  And while you're breathing, think of a place that you find relaxing.  My "happy place" that was easy to picture was Starbucks, drinking a cup of coffee.  Believe it or not, I usually feel relaxed at Starbucks.

You'd think that being mentally ill, I'd be terrified of all of those strange people.  But I'm not shaken in the least.  The type of patrons you find at Starbucks are college students, kids that go to private schools, business people, and the elderly.  We're all doing our thing, maybe interacting a little with people we see every time we're here.  I find Starbucks (and to some degree, college) to be more socially relaxing than the bar/club scene.  But each to their own.

Journaling was yet another skill they emphasized, although we didn't really have a "set time" to do that activity.  We were pretty much left to our own devices there.  They gave us journals to write in and supplied pens.  There really was something relaxing about writing things down on paper.

Planning was another thing we discussed in group.  This coping skill was all about (basically) taking a weekly to-do list and setting achievable goals.  It was important to set up this schedule to work in leisure activities, educational events (like free seminars on a hobby), and other things.  Alongside planning was communicating with loved ones so you could spend time with them on a shared hobby.

The very first coping skill I was introduced to when I first reached the hospital was simply: write down what you're grateful for today.  It didn't matter how many or what you wrote, so long as it was an upbeat thing.

The basic gist of all of these focuses on seeing things in a more positive light.  The meds do help with the "crushing despair," but the coping skills fill a need that the pills can't cover.  The meds can't make you "think happy thoughts".  You have to do that for yourself.  That's what I've learned.

There are probably other coping skills (this is all self-help stuff, by the way) that I've missed.  So feel free to add others in the comments.