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Learning to deal

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Aimless:
Once upon a time, I was largely oblivious to negative things in my life that I needed to deal with. I unknowingly let myself be carried by negative feelings and thoughts, without really reflecting on how they affected my mental health, and how my handling of them worked (or didn't work, rather).

Then followed a time of relative happiness, during which my chief coping strategy was characterised by an aggressive, unguided optimism--forcing myself to see the bright side of everything, always expecting the best--and a compulsion to dismiss my negative reactions as unjustified, unworthy, and unconstructive. During this time, I expected myself to be able to shake off--or sweep under the mat--pretty much any negative feeling with ease and haste.

Sometime after I'd perfected this art of wilful blindness (!!) a close friend convinced me that my strategy was a thoroughly flawed one, as it lacked the elements of acceptance and reflection that are crucial to any reasonable, constructive processing effort. I couldn't deny that, and realised that the approach I believed to be ideal for myself was vastly different from that which I believed was ideal for everyone else.

Striving for personal development (and in the name of consistency!), I decided to change my coping strategy to incorporate reflection on--and acceptance of--my negative thoughts and feelings.

As is so common in life, something went wrong, and I eventually found myself at an extreme where I heedlessly accepted almost all my negative reactions to almost everything as being justified and okay... but couldn't go on from that point to do anything about them in terms of coping, nor in terms of resolving the problems that caused them.

Slowly but surely, my optimism was replaced by pessimism and cynicism. And, untempered by my once strong optimism, my reflection--my obsessive wandering in my inner world of thoughts and feelings and emotions--quickly led me into one of those vicious cycles that can so easily cause and maintain a depression.

It's only recently that I've come out of that (sort of), and now--armed with experience and knowledge :D--I'm hard at work finding for myself a new strategy (or several new ones). One that will be more balanced, more constructive, more reliable. We'll see how it goes (look me up in five years ;)).

This long (though simplified) account wasn't intended as a blog post, but as a prelude to my question to you: how do you deal, and how have your strategies for coping developed throughout your life?

And just so we're clear: I'm posting this out of curiosity about how other people do things, not as some sort of "Help Aimy Fix His Life" workshop.

It's my hope that this will be a useful exercise in navel-gazing :) yeah



While discussing this on other forums, I came to think of something else. When it comes to somatic health issues, I think the vast majority of us can appreciate the benefits of being able to deal with the root problem directly, rather than only treating symptoms (or just ignoring the whole thing). Is it inappropriate to have a similar attitude towards mental health issues? I ask this only because that seems to be a view held by many people I've encountered (most of which are men, I think), although it is rarely explicitly stated.

ThePQ4:
How do I deal... You know, I really don't know. I guess I just walk away. I figure in the long run of things, they don't really matter (I'm such a cheery person...) and even if it's affecting something NOW, it's just affecting me and I don't really mean a lot in the grand scheme of the world. Mind you, that doesn't help you since it's fairly negative it's self.

By the way, isn't this a little blog-thready?

imapiratearg:

--- Quote from: Aimless on 16 Jun 2008, 10:09 ---Then followed a time of relative happiness, during which my chief coping strategy was characterised by an aggressive, unguided optimism--forcing myself to see the bright side of everything, always expecting the best--and a compulsion to dismiss my negative reactions as unjustified, unworthy, and unconstructive. During this time, I expected myself to be able to shake off--or sweep under the mat--pretty much any negative feeling with ease and haste.

--- End quote ---

This is how I deal with trivial things, just so I don't get hung up on the petty details of things, but for the real heavy stuff I tend to reflect a lot and accept it (eventually, in some cases).  I've noticed how much I've grown and changed and matured lately and this is one thing I've noticed in myself.  I didn't like being all mopey and stuff before, so I decided to be content with everything all of the time because for the most part, everything is pretty excellent.  I decided I wouldn't take anything for granted anymore, and I also cultivated a newfound exuberance and excited-ness that accompanied a lust to live and to experience, so, this is mostly how I cope now.  I like it a lot.

Sox:
I 'deal' by trying to think about my own feelings about things as calmly and rationally as possible and making a conscious effort to avoid getting stressed.
I used to just not 'deal', but that got really old really quick when I had to deal with plenty of different things early last year.

Aimless:

--- Quote from: ThePQ4 on 16 Jun 2008, 10:18 ---By the way, isn't this a little blog-thready?
--- End quote ---

Probably is, if the definition of a blog-thread encompasses all threads featuring personal stories. But I hope it isn't unacceptably bloggy!

Pirate: I take it the things you reflect on and eventually accept are those things that you simply cannot do anything about, even if you try?

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