Hello!!
Today I would like to talk about a broader part of mental health, that slightly follows from my post about depression.
With all mental health and any battle life throws at you, everyone will have a way of dealing with the emotions that are thrown on them.
Coping Mechanisms are defined as ways to deal with stress either internally or externally which can be done consciously or unconsciously. There are so many different ways people use to cope with unwanted feelings, ranging from listening to music, playing sports, screaming the house down. You name it and someone probably uses it.
The work of the psychologist Freud in the late 1800's partly looked at the use of a variety of defense mechanisms to protect our ego (our reality principle in making choices) from harm. Yeah okay, Freud was on drugs when he was doing his work, and there is sooo much wrong with him and his theory into behaviour, but so many people look straight over the many aspects of his work that you actually see in real life. Defense Mechanisms are one of them.
When you feel stressed do you do some exercise? Play your favourite video game?
When you go through something traumatise it, do you try pretend it never happened?
When you do something stupid, do you try to pretend it never happened?
All of these are forms of defense mechanism we use to try keep us from harm. We as humans try to make us feel better by letting out our anger, our stress, our frustration and our sadness onto something else or by trying to pretend that whatever event that triggered these feelings never happened. But as well as this, coping mechanisms can link to the fact that these feelings for a prolonged amount of time aren't normal. For example, stress is a feeling that if there to create the flight/fight response in our body to prepare us for action, so our body physically has to rid these symptoms after a certain amount of time for it to function. Once again, a coping mechanism is often used to reduce this.
But away from the psychology aspect, coping mechanisms in my opinion need to be made more known.
Because if we can understand why a person uses a coping mechanism, it'll be so much easier for people to talk about ways of dealing with problems that could be harmful to themselves or others.
There are many safe ways to deal with overwhelming emotions. As I stated earlier, many people sublimate their feelings through sports, drawing, painting, dancing, writing etc. Many people act like an event never even happened.
But there are so many dangerous and potentially lethal coping mechanisms that no one will ever want to talk about because they find it embarrassing.
For example, someone with depression may use drugs to relieve any ill feelings and make them feel happy through a high or drunked state. A person with depression or anxiety may smoke cigerettes due to the calming and relieving feeling you get from the cigerette. A person with any mental illness may abuse any substance to try and feel normal, relieved or be able to cope with their symptoms.
Did you know that 50% of people diagnosed with mental health disorders are affected by some form of substance abuse?
Did you know that 37% of alcohol abusers and 53% of drug users have at least one mental health illness?
Did you know that people with severe mental illnesses are 4.6 times more likely to abuse drugs at least 10 times in their lives?
Doesn't that scare you?
Doesn't it scare you how closely mental health and substance abuse are linked? You often hear people say that they need a drink to forget everything, especially in a hard or stressful point at their life.
But isn't that it? Don't we all at points just need something to relieve the pain?
The concept of the use of drugs as a coping mechanisms is the exact same principle of self harm to cope.
Because it doesn't matter what we do to cope, as long as we are getting some relief. The relief acts as a positive reinforcer, which then strengthens this behaviour and makes us more likely to carry out the action again. Whether that be drinking until we can't remember the night, hurting yourself intentionally or simply playing a video game involving violence. Does it not give the same effect?
It gives the same effect, but it doesn't make it okay.
Because alcohol abuse can lead to bigger consequences than simply kicking a football around.
Self harm can lead to more lethal consequences than simply drawing some pictures.
If the statistics related to substance abuse weren't scary enough, you are 20 times more likely to revert to any form of self harm if you have a mental illness. In recent years there has been a 70% increase in A&E visits in self harm related issues (and this is just in young people.) Every 1/12 children have deliberatly self harmed in their lifetime.
Doesn't it scare you?
We revert to extremes to cope with life but we are so afraid to talk about it because of the stigma related to mental health and the ways of coping with tough situations.
How do you admit to yourself that you have a problem, let alone to someone else?
And you wonder why people get pissed off at your ""jokes"" about these kinda things. How issues that are effecting their everyday lives and cannot tell anyone about in fear they'll be ridiculed and judged or treated differently by everyone they love, you make fun of like its nothing.
People just have different ways to cope thats all.
It's not a laughing matter.
But it doesn't matter how you cope, as long as you try and refrain from resorting to things that can end up really hurting you.
Because once you start something you can't stop.
Trust me.
Even so, it will get better.
Soon you'll get to a point where you don't need to use anything but deep breathing to be able to cope with problems in life.
You can do it.
It'll all be okay.
More Information // Support:
https://www.childline.org.uk/Explore/Self-harm/Pages/Self-harm.aspx
http://changingminds.org/explanations/behaviors/coping/coping.htm
https://explorable.com/stress-and-coping-mechanisms
https://www.promises.com/articles/addiction-recovery/coping-mechanisms-to-aid-your-recovery/
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