Coping Mechanisms And Love Quotes

You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere, and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth. And as you grew up, you sought love, anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend's parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them. They sustained you. For all these years, you've lived under the illusion that somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That is what has gotten you by.

At first, I’d try to explain that it’s not really negativity or sadness anymore, it’s more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anything—even the things you love, even fun things—and you’re horribly bored and lonely, but since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you’re stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void without anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is.

For all these years, you’ve lived under the illusion that, somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That’s what has gotten you by

She and I, we were girls who never said anything. Never wanted to assume anything. It was a coping mechanism, saving our faces for when guys like Quin came along and acted all nice towards us.

. . . she is our dog. And because she is our dog, we can pick out the tiny, almost imperceptible good qualities from the ocean of terrible qualities, and we can cling to them. Because we want to love our dog.

I’ve been married but I’m not anymore. And I still believe in love.

We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. This drive to emotionally attach — to find someone to whom we can turn and say “Hold me tight” — is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy — to survive.

This doesn’t happen on purpose, it’s just a coping mechanism when a trusted loved one rejects or harms us in a very confusing way. Even if we point our fingers and say, “No, you’re bad!” the damage is already done.

If our basic needs were neglected: our need for safety, economic security, loving connection, autonomy, self-realization and meaningful work, our need to feel equal and respected, then poor emotional well-being will be an inevitable result. Materialism was therefore an unhelpful response to various deprivations. A culturally endorsed coping mechanism that ultimately backfired.

Because women tend to turn their anger inward and blame themselves, they tend to become depressed and their self-esteem is lowered. This, in turn, causes them to become more dependent and less willing to risk rejection or abandonment if they were to stand up for themselves by asserting their will, their opinions, or their needs. Men often defend themselves against hurt by putting up a wall of nonchalant indifference. This appearance of independence often adds to a woman's fear of rejection, causing her to want to reach out to achieve comfort and reconciliation. Giving in, taking the blame, and losing herself more in the relationship seem to be a small price to pay for the acceptance and love of her partner. As you can see, both extremes anger in and anger out-create potential problems. While neither sex is wrong in the way they deal with their anger, each could benefit from observing how the other sex copes with their anger. Most men, especially abusive ones, could benefit from learning to contain their anger more instead of automatically striking back, and could use the rather female ability to empathise with others and seek diplomatic resolutions to problems. Many women, on the other hand, could benefit from acknowledging their anger and giving themselves permission to act it out in constructive ways instead of automatically talking themselves out of it, blaming themselves, or allowing a man to blame them. Instead of giving in to keep the peace, it would be far healthier for most women to stand up for their needs, their opinions, and their beliefs.

It’s hard to explain how much that feeling of the bottom potentially falling out at any moment takes its toll. It makes you anxious, of course, and constant anxiety is impossible for the body to handle. So you develop a coping mechanism, and for us that meant shutting down. Everything we liked or wanted or felt joy in had to be hidden or suppressed. I’m sad to say that this method works. If you don’t give as much credence or value to whatever it is that you love, it hurts less when it is inevitably taken from you. I had to pretend I had no joy. It will come as a shock to people who know me now, but being able to express joy was something it took me a long time to be confident enough to do.

Your current situation fits every one of the criteria for this disorder:   Exposure to a traumatic event. Yes, relationship abuse from someone you love is traumatic and life-altering. Persistent re-experiencing. Yes, through the mean and sweet cycle, you were repeatedly subjected to their abuse. Persistent avoidance and emotional numbing. Yes, this is the coping mechanism you adopted to excuse their behavior. Persistent symptoms of increased arousal not present before. Yes, you begin to feel these during the delayed emotions stage, ultimately manifesting as anxiety and fear. Duration of symptoms for more than 1 month. Yes, most survivors will require anywhere from 12-24 months of recovery before they begin to trust & love again. Significant impairment. You tell me—how do you feel right about now? I’d say impaired is an understatement.

And because she is our dog, we can pick out the tiny, almost imperceptible good qualities from the ocean of terrible qualities, and we can cling to them. Because we want to love our dog.

In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or “It’s O.K.” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.” People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system’s expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what’s most important to them at the end of their lives.

I am a wall. I am a wall. I am a wall. I am a giant and I tower above you. I am a giant and I can't hear your voice. There is familiarity in this. I spent years like this growing up, my mother hovering over my every move, me responding monosyllabically, face blank, voice blank, heart blank. It is a coping mechanism and it is easy, if you are able to block out false promises of love with the understanding of what love has become.

The person is both a self and a body, and from the beginning there is the confusion about where "he" really "is"-in the symbolic inner self or in the physical body. Each phenomenological realm is different. The inner self represents the freedom of thought, imagination, and the infinite reach of symbolism. the body represents determinism and boundness. The child gradually learns that his freedom as a unique being is dragged back by the body and its appendages which dictate "what" he is. For this reason sexuality is as much a problem for the adult as for the child: the physical solution to the problem of who we are and why we have emerged on this planet is no help-in fact, it is a terrible threat. It doesn't tell the person what he is deep down inside, what kind of distinctive gift he is to work upon the world. This is why it is so difficult to have sex without guilt: guilt is there because the body casts a shadow on the person's inner freedom, his "real self" that-through the act of sex-is being forced into a standardized, mechanical, biological role. Even worse, the inner self is not even being called into consideration at all; the body takes over completely for the total person, and this kind of guilt makes the inner self shrink and threaten to disappear. This is why a woman asks for assurance that the man wants "me" and "not only my body"; she is painfully conscious that her own distinctive inner personality can be dispensed with in the sexual act. If it is dispensed with, it doesn't count. The fact is that the man usually does want only the body, and the woman's total personality is reduced to a mere animal role. The existential paradox vanishes, and one has no distinctive humanity to protest. One creative way of coping with this is, of course, to allow it to happen and to go with it: what the psychoanalysts call "regression in the service of the ego." The person becomes, for a time, merely his physical self and so absolves the painfulness of the existential paradox and the guilt that goes with sex. Love is one great key to this kind of sexuality because it allows the collapse of the individual into the animal dimension without fear and guilt, but instead with trust and assurance that his distinctive inner freedom will not be negated by an animal surrender.

Coming of queer age in the 1990s, to love queers was to love damage. To love damage was a path to loving yourself. ...Queers do not come out of the minefield of homophobia without scars. We do not live through out families' rejection of us, our stunted life options, the violence we've faced, the ways in which we've violated ourselves for survival, our harmful coping mechanisms, our lifesaving delusions, the altered brain chemistry we have sustained as a result of this, the low income and survival states we've endured as a result of society's loathing, unharmed. Whatever of theses wounds I didn't experience firsthand, my lovers did, and so I say that, for a time, it was not possible to have queer love that was not ins some way damaged or defined by damage sustained, even as it desperately fought through that damage to access, hopefully, increasingly frequent moments of sustaining, lifesaving love, true love, and loyalty, and electric sex.

She rambled on and on about how my attending a new private school was going to be a “stressful time of tremendous personal growth” and how my best “coping mechanism” would be to “communicate” my “thoughts and feelings.” I was absolutely ECSTATIC because you can communicate with a NEW CELL PHONE! Right?! I kind of zoned out on most of what my mom was saying because I was DAYDREAMING about all of the cool ring tones, music, and movies I was going to download. It was going to be LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT!

Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr.

UNDERLYING NEED “COPING” MECHANISM To have support in figuring out your talents Getting stoned to avoid thinking about it To be loved, held, appreciated Negativity, pessimism to “control” expectations To have feelings received Overeating as an attempt at self-soothing To be recognized as mattering Overwork to prove worth To forgive yourself Becoming perfectionistic to try and avoid mistakes To avoid punishment or disapproval Focusing solely on the needs of others so you don’t take care of yourself by exercising Rest and rejuvenation Drinking alcohol to excess, “rewarding” yourself with fatty or sweet foods Solitude and contemplation Picking fights so you end up alone Stability in chaos Worrying as a way to feel in control A sense of purpose Overspending in an attempt to find meaning in material things

It's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it’s more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anythingeven the things you love, even fun things—and you’re horribly bored and lonely, but since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you’re stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void with-out anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is. ...I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn’t feel obligated to keep existing. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don’t like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit. I don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work. I still want to keep tabs on reality, though. Just in case it tries to do anything sneaky. It makes me feel like I’m contributing. The illusion of control makes the helplessness seem more palatable. And when that illusion is taken away, I panic. Because, deep down, I know how pointless and helpless I am, and it scares me. I am an animal trapped in a horrifying, lawless environment, and I have no idea what it’s going to do to me. It just DOES it to me. I cope with that the best way I know—by being completely unreasonable and trying to force everything else in the world to obey me and do all the nonsensical things I want.

In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one’s final days in an ICU because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie attached to a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said good-bye or “It’s okay” or “I’m sorry” or “I love you.

Why do families blame themselves? If so many of the family theories have been discredited why spend so much time on the issue here? Family theories in mental illness continue to exercise a remarkably powerful hold over us despite the evidence. And not just in schizophrenia but in depression, anorexia nervosa, personality disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. Parents seem to have an endless capacity to blame themselves for what happens to their children (and perhaps children to blame their parents). This is probably because we need to believe it. Just as we need to believe in free will and our influence on the outside world, family members need to believe that they influence each other. If we didn’t why would we bother? The evolutionary psychologists would say that parents need to believe it to invest years and years bringing up their children. We’re biologically programmed to look after our children so we need some belief system to support it (just as they might say we’re biologically programmed to mate and need to believe in love to support it). It is proposed that such a belief is a mechanism for sustaining our attention to our biological task. The downside is, of course, guilt and blame. If we believe we have an influence we feel we have failed if things do not work out well. It is inescapable. Even in expressed emotion work where therapists insist emphatically that no one is to blame and that the aim is solely to find more effective coping strategies, families do feel blamed. ‘If only we weren’t so over-involved he would not have so many relapses.’ ‘Other families must have dealt with it better otherwise how would the therapist know what to advise?’ For some families feeling responsible, despite the guilt, is preferable. It implies the logical consequence that there must be something they can do to influence the outcome. Cultures which value resignation are less likely to blame themselves (high expressed emotion is less common in India than in Europe).

As we pulled up at the big school gates, I saw tears rolling down my dad’s face. I felt confused as to what part of nature or love thought this was a good idea. My instinct certainly didn’t; but what did I know? I was only eight. So I embarked on this mission called boarding school. And how do you prepare for that one? In truth, I found it really hard; there were some great moments like building dens in the snow in winter, or getting chosen for the tennis team, or earning a naval button, but on the whole it was a survival exercise in learning to cope. Coping with fear was the big one. The fear of being left and the fear of being bullied--both of which were very real. What I learned was that I couldn’t manage either of those things very well on my own. It wasn’t anything to do with the school itself, in fact the headmaster and teachers were almost invariably kind, well-meaning and good people, but that sadly didn’t make surviving it much easier. I was learning very young that if I were to survive this place then I had to find some coping mechanisms. My way was to behave badly, and learn to scrap, as a way to avoid bullies wanting to target me. It was also a way to avoid thinking about home. But not thinking about home is hard when all you want is to be at home. I missed my mum and dad terribly, and on the occasional night where I felt this worst, I remember trying to muffle my tears in my pillow while the rest of the dormitory slept. In fact I was not alone in doing this. Almost everyone cried, but we all learned to hide it, and those who didn’t were the ones who got bullied. As a kid, you can only cry so much before you run out of tears and learn to get tough. I meet lots of folks nowadays who say how great boarding school is as a way of toughening kids up. That feels a bit back-to-front to me. I was much tougher before school. I had learned to love the outdoors and to understand the wild, and how to push myself. When I hit school, suddenly all I felt was fear. Fear forces you to look tough on the outside but makes you weak on the inside. This was the opposite of all I had ever known as a kid growing up. I had been shown by my dad that it was good to be fun, cozy, homely--but then as tough as boots when needed. At prep school I was unlearning this lesson and adopting new ways to survive. And age eight, I didn’t always pick them so well.

That was a coping mechanism that psychopaths often used. They didn’t feel the way normal individuals did, so they just mimicked the behavior. They acted as if they got angry, as if they were hurt, as if they loved. But it was all just acting.

My coping mechanism was to wrap my thoughts--when they came--into a scrap of paper, then discard them like a piece of gum.

The pragmatic mood is already visible in the Odyssey. The poem opens with Odysseus living on a remote island ruled by a nymph who offers him immortality if he will remain as her consort. A bit surprisingly to anyone steeped in the orthodox Western religio-philosophical-scientific tradition, he refuses, preferring mortality and a dangerous struggle to regain his position as the king of a small, rocky island and be reunited with his son, aging wife, and old father. He turns down what the orthodox tradition says we should desire above all else, the peace that comes from overcoming the transience and vicissitudes of mortality, whether that peace takes the form of personal immortality or of communing with eternal verities, moral or scientific—in either case ushering us to the still point of the turning world. Odysseus prefers going to arriving, struggle to rest, exploring to achieving—curiosity is one of his most marked traits—and risk to certainty. The Odyssey situates Calypso’s enchanted isle in the far west, the land of the setting sun, and describes the isle in images redolent of death. In contrast, Odysseus’s arrival at his own island, far to the east, a land of the rising sun, is depicted in imagery suggestive of rebirth. Another thing that is odd about the protagonist, and the implicit values, of the Odyssey from the orthodox standpoint is that Odysseus is not a conventional hero, the kind depicted in the Iliad. He is strong, brave, and skillful in fighting, but he is no Achilles (who had a divine mother) or even Ajax; and he relies on guile, trickery, and outright deception to a degree inconsistent with what we have come to think of as heroism or with its depiction in the Iliad. His dominant trait is skill in coping with his environment rather than ability to impose himself upon it by brute force. He is the most intelligent person in the Odyssey but his intelligence is thoroughly practical, adaptive. Unlike Achilles in the Iliad, who is given to reflection, notably about the heroic ethic itself, Odysseus is pragmatic. He is an instrumental reasoner rather than a speculative one. He is also, it is true, distinctly pious, a trait that the Odyssey harps on and modern readers tend to overlook. But piety in Homeric religion is a coping mechanism. Homeric religion is proto-scientific; it is an attempt to understand and control the natural world. The gods personify nature and men manipulate it by “using” the gods in the proper way. One sacrifices to them in order to purchase their intervention in one’s affairs—this is religion as magic, the ancestor of modern technology—and also to obtain clues to what is going to happen next; this is the predictive use of religion and corresponds to modern science. The gods’ own rivalries, mirroring (in Homeric thought, personifying or causing) the violent clash of the forces of nature, prevent human beings from perfecting their control over the environment. By the same token, these rivalries underscore the dynamic and competitive character of human existence and the unrealism of supposing that peace and permanence, a safe and static life, are man’s lot. Odysseus’s piety has nothing to do with loving God as creator or redeemer, or as the name, site, metaphysical underwriter, or repository of the eternal or the unchanging, or of absolutes (such as omniscience and omnipotence) and universals (numbers, words, concepts). Odysseus’s piety is pragmatic because his religion is naturalistic—is simply the most efficacious means known to his society for controlling the environment, just as science and technology are the most efficacious means by which modern people control their environment.

I finally realized who really ran the show at home; my mom. I just didn't realize how toxic it was until I saw him crumble under her will and joined forces with her when I was violated. I had no idea at the time what this kind of dysfunction was, but I knew it was wrong and unfair treatment. My dad was a decent hard-working man who found himself caught in a web of an extremely controlling wife he loved but who emasculated him. He found her difficult to live with, and so the best way he could try to keep peace in the marriage was to play the role of “go along to get along”. That grew into a whole different branch of coping mechanism; enabling.  Mom was the boss and he accepted it by withdrawing and avoiding the big elephant in the family. His little girl, his only girl, his “little shadow” no longer was his priority; pleasing mom at all cost was the main vein that fed his insufficiency to step into his authority as the head of the home. As time passed, I witnessed repeatedly, that his needs were not a priority and he accepted my mom's behavior no matter how it infected us or the atmosphere of the home. He did all this just to keep her pleased and so he didn't have to hear the constant bickering, even though it was a temporary fix.

At the personal level, we need to invest in our own health and well-being, as well as in our abilities, if we are to contribute competently to the cause. More than that, we also need to continually remind ourselves of the importance of suffering, in healthy and sustainable ways, as our minds otherwise tend to creep back into the homeostatic equilibrium they evolved to be caught up in relatively petty thoughts and pursuits. We might here find inspiration in ancient traditions, such as Buddhism, in which practices aimed to remind us of the reality and importance of suffering have been cultivated over millennia. Such practices include "loving-kindness meditation" and "compassion meditation", in which one wishes others happiness and relief from suffering. Research suggests that these meditation practices not only increase compassionate responses to suffering, but that they also help to increase life satisfaction and reduce depressive symptoms for the practitioner, as well as to foster better coping mechanisms and increased positive affect in the face of suffering.

I was right about everything. I was right about her words, her desire to make her novel into reality. I was right that it was her coping mechanism to survive a violent, loveless marriage. And I was right about her being the woman for me. She’s the one. My soulmate.

YOU R sO bRUEtifUL... how R U so BRUTEfUL and good?

Historical experiences of this absolute godliness gave rise to all the scriptures in the world. Hence, the scriptures themselves don’t account for the actual globally prevalent psychological element of faith or divinity in the human society. Faith is a crucial evolutionary trait of the human mind, selected by Mother Nature as an internal coping- mechanism.

people experiencing extreme uncertainty will always find coping mechanisms.

She’d learned the hard way that people were always looking for a reason to leave, that affection or adoration or promises of devotion turned to dust when things got tough. Losing Henry had shown her that. Waking up one day to realize that her friends, bored with lists and rain checks and careful coping mechanisms, had left her behind . . . that had been unnecessary emphasis on a painful lesson. Chloe’s family was abnormal in their loyalty, and she loved them for it, but they didn’t seem to understand that others couldn’t be trusted. Better to be alone than to be abandoned. She refused to let that happen again. But if she explained those facts, her sisters would insist she’d simply had a bad experience, then start insulting everyone who’d ever left her. And then Chloe would be forced to remember all the things she’d lost, and to wonder, for the thousandth time, what it was about her that made her so easy to leave.

What I see now is that the coping mechanisms that I developed to outlive these circumstances served me as a child. As an adult, though, they've slammed into whatever structures I've tried to build with potential life mates, eliciting cracks and fractures in the fragile web of trust I long to construct. Even as I try to craft a healthy and safe container in which love and tenderness might bloom, that old wrecking ball of learned behaviors keeps crashing into whatever I try to build, raising dust that clings to my hair and hurts my eyes, splintering my efforts to smithereens.

This cognitive dissonance is a defense mechanism that is often resolved not by seeing the abuser for who he or she really is, but rather by denying, minimizing or rationalizing the abuse that is occurring as a way to survive and cope with the trauma being experienced (Carver, 2004).

Indigenous Lives Holding Our World Together, by Brenda J. Child American Indian Stories, by Zitkala-Sa A History of My Brief Body, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman, by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert Apple: Skin to the Core, by Eric Gansworth Heart Berries, by Terese Marie Mailhot The Blue Sky, by Galsan Tschinag Crazy Brave, by Joy Harjo Standoff, by Jacqueline Keeler Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie Spirit Car, by Diane Wilson Two Old Women, by Velma Wallis Pipestone: My Life in an Indian Boarding School, by Adam Fortunate Eagle Split Tooth, by Tanya Tagaq Walking the Rez Road, by Jim Northrup Mamaskatch, by Darrel J. McLeod Indigenous Poetry Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, by Joy Harjo Ghost River (Wakpá Wanági), by Trevino L. Brings Plenty The Book of Medicines, by Linda Hogan The Smoke That Settled, by Jay Thomas Bad Heart Bull The Crooked Beak of Love, by Duane Niatum Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier Little Big Bully, by Heid E. Erdrich A Half-Life of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation, by Eric Gansworth NDN Coping Mechanisms, by Billy-Ray Belcourt The Invisible Musician, by Ray A. Young Bear When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through, edited by Joy Harjo New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich The Failure of Certain Charms, by Gordon Henry Jr. Indigenous History and Nonfiction Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, by Paul Chaat Smith Decolonizing Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Through Dakota Eyes: Narrative Accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862, edited by Gary Clayton Anderson and Alan R. Woodworth Being Dakota, by Amos E. Oneroad and Alanson B. Skinner Boarding School Blues, edited by Clifford E. Trafzer, Jean A. Keller, and Lorene Sisquoc Masters of Empire, by Michael A. McDonnell Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee, by Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda J. Child They Called It Prairie Light, by K. Tsianina Lomawaima To Be a Water Protector, by Winona LaDuke Minneapolis: An Urban Biography, by Tom Weber

DISMISSIVE-AVOIDANT & FEARFUL-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT STYLE This relationship combination can work in some ways, as both partners have many similarities and can have similar coping mechanisms. The Fearful-Avoidant appears warm, is hypersensitive to what others think, and is readily available to please the Dismissive-Avoidant. The Fearful-Avoidant is generally very loving and giving, and the Dismissive-Avoidant can warm up to this connection. However, the Dismissive-Avoidant can be aloof and not want as much closeness as their partner. Even though both styles of attachment cause each partner to derive security from their own individual space, the Fearful-Avoidant’s anxious side is usually triggered by their Dismissive-Avoidant partner, and they will therefore become more anxious and reliant on their partner. The Dismissive-Avoidant will not feel guilt or remorse if space is taken; however, the Fearful-Avoidant may shut down and feel neglected when the Dismissive-Avoidant pulls away. The highs for the Dismissive-Avoidant in this dynamic are that they feel deeply seen, heard, understood, and valued by their Fearful-Avoidant partner. The Dismissive-Avoidant also appreciates that the Fearful-Avoidant needs their space. The lows for the Dismissive-Avoidant in this dynamic are when their Fearful-Avoidant partner becomes emotionally volatile or critical. This can trigger a core wound that arose from feeling emotionally unsafe in childhood and lead them to further assume abandonment will take place.

I’ve never shed a single tear for him, but I have shed tears for the little girl I was, who should’ve had a dad who loved and cared for her. Who protected her and showed her how a man treats a woman. Sometimes, that little girl doesn’t even feel like me. To survive what I did, I had to separate myself mentally from my past. I don’t know if that’s how it is for everyone, but that was my coping mechanism.

Being successful can make you less liked. Finding love can make you more vulnerable. Making yourself less attractive can guard you. Playing small allows you to avoid scrutiny. Procrastinating puts you back in a place of comfort. All the ways in which you are self-sabotaging are actually ways that you are feeding a need you probably do not even realize you have. Overcoming it is not only a matter of learning to understand yourself better, but realizing that your problems are not problems; they are symptoms. You cannot get rid of the coping mechanisms and think you’ve solved the problem.

The best possible version of yourself—the most loving, kind, productive, and self-aware version—is who you really are. Everything else is the byproduct of coping mechanisms you’ve developed and picked up from other people. If social media didn’t exist, what would you do with your life? If you knew that you wouldn’t be able to show off, impress, or even share what it was you chose to do with your life, how would it change your ambitions? This differentiates what you are doing because you want to do it from what you are doing for the sake of how it looks to other people.

WHAT I WANT FROM LOVE IS WHAT I WANT FROM REVOLUTION

We lose our way. This process unfolds simply and predictably over time: •   Change appears in the form of something unforeseen. •   We feel uncertain, anxious, frustrated, worried, and fearful at this unexpected turn of events. •   We resist Change by creating stories of how we think things should’ve turned out. •   Our stories cause us to suffer because they are incongruent with reality. •   Suffering is disorienting and makes us give up our power of free will. •   When we feel powerless to choose, we abandon ourselves and feel lost. There’s no telling what we’ll do when we feel lost. We spiral. We waste precious time. We fall out of alignment with ourselves. We block our blessings. We make unclear choices. We subvert our best interests. We act out in fear. We numb. We refuse to feel our feelings. We bury our love with resentment. We reach for any coping mechanism possible. We fall from grace. These are all attempts to protect us from pain. They are also the birth of suffering. And that is something far worse because we choose it for ourselves. Even when it’s the last thing we want. THE FIRST ARROW It was the most intense physical pain I’ve ever felt.

He loved Blaze for her awkwardness and lack of guile. He often wondered how, with all her success and business acumen, she had failed to develop better mechanisms for coping with life. Only a fragile membrane separated her feelings from the outside world. She was beautiful but could only see the ugly scar on her face. She polished her cleverness like a shield until it shone so brightly that others had to protect their minds from its piercing rays.

We now know that love is, in actuality, the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species. Not because it induces us to mate and reproduce. We do manage to mate without love! But because love drives us to bond emotionally with a precious few others who offer us safe haven from the storms of life. Love is our bulwark, designed to provide emotional protection so we can cope with the ups and downs of existence. This drive to emotionally attach — to find someone to whom we can turn and say “Hold me tight” — is wired into our genes and our bodies. It is as basic to life, health, and happiness as the drives for food, shelter, or sex. We need emotional attachments with a few irreplaceable others to be physically and mentally healthy — to survive.

As with most persistent patterns, self-defeating behavior usually has roots in childhood experience. When children confronted with traumas are given both loving support and patient, effective guidance, they tend to develop healthy coping mechanisms. As adults they tend to be resilient, confident and resourceful. Any self-defeating behaviors they have are relatively minor and easy to overcome. By contrast, children who are not loved, and are abused or neglected instead, feel unprotected and alone. Then there are children who do not lack affection and attention, but are not given adequate guidance. Although they might feel loved, they often grow up feeling incompetent and incapable, and therefore unsafe in the face of adversity. In either case, they reach for anything they can find to make their unbearable feelings bearable. The more anxious and alone or inadequate and incompetent they feel, the more tenaciously they hold to whatever thoughts, attitudes and behaviors bring relief. If they do not develop more effective coping mechanisms, the ones that bring relief solidify into self-defeating behaviors.

Consider that coping mechanism you just can’t shake. Consider that song that burrows into your subconscious like an earworm: This is the fix; this is the fix; this is the fix. In the quietness of this space, pen in hand, examine your life. The fix—what pain is it trying to address? Consider, for example, the substitutionary fix I can’t seem to shake—buying books. Why do I keep buying and buying and buying? If I find the right book, I’ll have access to the right knowledge. If I acquire the right knowledge, perhaps then I’ll have enough, know enough, be enough. If I have enough, know enough, am enough, perhaps then I’ll be able to silence scarcity narratives. Now it’s your turn. What pain narratives are you trying to silence with your coping mechanisms?

Yellow Hand Running Epic Poem (The 'Halla # 5) Kari, the Valkyrie Yellow Hand Running Epic Poem Don't you lie to me you damned ghost. I can see right through you. --Kari, the Valkyrie Chapter Double Nought Zero

Get at the Root Causes While we’re working to break the cycle of addiction and adding healthy coping mechanisms, we must go deeper, to figure out what drove us outside ourselves in the first place. In other words, we need to intentionally deal with the root causes of our addiction. For me, the answer was never to just stop drinking, or to just stop sticking my finger down my throat, or to just stop weighing myself, or to just stop buying shoes in order to temporarily plug up some bottomless hole. The answer was to heal all those things that made it so desperately uncomfortable to be in my skin, so that I wouldn’t want to do those things to myself. The answer was to learn to love and respect myself so much, I didn’t want or need to do the harmful things anymore.

I can’t stop cleaning and I have a monster inside my brain and I miss you and Sloan is falling apart and his parents won’t take him off life support, so his organs are rotting. I can’t get all the lines right on the carpet with the vacuum and Stuntman is in a kennel and I haven’t seen him in days, and I just need you to let me clean this fucking apartment!” I’m not sure how much of it he heard, if any. I was crying so hard I could barely understand myself. He just held me and caressed my hair, and for the first time in weeks the velociraptor hunted other prey. Josh made me weak. Or strong. It was hard to tell anymore what I was without my coping mechanism. At least when I rode the beast, I got shit done. And now I was nothing but an emotional mess. But at least the mess was mine. Why did he have this effect on me? He had this way of waking up dormant parts of my soul. He ripped through me and let everything in with him like a storm surge. I took on water. And at the same time, something told me if I let him, he’d keep me afloat. He wouldn’t let me sink. I’d never felt this vulnerable and safe with anyone. I felt hot and shaky. I gasped and clutched his shirt until the crying spasms stopped. He held me so tight my knees could have given out and I wouldn’t have fallen an inch. “I can’t be the only one who has their shit together,” I whispered. His chest rumbled as he spoke. “It doesn’t look like you have your shit together…” I snorted. “Josh, please.” I looked up at him, my hands trembling on his collarbone. “I need you to insert yourself here. Go talk to his parents. They’ll listen to you.” He looked at me like seeing me cry was agony. The longing on his face was razor blades to my heart. His sad eyes, the set of his mouth, his knit brows. He loved me almost as much as I loved him, and I knew I was hurting him. I knew he thought I was enough. But I wasn’t enough. How could one of me be any kind of substitute for the half dozen kids he’d always wanted? It just couldn’t. The math didn’t work. The logic wasn’t sound. He wiped a tear off my cheek with his thumb. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll go. Just, sit down or something. Stop cleaning.” He dipped his head to catch my eyes. “Are you okay? You’re shaking.” He put a hand over mine to still the tremor against his chest, and the closeness of him made me whole for the first time in weeks. “I’m fine,” I said, swallowing. “Just hurry, okay?” He looked at me for a long moment, like he was trying to memorize my face or steal an extra second to hold me. Then he turned for the bathroom. When he walked away from me, the absence of his body pressed into mine felt like I’d lost my clothes and I stood naked and exposed to the elements. I missed him. No amount of time lessened it. It made it worse. My heart was a neglected building, and every day I weathered a fierce storm that dripped through my roof, flooded my floors, and broke my windows, and the disrepair just made me weaker and closer to collapse. The water turned on in the bathroom and I looked around the apartment, my compulsion raging back with a fury now that he was gone. At least I could do this for him. I could take care of his space, give it order. Wash his clothes and his blankets. Make things smell clean, turn his home into someplace he wanted to be. Do this thing that he obviously couldn’t do for himself at the moment.

Codependents usually use self-criticism as a form of coping mechanism that helps them get through extreme circumstances, but this habit is not at all healthy. It is like self-abuse. You gradually become an emotional sadist to yourself. When there is no presence of compassion in your life, you use this emotional sadism as a form of an escape route. But you need to overcome the practice if you want to embrace yourself and feel happy.

I have become aware of a study that was done a few years ago in which the researcher found that when a person is at the point of taking their life, if they were to just get up and start to walk around that within fifteen or twenty minutes the endorphins in their brain would suppress the impulse to take their life. It doesn’t mean they won’t try again, but it does buy them a bit more time to reach out if they choose to. Often when I connect with someone who has taken their life I am shown or made to feel woozy or out of balance. This has become a sign to me that the person was either on drugs or had consumed alcohol. This leads me to believe that some people in the throes of taking their lives may not have the “nerve” to do the act, so they inhibit their coping mechanisms by getting drunk or taking drugs. Autopsies are not always done for suicides, though sometimes they are. An autopsy is the only way to know if a loved one altered their state to have a better

See, I’ve got this coping mechanism thing where, when I’m feeling frightened or vulnerable or over my head, I intellectualize the situation to try and regain a sense of control. (I’ve read a lot of books on air travel, parenting, and death.) It was scary starting over at a new church and trying to make new friends, so before each visit, I girded myself with a sense of smug detachment wherein I could observe the proceedings from the safety of my intellectual superiority, certain I could do a better job at running the show thanks to my expertise as, you know, a Christian blogger. Oh, I talked a big game about the importance of ecumenicism and the beauty of diversity within the global church, but when I deigned to show up at one of these unsuspecting congregations, I sat in the pew with my arms crossed, mad at the Baptists for not being Methodist enough, the Methodists for not being Anglican enough, the Anglicans for not being evangelical enough, and the evangelicals for not being Catholic enough. I scrutinized the lyrics to every worship song, debated the content of every sermon. I rendered verdicts regarding the frequency of communion and the method of baptism. I checked the bulletins for typos. In some religious traditions, this particular coping mechanism is known as pride.

Some estimates find that up to 70 percent of caregivers can show some signs of depression. They can suffer from lack of sleep, poor diet, and a host of other issues, including higher rates of smoking and alcohol use. One study on caregivers showed that more than one-third used alcohol as a coping mechanism.

However, when he has issues with being bullied at school, they write it off as a typical childhood experience. Since Ross is doing well academically and is still involved in after-school activities, they do not bother to validate his emotions. Consequently, Ross constantly feels alone and comes to subconsciously believe the only person he can rely on to soothe himself is himself. As you can see, emotional neglect does not necessarily mean a child was physically abandoned—it can include a wider variety of neglect such as absenteeism or a lack of emotional connection between the caregiver and child. Moreover, a Dismissive-Avoidant attachment style can also be formed through a combination of emotional neglect from one parent and enmeshment trauma from the other. According to Thrivetalk, enmeshment trauma is a form of emotional damage that occurs when one or more parents project their values, needs, and dreams onto their child. This causes the child to abandon their own sense of self in order to please their caregiver. Ultimately, the child feels as though they must adapt to their parent’s needs to be worthy of love, and this, when combined with a caregiver who is also unavailable, leaves the child feeling emotionally abandoned. Eventually, the Dismissive-Avoidant wants to dissociate from those around them because they have an abundance of stored subconscious associations around their emotional vulnerability being rejected. In adulthood, they will subconsciously feel in control when they are on their own, and will be at peace alone. In their relationships, they will need time alone to soothe themselves because being alone has the most positive childhood associations. Since the subconscious is most “comfortable” with what it knows, it will actively work to re-create a sense of familiarity. For the Dismissive-Avoidant, this means withdrawing in emotionally challenging situations in adulthood. For those who are in a relationship with the Dismissive-Avoidant, or if you are a Dismissive-Avoidant yourself, issues can arise if this coping mechanism is not mutually understood. Therefore, to begin healing yourself or your relationship, you must first understand where these patterns come from, and then learn the steps to finally heal them.

Amy always tried to maintain some semblance of dignity in front of me. Even so, I never met the same Amy more than once. On some days she behaved like a small child, sucking her thumb, talking in a baby voice and sitting on my knee; at other times she'd adopt the aggressive, butch act, the Rizzo character - the girl who had 'out-Jaggered Jagger'. The more vulnerable she felt, the more pronounced that persona would become. I think she brought her characters out as coping mechanisms, to get her through anxious moments or stressful situations. In all honesty there was rarely a time at Camden Square when Amy was a whole person. Rather, she continued to be this fragmented girl, a series of creations I suppose I'd become accustomed to.

I scrutinized the lyrics to every worship song, debated the content of every sermon. I rendered verdicts regarding the frequency of communion and the method of baptism. I checked the bulletins for typos. In some religious traditions, this particular coping mechanism is known as pride.

Ultimately, attachment theory helps one understand the ways in which people function on an individual level and while interacting with one another. Although attachment theory has a variety of applications, it tends to be especially useful in couples’ therapy. Since each attachment style has generalized trends, understanding your or your partner’s coping mechanisms, subconscious beliefs, and perceptions can relieve substantial communication issues. For example, in a relationship, the Dismissive-Avoidant may be withdrawn, autonomous, and seemingly independent. To the Dismissive-Avoidant, they are functioning as they always have—on their own. To an Anxious Attachment, however, it may feel as though their partner is on the verge of abandoning them and may cause serious emotional distress. However, the Dismissive-Avoidant’s coping mechanisms don’t necessarily mean they are detaching from the relationship—they are actually just detaching from their own emotions. Now, although none of these behaviors are necessarily healthy in a relationship, understanding why they occur is the first step. Once partners understand each other’s coping mechanisms and vulnerabilities, they can begin to supply their partner with the things that they do need. For example, the Dismissive-Avoidant needs continuous and unwavering emotional support and validation. Since they were emotionally neglected as a child, they need to slowly learn that they can consistently and predictably rely on others. The Anxious Attachment individual needs reassurance and affection to understand that they are good enough and that they won’t be rejected. The simple knowledge of the pain points of your partner and the pain points that lie within yourself opens up a whole stream of communication that you previously were unable to tap into—because your conscious mind didn’t even know it was there. Moreover, your attachment style also interacts with what Dr. Gary Chapman describes as your “Love Language.” Just as there are different spoken languages, and different dialects present within the spoken languages, Love Languages are different ways that people express and receive love or gratitude when they interact with others, whether with a romantic partner or with friends and family. According to Dr. Chapman’s book, they consist of five different kinds of expressions: 1. Words of affirmation 2. Acts of service 3. Giving and receiving gifts 4. Quality time 5. Physical touch Given the attachment style of each partner in a relationship, certain expressions may be better received. Attachment theory applies to a variety of circumstances and works well paired with other theories to make couples therapy a more holistic experience. The following chapters will dive into what your attachment style is, what it means, and how it functions in all aspects of your life—from your romantic relationships to your friendships with coworkers.

To observers, neurodivergent minds appear extreme and irrational, with a penchant for catastrophe and drama. It’s what we know. People with coping mechanisms like drugs and alcohol love a good calamity because it reinforces our stories and worldview. Those stories give us an excuse to indulge. But even in the healthiest brains, most of our reactions and responses can be boiled down to a few core beliefs about ourselves.