Life can be hard sometimes, or all of the time, depending on what your life is like. Many of us struggle to find a way to keep going when the weight of the world is crashing down. It’s a rough time for society, with a lack of stability, and so many people dealing with a list of mental health issues.
We need things to help us cope with this, but sometimes, the coping mechanisms we pick up aren’t healthy. Those are called maladaptive coping skills. On the other hand, sometimes we use a coping skill for so long that it doesn’t provide the same kind of relief it once did. It’s important to recognize these things so that you can make a change. So what are some signs that your coping mechanisms are no longer serving you?
1. You’re using them more often, not less.
A good sign that a coping mechanism has stopped working is that you need more and more of it to keep things steady. You may already see the correlation with substance abuse here. At first, you only need a little, but then you need more and more to get the same kind of benefit as your tolerance grows.
That’s the same reason self-harm is so dangerous. Much like substance abuse, a little doesn’t provide the same kind of relief if that’s what you rely on over time. It escalates, and the need grows to find the same kind of equilibrium and relief it would provide before.
If you’re stuck in this loop, it’s likely that you need to learn coping skills that will bring you closer to a resolution. Activities like substance abuse are a self-destructive treadmill that goes nowhere. Whereas if you try something like journaling for mental health or exercising to burn off energy or to feel something, that’s leading you in a healthy direction that you’ll actually benefit from.
2. The same problems keep emerging, or they get worse.
Research shows that a coping skill is not healthy or working if you keep running into the same issues, or it makes things worse. Yes, it’ll provide relief for a short time, but then the problem or discomfort will crop back up again. Those of us who are living with chronic mental or physical health issues, as well as those living stressful lives, will find that there may not be a resolution, and unhealthy coping mechanisms just mask that.
What’s more, the coping skill might provide a temporary relief, but then you may feel worse afterward. Consider something like promiscuity. A person who is lonely may seek out human connection through one-night stands, but for many people, that can actually make the loneliness worse because there’s no emotional connection there behind the act of intimacy over sex.
After a while, it just feels hollow and makes you feel worse once the endorphin high wears off. Then you feel more lonely because you’ve reminded yourself that connection exists, but you don’t have it. You don’t have the intimacy that is expressed in that act.
And don’t misunderstand me, I’m not moralizing sex or saying not to have it or any of that purity nonsense. What I’m saying is that it’s not a replacement for emotional intimacy for most people.
In this case, it’s about changing your perspective on what you’re trying to heal. Actions like promiscuity treat the symptom, not the root cause of the issue. You have to get to the root of the problem to meaningfully address it, and from there, the symptoms you’re trying to handle should eventually abate. To find the root problem, you’ll want to look at boundaries that might have been crossed, resentment, or unmet needs.
3. Your coping mechanisms isolate you from other people.
Ah, sweet, sweet isolation. That was my coping skill of choice for decades because of my autism on top of depression. The depression would rob me of the ability to do the performative work of autistic masking. So, I would turn in on myself. I would isolate in my bedroom, listen to loud music, play video games, and just be alone.
Sometimes, we just need some time to recharge our batteries. That’s normal. What isn’t normal is avoiding people for days or weeks at a time because you just can’t handle socialization. I would isolate because I never found much relief in talking to anyone about what I had going on, and I didn’t want to be a burden. But even though I didn’t experience relief from talking, I still should have tried to maintain social connections.
The problem is that friendships require maintenance, otherwise they’ll wither on the vine. People are far too oversimplistic about how they evaluate the way a friend should be versus how they are. Like, if someone stops talking to me for three weeks, I’m going to assume they don’t want to talk anymore.
The solution is baby steps. If you don’t feel comfortable expressing what’s going on with you to a friend, which is a totally fine boundary to have, just express something small. Nowadays, if I fall into that kind of a depression, I just tell folks that I’m just down a bit right now and need a little time to myself. Alternatively, I’ll invite over a friend to just hang out and be present in silence.
4. You’re controlling and micro-managing to try to be okay.
Micro-management is an underacknowledged symptom of many mental health issues. A person who does not feel in control of themselves, their emotions, or their life will often try to exert control over whatever they can. The easy thing to exert control over is people under your direct authority, or minor circumstances that other people can’t disrupt as often.
Helicopter parenting is a good example. The parent shields their child from any kind of discomfort because they are often trying to soothe their own anxiety or trauma. As a result, they leave their child woefully unprepared for the future, and they don’t even truly get any real benefit out of the action.
Perfectionism is the same. As Psychology Today shares, perfectionism is often rooted in self-soothing. But does it work? No. Because many perfectionists don’t actually finish their work. Their coping skill is actually setting them back in progress and harming them.
To combat micro-management, we need to learn to accept that nothing can be under our perfect control. There are always random variables that you could not ever predict that could crop up. Other methods of managing anxiety might be more fruitful, like trying to burn off some of the energy through exercise or journaling it out.
5. You feel shame or hide your coping mechanisms from others.
A healthy coping mechanism is something you can usually be pretty open about. But if you’re hiding what you’re doing to cope, or you feel ashamed when someone finds out about it, that’s a good sign it’s not actually helping you.
The shame tells you that deep down, you know the coping mechanism isn’t aligned with your values or what you actually need. Whether that’s substance abuse, the promiscuity we talked about, or whatever, the secrecy just makes everything worse. Now you have the original problem and the stress of hiding what you’re doing about it.
The fix is to shift to coping mechanisms you don’t have to hide. When you can tell someone what you’re doing to cope without cringing, you’re probably on the right track. Plus, being open with people you trust creates some accountability, which can help you stick to healthier choices instead of falling back into old patterns.
6. They stop you from growing.
The primary purpose of a coping skill is to help you get through a hard time. Ideally, moving forward to something better or making progress. However, sometimes a coping skill is about trying to minimize the damage of a long-term issue that you’re managing. It’s important to understand that there is a difference.
The coping skill may not be working if using it stops you from living your life, growing, or addressing the issue. It should be a temporary supplement, not a total replacement, assuming the issue you’re dealing with isn’t a chronic condition.
But, even then, chronic conditions like mental health and chronic illness wax and wane. Sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s manageable and treatable, other times it can take years to find a solution. The important thing is not to just stop at the coping skill. You’ll probably need professional help to push toward better management or resolution.
Final thoughts…
The idea of a coping skill is to help you get through a temporary, tough time. However, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to go about it. The fact of the matter is, if you have a recurring issue that requires you to utilize some form of coping skill, you likely need professional assistance to get at the root of the issue.
Only by addressing the root of the issue can you make the temporary hard time go away completely, if possible. But in some cases, it’s not possible. In some cases, we just have to minimize the damage of the hard times and push through until it’s over with. Chronic illness is no fun, but we find a way.
