I like to deal with reality. There hasn’t been anything productive to ever come from sugar coating things, at least in my experience.
There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking. I just prefer to deal with the reality of the situation.
With that said, today’s been a really crappy day. I’ve had worse days but I’ve also had much, much better ones as well.
I don’t always cope well either.
When things get really bad, I stress eat and watch TV. I’ve never been a really big drinker so I’m not much into, that but give me some ice cream and a few hours of Supernatural on Netflix and I’m drowning my sorrows. I’ve also been craving Chipoltle as well. One of their giant, double steak burritos sounds absolutely amazing right now.
I thought it might be a change of pace to share all the ways that the we cope with stress. Please keep it clean but be honest.
I’m a stress eater…. What about you?
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rmagliozzi thefuzzycabbage Meaghan1985 wishiwereinny @Angela McDonough I love the honesty. Great feedback everyone 🙂
right now i am drowning them in coffee long story bad night
I write fiction, and have done so since I was a child. It is a great escape, especially when the world seems too overwhelming. I also write in my journal. That is very therapeutic
rmagliozzi I understand the whole writing thing. 🙂
I write in my journal and do a lot of venting, or I will watch lots of movies and TV shows. Supernatural is one show I watch a lot of. I’ve also gotten into shows like Walking Dead, Revolution, Grimm, and Hannibal. But when it’s been a really bad day, I will usually have a Fringe or Battlestar Gallactica marathon. Other than that, lately I’ve been listening to A LOT of music. I love music….but it’s something I have not had much time to enjoy so I’ve been really trying to squeeze in some music listening time.
thefuzzycabbage I write in my journal too. In fact, when my life is going well and I’m feeling good, I don’t write in my diary. It’s only during a bad phase that I find myself writing. This is good in that (A) it helps keep track of the rise and fall of my moods and (B) the sudden urge to starting diary-ing again is a warning sign that my mood has taken a dip.
I’m the same way. More of what I write in my journal is negative versus being positive. If things are going well, the idea of writing in my journal rarely crosses my mind b/c I’m trying to savor the good moments and enjoy them while they last.
thefuzzycabbage I’m with you on the music 🙂
lostandtired thefuzzycabbage I’m definitely big into music…and my movies and TV….but music is one of those things that allows you to just lay back and let your mind drift.
I have severe depression, as I might have told you. (Okay, I’ve actually been diagnosed with bipolar, but the “manic” episodes are mild and short, and the depressive episodes long and severe.) And then there was the Great Headache Crisis which went on for a year and a half. I used books as a major coping skill for both conditions. Books were a distraction; I could think about the book instead of how much I hated myself and how miserable I felt, and when I was concentrating on reading I did not feel the pain so much.
I used to frantically jump from book to book to book like I was trying to cross a terrible foaming rapids and they were rocks sticking above the water. To extend the metaphor, I was afraid to stay on one rock too long and just kept hopping. Once I finished a book I’d immediately start another one. I read like 450 books in one year once, over one a day. In fact, I focused on books to the detriment of everything else, such as relationships and such. It wasn’t so unhealthy a coping skill as, say, binge drinking (which I also used to do), but I focused on it to the extent that it wasn’t entirely healthy. I read books I didn’t even like, just to find something, ANYTHING, else to think about besides my headache and depression.
Now that my headache is gone, and my depression is (mostly!) under control with the right medications and therapy, I read books simply because I enjoy reading them. I still read much more than most people (I’ve finished 108 so far this year), but I do other things too. If I don’t like a book I’m reading, I quit — I tell myself, my time is too valuable to spend reading books I don’t enjoy.
I would totally recommend books as a coping skill to people. You get something to think about, and you can often learn something in the process. Sometimes I still use them as that — like if I’m having a bad day, I find a funny book to read, or at least one that’s suspenseful or intellectually stimulating, and often feel better for it. But like all good things, they can be overused, as I did before.
I too am a huge reader. College took over and I didn’t have enough time, but reading is still my favorite. People discribe me as a bookworm and I love it. I feel what the characters are feeling, its like I fall into their world. It’s why I love history so much, I fall into someone else’s story. I’m glad you decided to give up on the books you don’t like 🙂 for some reason I never liked Anne of Green Gables, even though I love the rest of the series.
No one has mentioned listening to music, so I will. I listen to music when I’m stressed as well.
JBJID wishiwereinny it’s amazing to see the things we do to cope with stress. Thanks for sharing.
it used to be smoking but now it’s candy crush saga until my lives run out and then it’s eating personal pref is salty crackers and cheese but honestly if we were out of those it’d be whatever I could lay my hands on
I’m a sleeper. No matter my stress, I usually fall asleep for about 14 hours (really) before I can cope.
wishiwereinny I used to sleep a lot during my Great Headache Crisis. (Long story short: I had one continuous headache for a year and a half. It wasn’t a migraine like Lizze’s, but something else.) The painkillers I took made me really sleepy, of course. But more than that: when I slept, I wasn’t in pain. And it was characteristic of my headache that I never woke up in pain and, in fact, usually the pain didn’t start until an hour or more after I woke up. Go figure.
(My eventual diagnosis was “New Daily Persistent Headache.” Look it up. My response was, “Thank you, Captain Obvious!” It’s a diagnosis of exclusion — med-speak for “we have ruled out everything we can think of and we don’t know what’s wrong.” But I’m cured now.)