When coping mechanisms turn sour

[After The End]

Obviously I have a lot of different coping mechanisms. Some of them are entirely self-destructive. So I treasure the few that are productive. Like cycling. I cycle everywhere, and don't even own a car (or I do but it's not registered and may not even work) which is not a small thing because the city I live in is physically quite large. Riding twenty to sixty kilometres is not that unusual.

Regular cycling often helps my mood, but unless I have some place to go it can be impossible to find the motivation. Especially as my area is very rough and the opposite of bike-friendly. I already need new rims and have gone through countless tubes and two sets of tires just from the crap roads, and people are scum. Just to be clear it's illegal not to cycle on the road here and a bike on the road should be treated exactly as if it were another car, but people in this area don't seem to get this simple concept. That or they're just scum. Probably a combination. So I've had bottles (full soft-drink bottles or empty glass bottles) thrown at me, I've had people tailgate me dangerously close while leaning on their horns, been sworn at, abused, yelled at, even run off the road. There have been physical altercations and I even carry a pedal wrench in my pannier now just in case.

I've also had two very bad accidents due to shit like this. Once because a drunk moron veered onto the wrong side of the road left me with several broken ribs. Another time, while still healing from that, I hit an extremely dangerous pot-hole (because decent roads are for rich people) at high speed which threw my healing schedule right out. Both accidents were bad and left me with some major anxiety about riding but it was important enough that I didn't let them stop me, and was able to get over it. Still when all's said and done finding the motivation to ride around in circles for it's own sake is not easy.

However a while back I was doing a course in the city. I was cycling there and back. Making the trip (about 25 kilometres) three times a week. It was very positive. Especially as I was getting out of this area into richer, more bike-friendly suburbs. But for reasons that are too involved to get into that course went to shit. It's part of a pattern of events that left me where I am now after spending a while on the road to recovery.

So today I had to ride to the hospital, and was looking forward to it. While it's nice I'm tired now and could probably sleep, the entire time riding a long distance to get something done I was thinking about that course and the surrounding issues. Something that used to really make me happy was just a source of misery.

So I'm seriously running out of coping mechanisms that aren't purely self-destructive. Has anyone been in a similar position where a once positive thing became another source of misery? If so I'm curious how you dealt with it. Were you able to get it back?

 

[HGL91]

Drivers can be assholes to cyclists. Can't believe people have actually thrown bottles at you though. What savages!

 

[ThriveOrDie]

What issues are you trying to cope with?

 

[HGL91]

Have you tried taking up a new hobby and then going back to an old hobby later? I seriously couldn't practice yoga without breaking down and crying on the mat for 3 months. It was so frustrating but all I could think about while doing it was doing yoga at my old house where I lived with my ex-boyfriend.

I've lately danced to music I loved when I was younger which was nostalgic and fun.

Recently, I've been able to do yoga again feeling happy and enjoying it. Took a good 3 months though until it even sounded remotely appealing.

 

[After The End]

Drivers can be assholes to cyclists. Can't believe people have actually thrown bottles at you though. What savages!

The bottles have only ever happened at night, but I still feel safer cycling at night as long as my light is fully charged. Fewer cars means fewer dickheads, and the thought of being hit by someone's car is way more alarming than having something thrown at me, even if it could potentially cause a bad accident.

What issues are you trying to cope with?

Bipolar, which is getting worse. Depressive episodes, which are getting longer and longer, often involve some degree of catatonia. I used to get hypo-manic and manic a lot, but now I get mixed affective states more often and only by cutting myself can I come down. I have PTSD as well which has left me with a lot of things that can trigger depressive episodes or anxiety, and I have hyper-vigilance and the standard obsession with disaster. I get chronic sleep paralysis and often sleep in my chair for weeks at a time. The catastrophic ideations play into OCD, though that (and related anxiety, I used to have crippling agoraphobia) are something I've mostly been able to get over on my own. Once I couldn't even be in the same room as a knife, ice-cubs or tin-foil. I don't like it. but I can deal. I know I have some BPD traits as well. Mostly pre-emptive mistrust. Which doesn't help because I already have plenty of reasons to mistrust people. I have no family aside from my sister, but we don't really have a relationship anymore. I don't remember the last time I had anyone supportive in my life who I didn't know online, and now they're all either dead or gone.

I have physical problems as well. One of my hands has bad nerve damage. The other is in more or less chronic pain due to a permanently impacted/rotated knuckle and several complex fractures that were never treated properly. I have kidney damage from shit psyche meds and others made all my fillings fall out, which I couldn't afford to replace, so half my teeth are gone. I qualified for a grant after almost dying during anorexia, which happened twice as I have pretty bad body dysmorphia, and was able to get some of them fixed and have a denture made, but it was a waste of money. I literally don't trust the medical industry and dentists especially. Their only goal is to milk you for all you're worth.

I have no job. I've been trying to find one for a long time with the help of so-called experts in the disability employment sector. But having no teeth and self-harm scars makes you kind of unemployable especially for someone my age with no verifiable work history thanks to agoraphobia, and this is all especially true of the only industries I have skills in (beauty industry, retail, photography) while entry-level jobs usually only employ non-residents or minors as they can pay them less. I'm in my mid/late 30s and really have no work experience (thanks agoraphobia) though I do potentially have the means to start a business (equipment, skills and savings) but it's never going to happen, I haven't had any structure in my life for so long that doing things in a self-motivated way is borderline impossible.

There's a large part of me that just doesn't want to be engaged with the world anymore period and I've felt this way ever since my last real friend CTB'd. Dealing with normal people is often extremely painful. Alienating a the very least. I know exactly what people like me are worth where I'm from. We're supposed to kill ourselves and get out of the way. I've lost count of the different agencies, crisis centres, public psychologists, peer support workers, etc I've tried. If they can even be bothered to phone back or show up for appointments it's a minor miracle. I hate even being around them. The last psychologist I saw (and this is totally normal here) spent six sessions literally going over exactly the same things, needing the same things explained to him every time, because he was to lazy to take notes. They get paid either way.

As far as the class stuff goes it's just the fact that the industry isn't meant for people like me. They're not shy about this in the slightest. Oh they'll take your money, and they'll say whatever they think will convince you to give it to them, but when it comes to the crunch I've wasted two years of my life with these courses and gotten absolutely nothing of even the slightest value. You don't even make friends because it's an unapologetic girl's club; I could really go on but I can't be bothered because I'd rather not talk about it. I should probably just donate my equipment to the gender centre so I don't have the reminder around me anymore because it cases me nothing but misery.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I'm half asleep.

My bike actually needs a lot of work but I can't be bothered with it.

Have you tried taking up a new hobby and then going back to an old hobby later? I seriously couldn't practice yoga without breaking down and crying on the mat for 3 months. It was so frustrating but all I could think about while doing it was doing yoga at my old house where I lived with my ex-boyfriend.

I have loads of hobbies but honestly most are dead in the same way or not financially feasible anymore. Cycling is productive. It's why it meant something to me. Other hobbies have gone the same way in being reminders of shit. Or actually take energy if I want to do them in a productive way like writing on Quora (which is barely productive to start with) or - something I tried recently - starting a youtube channel for Let's Plays. It's going to take a long time and a lot of effort to make it productive and the motivation just isn't there. If I knew anyone who could help I'd do an air-brush based makeup channel because they basically don't exist and the people running them don't know anything, but I don't.

 

[joshe]

Do you get enough disability to not have to work or do they have you on some sort of work scheme?

I feel for your situation, it seems you have a strong grasp on your symptoms, no doubt from going through the psychiatry ringer many times, but there isn't actually a clear way to solve your problems. Not that there ever is, but no one getting paid to maintain your problems is going to tell you its unsolvable right.

 

[TAW122]

When my coping mechanisms turn sour, I either weather through with (oftenly with more damage than usual) or I use something different, usually maladaptive. Unlike the usual copes such as drinking, drugs, smoking, I don't do those for copes because I didn't want to get addicted to them and also cause additional health problems for myself. While I'm not really fit, I don't want to get even worse by having drugs, alcohol, and smoking to wreck more havoc on my already ravaged body. When I get helpless, I often just rant in my room and sometimes I'm a bit too loud and it disturbs the home owner then I quiet down for a while.

 

[After The End]

Do you get enough disability to not have to work or do they have you on some sort of work scheme?

I used to have mandatory requirements as far as looking for work went, but once you turn 35 you're basically a lost cause so they stop. Not that any of these places are of any help anyway. I spent a full year once trying to arrange to get some clothes for interviews from one of them (one of the 'many,' services they brag endlessly about offering) and eventually just gave up. In fifteen years I literally did nothing except sit in a room applying for jobs on SEEK that I could have applied for (and often was applying for) at home. Interview practise? Work experience? Reverse marketing? Industry contacts? No, no, no, no. The whole fucking thing is a scam to create government jobs for normies. Seriously I have a relative who did an audit of one of these places performance. Their success rate was 3.2% and they were costing millions a year in public money (god only knows where it was going) but apparently that's fine because nobody shut them down or even warned them. More than almost anything else, it's shit like that that makes me not want to get out of bed.

I feel for your situation, it seems you have a strong grasp on your symptoms, no doubt from going through the psychiatry ringer many times, but there isn't actually a clear way to solve your problems. Not that there ever is, but no one getting paid to maintain your problems is going to tell you its unsolvable right.

Psychiatrists told me none of this. The only 'diagnosis,' I've ever had are depression, anxiety and Borderline Personality Disorder, which the person who 'diagnosed,' me decided in about ten minutes, almost entirely on the basis of my self-harm scars. So he sent me to an expert whose only job is testing people to see if they quality for DBT (i.e if they have enough BPD symptoms); I went once and despite being very willing to do any group therapy she flat-out said, 'you do not have DBT.' I literally begged her to let me do it anyway because it was the only group therapy available, but she said they have limited places and more applicants than positions. He still flatly refused to entertain any other diagnosis or provide any other kind of treatment. A year later when I was literally suicidal his only response was to refer me back to the same program even though she literally refused to see me again because she considered it a waste of her time. Still didn't change his mind. He flatly refuses to offer or do anything else. Stuff like this, which is in no way unusual at all, is why I fucking hate doctors.

When my coping mechanisms turn sour, I either weather through with (oftenly with more damage than usual) or I use something different, usually maladaptive. Unlike the usual copes such as drinking, drugs, smoking, I don't do those for copes because I didn't want to get addicted to them and also cause additional health problems for myself. While I'm not really fit, I don't want to get even worse by having drugs, alcohol, and smoking to wreck more havoc on my already ravaged body. When I get helpless, I often just rant in my room and sometimes I'm a bit too loud and it disturbs the home owner then I quiet down for a while.

I'm already using every drug I can get my hands on. I'm really past the point where I give a shit about health problems. My health is fucked regardless. Hell I'll be lucky if my kidneys are still working in ten years.

 

[ThriveOrDie]

I get chronic sleep paralysis...

I'm so sorry. That is a lot to cope with. I wish I had some helpful advice for you. I don't have any experience with most of those problems. I have had sleep paralysis a few times in my life and it is terrifying. I wish I knew how to make it stop. I hope you find some peace.

 

[After The End]

I'm so sorry. That is a lot to cope with. I wish I had some helpful advice for you. I don't have any experience with most of those problems. I have had sleep paralysis a few times in my life and it is terrifying. I wish I knew how to make it stop. I hope you find some peace.

The main cause is stress, but there are some small things that can help. Ironically exercising is a huge one. Otherwise things seem to be different for different people. I've only ever had two episodes while sleeping in my chair for example. In general though apparently you're more likely to get an episode if you sleep on your back or if you go to bed after not sleeping for a long period. At the very least I very rarely ever get full hallucinations. I've known people who got them every time, and having experienced them a few times myself that's just a truckload of no. Some of the actual hallucinations I've heard about sound friggin' hilarious but then if I imagine genuinely experiencing it then it's actually some terrifying as hell stuff.

One guy would frequently hallucinate about snakes. Seeing snakes crawl under his bedclothes for example, which is creepy, but another reoccurring hallucination he'd get was a snake with a human head that would slither into bed with him face-to-face and scream incoherently in his face which, yeah, couldn't help laughing the first time I heard that. Then I actually tried to really imagine what it would be like, and it seems genuinely scary as hell.

 

[ThriveOrDie]

The main cause is stress, but there are some small things that can help. Ironically exercising is a huge one. Otherwise things seem to be different for different people. I've only ever had two episodes while sleeping in my chair for example. In general though apparently you're more likely to get an episode if you sleep on your back or if you go to bed after not sleeping for a long period. At the very least I very rarely ever get full hallucinations. I've known people who got them every time, and having experienced them a few times myself that's just a truckload of no. Some of the actual hallucinations I've heard about sound friggin' hilarious but then if I imagine genuinely experiencing it then it's actually some terrifying as hell stuff.

One guy would frequently hallucinate about snakes. Seeing snakes crawl under his bedclothes for example, which is creepy, but another reoccurring hallucination he'd get was a snake with a human head that would slither into bed with him face-to-face and scream incoherently in his face which, yeah, couldn't help laughing the first time I heard that. Then I actually tried to really imagine what it would be like, and it seems genuinely scary as hell.

Oh interesting. I used to sleep on my back when I was younger but now I can not sleep on my back. I had an auditory hallucination during sleep paralysis once. It was loud as hell...sounded like thousands of demonic voices talking at once, it was incoherent like the snake you mentioned.

 

[Saga]

my coping mechanism is really destruction, one is I isolate myself, two I beat myself up emotionally until I end up hurting myself and four if I cannot do these I release a lot of anger via screaming/hitting and some times even sex but thats so destructive..right now the only thing that keeps me from thinking of these things are my job I dont love my job but it helps me cope for a bit until i am ready to ctb