Coping Strategies
Part 16 - Defence mechanisms

As with all things related to our psychological make-up, a greater understanding of the mind can lead us to greater choices in life, which in turn can improve our overall well-being.

As you will see from reading on, there are a heck of a lot of ways in which our minds can change, distort or warp reality. Some of these ways are quite straightforward and easy to explain, while others take a bit longer to understand.

If an event or a time in your life is painful, one of the easiest ways to deal with it is to forget that it ever happened. We can do this simply by pushing it into the furthest reaches of our mind/body/soul.

While this may be a very important method of coping at the time, in years to come it may be difficult to keep the lid on it, as pain has a habit of rising to the surface and spilling out.

If ‘it’ (whatever it may be) didn’t happen, then there is no need to be distressed about it... except that ‘it’ will become harder and harder to deny when it starts popping into your head with greater frequency and begins to wear you down.

Here is a great opportunity to blame someone else for what happened, or to put all the dislike about yourself onto someone else, because the truth is too upsetting. Sometimes what you hate about someone is the very thing you don’t like about yourself.

This is about dumping or off-loading on people (or pets) (or objects) who have nothing to do with the cause of your upset/pain/anger, etc.

If I can channel my dark side into something that is judged to be okay by my partner/friends/family/ community/society, then I can maintain my status as well as my relationships (as opposed to ending up in prison or being isolated/alienated)
e.g. boxing, gaming, writing horror stories, acting, performing, etc.

This is the opposite of ‘it wasn’t me – it was you.’
In times of distress or threat to yourself, it might be the best option to behave like someone else, e.g. if I shape my hair to look like Ingrid Bergman, I will have all the confidence and sassiness that she has.

This allows you think about an otherwise painful or upsetting episode without feeling it, just as though you were merely reporting the events.

If the pressure to be a certain age is too much for you, going back to a younger age might help reduce the stress. (Think of the times when you might have curled up in a foetal position at night.)

Having fantasies, especially about the things that ‘could have been’ in your life, are a way of dealing with disappointments, or of ending things that didn’t have an ending. This is a great way to re-write your history.

If you are hurting, you might want to think away what is causing the pain by giving yourself a rational explanation: e.g. “I failed because I didn’t want to pass the stupid test anyway.”

You may have lost out on one particular thing, but you can always remind yourself of plenty of times when you did plenty of really good things: when you were at the very top of your game.

If you can’t say how awful you think the dress is, you might end up going to the opposite extreme of being extremely complimentary about it. If you have a strong desire, which you cannot accept of yourself, you might not only deny it but also make a point of doing something that suggests your desires lie in other areas.