Coping Up Quotes & Sayings

Both the suicidal and non-suicidal are often angry with others. One way to discharge this anger is to fantasize about violent revenge. The insults of daily life often cause fantasies of revenge to flare up and quickly subside. The people with these fantasies usually do not act on them; they are not motives or goals. They are involuntary responses to perceived insult - ways of coping with rage. The suicidal, whether or not they attempt, suffer tremendous and persistent pain and anger. That this pain should find its way into their fantasies and dreams is no surprise. This ideation is not a motive for action; it is an alternative to action. Fantasizing about suicide is an effort to delay or avoid suicide, not the activity of formulating a motive, goal, or intention. Fantasies doubtlessly succeed in preventing many attempts. — David L. Conroy

That night, before bed, he goes first to Willem's side of the closet, which he has still not emptied. Here are Willem's shirts on their hangers, and his sweaters on their shelves, and his shoes lined up beneath. He takes down the shirt he needs, a burgundy plaid woven through with threads of yellow, which Willem used to wear around the house in the springtime, and shrugs it on over his head. But instead of putting his arms through its sleeves, he ties the sleeves in front of him, which makes the shirt look like a straitjacket, but which he can pretend - if he concentrates - are Willem's arms in an embrace around him. He climbs into bed. This ritual embarrasses and shames him, but he only does it when he really needs it, and tonight he really needs it. — Hanya Yanagihara

Children of the mentally ill learn early on how not to be a bother, especially if they grew up with neglect. As my sister insisted once, when she was in severe pain after injuring her ankle, 'This isn't me! This is not who I am! — Mira Bartok

Every star that lights up the sky, every bee pollinating the flowers, every pet asking for a treat exposes us to energy that echoes throughout our universe. — Celeste Cooper

On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing only one of two things: either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you.
Evolution is win-win ... life is self-correcting. — Deepak Chopra

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 — M.J. Ryan

One idea I explore in my stand-up show is whether, if you try looking at the universe rationally and avoid coping mechanisms like mysticism or religion, you can still be happy knowing you are going to die after a brief time on this spinning ball. — Robin Ince

Ten minutes after loading up her plate, when Iris is sipping pale apple juice, she asks Els across the table, "I'm told I should make myself useful. What are my options?"
Els spears a strawberry. "What can you do?"
"I organize."
"Like your sister."
"I organize people, events," Iris says. "Denise organizes information."
I absorb that. I never thought of myself as organizing anything. I think of myself as listening, coping, avoiding. The words feel good, rolled over in my mind: Denise organizes information. — Corinne Duyvis

The strength to go on must come from within, not without, or it crushes instead of building up the heart. — Tara K. Harper

A little manic was okay. A little manic paid the bills and got him up in the morning, made him magic when he needed it most. — Rainbow Rowell

I take for granted that for the imaginative writer, the exercise of the imagination is part of the basic process of coping with reality, just as actors need to act all the time to make up for some deficiency in their sense of themselves. — J.G. Ballard

Here's a story of a girl
Who grew up lost and lonely
Thinking love was fairy tale
And trouble was made only for me
Even in the darkness every color can be found
And every day of rain brings
Water flowing
To things growing in the ground
Grief replaced with pity
For a city barely coping
Dreams are easy to achieve
If hope is all I'm hoping to be
Any time you're hurt
There's one who has it worse around
And every drop of rain will keep you growing
Seeds you're sowing in the ground — Joss Whedon

(Riley...I just wasn't up to coping with the whims and foibles of men right now. Chocolate, coffee and ice cream were far more reliable when it came to providing a good time, and at least they would never disappoint me. — Keri Arthur

Howlett speculated that the human cannabinoid system evolved to help us endure (and selectively forget) the routine slings and arrows of life "so that we can get up in the morning and do it all over again." It is the brain's own drug for coping with the human condition. — Michael Pollan

I think that now most people know someone in their family that is coping with something, but there is still a tremendous amount of shame - that one is still regarded as a defective unit ... if only they would pull up their bootstraps - they are only indulging their emotions, everybody's moody, blah, blah, blah. — Carrie Fisher

[When under stress I thought of] the books I had read [and applied] them to myself. I [imagined I was] one of the characters [and soon found myself] in made-up circumstances which were most agreeable to my inclinations. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

We saw this cross-level coherence in the analysis of personality: If your lower-level traits match up with your coping mechanisms, which in turn are consistent with your life story, your personality is well integrated and you can get on with the business of living. When these levels do not cohere, you are likely to be torn by internal contradictions and neurotic conflicts.34 You might need adversity to knock yourself into alignment. And if you do achieve coherence, the moment when things come together may be one of the most profound of your life. Like the moviegoer who later finds out what she missed in the first half hour, your life will suddenly make more sense. Finding coherence across levels feels like enlightenment,35 and it is crucial for answering the question of purpose within life. — Jonathan Haidt

I have a lot of friends who are trying to clean up their act, or that are still making trouble for themselves, so I'm definitely well-versed on what goes on in the mind and the heart of a person who self-destructs as their coping mechanism, and also what they're like when you take their preferred substance away. — Natasha Lyonne

The reason that poor people wind up coping in ways that seem pointlessly self-destructive is that all the constructive stuff costs money. I — Linda Tirado

I don't think people realize, when they're just getting started on an eating disorder or even when they're in the grip of one, that it is not something that you just "get over." For the vast majority of eating-disordered people, it is something that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You may change your behavior, change your beliefs about yourself and your body, give up that particular way of coping in the world. You may learn, as I have, that you would rather be a human than a human's thin shell. You may get well. But you never forget. — Marya Hornbacher

Patients must be willing to give up their maladaptive coping styles in order to change. For example, patients who continue surrendering to the schema - by remaining in destructive relationships or by not setting limits in their personal or work lives -perpetuate the schema and are not able to make significant progress in therapy. — Jeffrey E. Young

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 — Rachel Reiland

I'm not particularly good at coping with it. I just cope. I just leave my brain at the door and just stand there. I can get the screaming more than I get the photo things. That's the worst, when you have this wall of photographers. I've never understood the logic in how they do it. Everybody shouts at the same time, and you're trying to do a logical thing, looking from the left to the right. And they almost always end up looking disappointed with you afterwards. — Robert Pattinson

Denial is a critical part of the human coping mechanism. Without it, we would all wake up terrified every morning about all the ways we could die. Instead, our minds block out our existential fears by focusing on stresses we can handle - like getting to work on time or paying our taxes. — Dan Brown

In the horrible places, the battle for control escalates until you get tied down or locked into your Geri-chair or chemically subdued with psychotropic medications. In the nice ones, a staff member cracks a joke, wags an affectionate finger, and takes your brownie stash away. In almost none does anyone sit down with you and try to figure out what living a life really means to you under the circumstances, let alone help you make a home where that life becomes possible. This is the consequence of a society that faces the final phase of the human life cycle by trying not to think about it. We end up with institutions that address any number of societal goals - from freeing up hospital beds to taking burdens off families' hands to coping with poverty among the elderly - but never the goal that matters to the people who reside in them: how to make life worth living when we're weak and frail and can't fend for ourselves anymore. — Atul Gawande

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. — Rachel Reiland

My life is more than a waiting period; it is an expedition. How I perceive it, and how I improve upon it is solely up to me. — Celeste Cooper

I have been addicted to it, and it's ultimately related to anxiety coping, and it's a form of self-medication, and I was smoking up to 15 to 20 marijuana cigarettes a day with no tobacco. — Lady Gaga

I swing my arms to loosen myself up. Place my fists on my hips. then drop them to my sides. Saliva's filling my mouth at a ridiculous rate and i feel vomit at the back of my throat. I swallow hard and open my lips so I can get the stupid line out and go hide in the woods and-that's when i start crying. — Suzanne Collins

If you are faced with a mountain, you have several options.
You can climb it and cross to the other side.
You can go around it.
You can dig under it.
You can fly over it.
You can blow it up.
You can ignore it and pretend it's not there.
You can turn around and go back the way you came.
Or you can stay on the mountain and make it your home. — Vera Nazarian

It sounded somewhat doom-laden, so I felt obliged to look it up more thoroughly, in case I should eat some chocolate rather quickly. — Carol Anne Dobson

Sometimes, when things are confusing, we try and make sense of it our own way; we find ways of coping up. — Rachel Ward

Sasha's green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. "In Naples," she said, "there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they'd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will."
...
You opened your eyes, which you hadn't realized were shut again. "what I'm saying is, We're the survivors," Sasha said.
...
"Not everyone is. But we are. Okay? — Jennifer Egan

He leans in, resting his weathered hand on the bed. Treat all the bad things like dreams, Kenzie. That way, no matter how scary or dark they get, you just have to survive until you wake up. — Victoria Schwab

I don't believe that God's up in heaven making things go terribly wrong in our lives so that we learn better manners and better coping skills. But I do believe in something like composting for the soul: that if you can find life out of death, if you can use the smashed up garbage to bring about something new and good, however tiny, that's one of the most beautiful things there is. — Shauna Niequist

Slowly I discovered that writing was my way of coping with chaos and my cry of freedom, my homage to beauty. Because stories have the power to denounce, to teach, to inspire, sometimes to heal. That was a kind of epiphany and so I decided that being a writer would be my way to keep on keeping on and that words would be my bullets, my answers to the Weapons of Mass Deception. From that day on my conscience was at ease and growing old more endurable. And I knew I could 'look up and see the sky'. — Vittorio Vandelli

Locking away appetite, anger, the fullness of life, anorexia helps cover up whatever struggles inside. With its controlling bouts of bingeing and starvation, of trance and half-life, it becomes a shield to fend off despair and longing and what most of use would see as ordinary responsible behavior. — Carol Lee

I wonder if I'm going crazy. I think I read somewhere - or was it something I learned in psychology class? - that people often make up their own reality as a means of coping with what their brains can't possible handle. The idea comforts me, because while no one else out there seems to be trying to protect or save me, at least maybe my brain in. — Laurie Faria Stolarz

Food is a coping mechanism; people are afraid of giving it up because then they'll feel confused and lost. — Phil McGraw

The idea made Mahlia's chest tighten. It was her own fantasy, the secret one she sometimes curled up to when she went to bed, knowing that it was stupid, but still wanting it, wanting it to somehow all make sense. — Paolo Bacigalupi

I say it must have been great to grow up when men were men. He says men have always been what the are now, namely incapable of coping with life without the intervention of God the Almighty. Then in the oven behind him my pizza starts smoking and he says case in point. — George Saunders

WAR CHILD is the true story of Magdalena (Leni) Janic whose name appears on The Welcome Wall at Sydney's Darling Harbour. The story spans 100 years starting in pre WWII Nazi Germany and ends in the suburbs of Adelaide. It's a window into what life was like for a young illegitimate German girl growing up in poverty, coping with ostracism, bullying, abuse and dispossession as society was falling down around her and she becomes a refugee. But it's also a story of a woman's unconditional love for her family, the sacrifices she made and secrets she kept to protect them. Her ultimate secret was only revealed in a bizarre twist after her death and much to her daughter's (and author) surprise involved her. A memorable tear-jerker! A sad cruel story told with so much love. — Annette Janic

A relationship between two people is made up, for the most part, of invisible things: memories, shared experiences, hopes and fears. When one person disappears, the other is left alone, as if holding a string with no kite. Memories can do a lot to sustain you, but the invisible stuff of the relationship is lost, even as unresolved issues remain: arguments never settled, kind words never uttered, things left un-said. They become like a splinter beneath the skin-unseen, but painful nevertheless. Until they're exposed, coping with the loss is impossible. — David Dosa

Possibly this is some demonstration of how amazing the human brain is, adjusting and readjusting reality, plugging up potential crazy with a handy coping mechanism. As for myself, I think it demonstrates that the human brain is made of recycled monkey bits and pure, unadulterated stupid. — Rachel Sharp

The nature of the enemy's warfare in your life is to cause you to become discouraged and to cast away your confidence. Not that you would necessarily discard your salvation, but you could give up your hope of God's deliverance. The enemy wants to numb you into a coping kind of Christianity that has given up hope of seeing God's resurrection power. — Bob Sorge

It is not always easy to be who we are, but as we grow up and mature and develop coping mechanisms that enable us to survive and thrive in a complicated world, we have the responsibility to reach back and help others still struggling along the way. In so doing, we can also help ourselves. Above all, we cannot allow each generation to grow up in a world where they feel they are alone while we carry so much knowledge, history, and foundation that we can, and must, pass on to them. — Keith Boykin

It's fine. I use foul language and you bust up small mountains." I examined the rubble around us. "We each have our coping mechanisms. — Ashlan Thomas

Doesn' t she care what she does to her family? ' people will ask.
' How can she starve herself like that? '
She has fallen into bad company, been influenced from within by something she thought she could control, but which has ended up controlling her.
Experts who have spent years working with anoresia suffreres see the illness as a means of expressing distress - a symptom, not a cause. One doctor describes anorexia as a solution to an individual's problem, so by treating the solution life is made more difficult.
This would explain why Emma is ruthless in protecting her illness, as if it were her life, rather than the thing which is destroying her. — Carol Lee

I have an unusual hobby: I collect pictures of people I don't know. It started when I was a kid growing up in South Florida, the land of junk stores, garage sales, and flea markets, as a kind of coping mechanism. — Ransom Riggs

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do. — Anne Lamott

If I was lonely, if I was afraid of being alone, then why abandon myself? Why run to someone else looking to give myself the thing that only I could give? I wanted to escape myself because I felt empty, and the emptiness frightened me. But obviously, I was empty because I was always running out, running away. The only way to fill the emptiness was to remain, to take up residence in myself. — Norah Vincent

Tad Homer-Dixon is a rare kind of public intellectual, who combines real expertise with a commitment to communicate to the widest possible readership. In The Ingenuity Gap he wants us all to wake-up to the fearful possibility that our blithe trust in science and technology may be misplaced. Human ingenuity may not be capable of coping with two emerging crises of this century and the next: population growth and environmental despoliation. Read Homer Dixon's wake-up call and you will see the future very differently. — Michael Ignatieff

Two-thirds of the terminal cancer patients in the Coping with Cancer study reported having had no discussion with their doctors about their goals for end-of-life care, despite being, on average, just four months from death. But the third who did have discussions were far less likely to undergo cardiopulmonary resuscitation or be put on a ventilator or end up in an intensive care unit. Most of them enrolled in hospice. They suffered less, were physically more capable, and were better able, for a longer period, to interact with others. In addition, six months after these patients died, their family members were markedly less likely to experience persistent major depression. In other words, people who had substantive discussions with their doctor about their end-of-life preferences were far more likely to die at peace and in control of their situation and to spare their family anguish. — Atul Gawande

One of them told me the craving disappeared as soon as we turned the electricity on," Mueller said. "Then, we turned it off, and the craving came back immediately." Eradicating the alcoholics' neurological cravings, however, wasn't enough to stop their drinking habits. Four of them relapsed soon after the surgery, usually after a stressful event. They picked up a bottle because that's how they automatically dealt with anxiety. However, once they learned alternate routines for dealing with stress, the drinking stopped for good. One patient, for instance, attended AA meetings. Others went to therapy. And once they incorporated those new routines for coping with stress and anxiety into their lives, the successes were dramatic. The man who had gone to detox sixty times never had another drink. Two other patients had started drinking at twelve, were alcoholics by eighteen, drank every day, and now have been sober for four years. — Charles Duhigg

Growth occurs when we discover how to remain authentically ourselves in the presence of potentially threatening things. Maturity is the possession of coping skills: we can take in our stride things that previously would have knocked us off course. We are less fragile, less easily shocked and hence more capable of engaging with situations as they really are — Alain De Botton

Females with ASDs often develop 'coping mechanisms' that can cover up the intrinsic difficulties they experience. They may mimic their peers, watch from the sidelines, use their intellect to figure out the best ways to remain undetected, and they will study, practice, and learn appropriate approaches to social situations. Sounds easy enough, but in fact these strategies take a lot of work and can more often than not lead to exhaustion, withdrawal, anxiety, selective mutism, and depression. -Dr. Shana Nichols — Liane Holliday Willey

His way of coping with the days was to think of activities as units of time, each unit consisting of about thirty minutes. Whole hours, he found, were more intimidating, and most things one could do in a day took half an hour. Reading the paper, having a bath, tidying the flat, watching Home and Away and Countdown, doing a quick crossword on the toilet, eating breakfast and lunch, going to the local shops ... That was nine units of a twenty-unit day (the evenings didn't count) filled by just the basic necessities. In fact, he had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job. Life took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day? He suspected that one or two people he knew were making some pretty unsavoury short cuts. — Nick Hornby

I've got some work to do." He looked at Blue. "Give me a hug before I go, sweetheart."
She got up. Compliant for the first time since he'd met her. Riley's appearance had put a crimp in his plan to deal with her lie about April but only temporarily.
He moved to the center of the caravan so he didn't bump his head. She wrapped his arms around his waist. He considered coping a feel, but she must have read his mind because she pinched him hard through his t-shirt.
"Ouch."
She smiled up at his as she pulled away.
"Miss me, dreamboat."
He glared at her, rubbed his side, and left the caravan. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Faith and hope remove worry, anxiety, and fear. Human life becomes very painful and burdensome if a person has no one to trust and love. Then why should it bother an atheist, if a mother who just has lost her child, takes up a doll of baby Jesus or Krishna and pampers it like her own child, while in the process she actually succeeds in coping with her traumatic situation! — Abhijit Naskar