Quotes & Sayings About Coping With Pain

I used self-injury as a coping mechanism to help me overcome the emotional stress that I was incapable of dealing with in any other way. Self-injury was a means of escape, a way to relieve the numbness, and an expression of the pain within me. Something that the police wouldn't care about. — Stephen Richards

Most survivors are cope-aholics, people who cope with whatever is thrown at them without reliance on others. They do not seek sympathy for their pain and feel undeserving if it is offered. They are especially adverse to sympathy from others. — Renee Fredrickson

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

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

You never have to suffer because of, or be denatured by, another person, even someone you love. — Rossana Condoleo

What is ahead of me is fueled by the experiences behind me. — Celeste Cooper

We may seem fine, even when the pain remains right there beneath our surface. — Ashly Lorenzana

One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with. — Marianne Williamson

The mind knows the truth when your heart denies what it feels. When you don't feel safe to let people in it is because you're not ready to deal with the pain of honesty. — Shannon L. Alder

I am not "cured"
I know I never will be. I will always crave that pain to keep me centered. I will always be just a little astounded when I get through a crisis without putting a blade to my flesh. — J. Kenner

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

Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain. — David L. Conroy

Pain is a predator when we run from it, it will inevitably chase us down and catch us in its clutches. The goal isn't to wallow in the pain or to avoid it, but rather, to move through it. Pain only holds us hostage when we get stuck in it or try to repress it. Pain is a part of the human experience. Life is a bittersweet journey. Developing the ability to learn from our pain and to cope with it, effectively, is one of the most empowering gifts we can give ourselves. — Jaeda DeWalt

I think if you have a comic perspective, almost anything that happens you tend to put through a comic filter. It's a way of coping in the short term, but has no long term effect and requires constant, endless renewal. Hence people talk of comics who are "always on." It's like constantly drugging your sensibility so you can get by with less pain. — Woody Allen

When confronted with challenge,I discover my inner strength. — Celeste Cooper

Pain moves us forward, changing us into something else, something we need to be. — Michelle Moran

When a person is in emotional pain, it's hard to be rational and to think of a good solution. Nevertheless, many of the coping strategies used by people with overwhelming emotions only serve to make their problems worse. — Matthew McKay

It is not lies or a lack of loyalty that ends a relationship. It is the agonizing truth that one person feels in their heart on a daily basis. It is realizing that you are coping and not living. It is the false belief that there is a verse, quote, phrase or talk that will magically make you feel content, complete or not care. However, it doesn't last longer than a few days, before your mind and heart goes back to what it wants. It is the moment you realize that you left without ever leaving. It is the moment you realize that fear, shame or guilt is the only thing standing in the way of the life God meant for you to live. — Shannon L. Alder

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

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

Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad.
"Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad ... "
He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes."
"And when that happens, this will seem like nothing."
He nods.
"When it happens," he asks me, "what will get you through?"
"Friends who love me."
"And if your friends weren't there?"
"Music through headphones."
"And if the music stopped?"
"A sermon by Rabbi Wolpe."
"If there was no religion?"
"The mountains and the sky."
"If you leave California?"
"Numbered streets to keep me walking."
"If New York falls into the ocean?"
Your voice in my head. — Emma Forrest

Mindfulness describes a "state of becoming" that places the individual beyond judgment and definition. — Celeste Cooper

Sometimes you can learn, even from a bad experience. By coping you become stronger. The pain does not go away, but it becomes manageable. — Somaly Mam

He tried to decide if he was really ashamed of being afraid, and decided that he was not. Fear was there for a purpose. It was wired into any creature that had not completely turned its back on its evolutionary inheritance and so remade itself in whatever image it coveted. The more sophisticated you became, the less you relied on fear and pain to keep you alive; you could afford to ignore them because you had other means of coping with the consequences if things went badly. — Iain M. Banks

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

If you think of the moon as already used, it's not as difficult to take in,
because then it's just like you,
Traveled the world like you,
Seen the globe like you,
But, it's still bright. — Adrianna Stepiano

If your coping mechanism to date has been to ignore your weight, don't feel badly. You're in good company. I've done my share of standing on the doctor's scale backwards, cringing as the nurse scribbled on the clipboard, anxious when the doctor came in glancing over my record. I scrutinized his face for any semblance of judgment. Whether or not I faced the scale or the doctor skipped a pep talk, it didn't change the truth and it still pervaded every hour of my waking thoughts. I knew what I needed to do and just agonizingly prolonged it. What about you?

We want our lies to be true--desperately. We think it means less work, less pain. But aren't we experiencing work and pain every day when we are obese? We don't escape it, we just reallocate it, attach it to different problems.

The sooner we face the numbers and start to deal with them, the sooner we can resolve them. — Shannon Sorrels

Hiding my pain and acting strong, afraid to cry and show my tears, I struggle with all this years later. — Erin Merryn

I also know I'm not going to stay away. I'm going to grab onto her and let myself get cut. I'm good at pain. I'm good at bleeding, emotionally and physically. — Jasinda Wilder

The author "nails it" in terms of how to deal with a parent's dementia. Rather than browbeating the subject, the author "plays along" and tries to enter the subject's own dementia-challenged "reality." The book contains excellent coping strategies and methodology for dealing with someone suffering with and enduring the pain of dementia or Alzheimer's. It does so with sensitivity, candor and laugh-provoking humor. — Joel Kriofske

The Batcave is a monument ... to his pain. The cave is more than his war room. He might think of it that way, all the tools and resources he's assembled for his work. But that's not it at all. The Batcave is a monument to his pain. And this morning, the way he's hurting, it was the last place he would come. — Chris Dee

She had worn the Morgenstern ring since Jace had left it for her, and sometimes she wondered why. Did she really want to be reminded of Valentine? And yet, at the same time, was it ever right to forget?
You couldn't erase everything that caused you pain with its recollection. She didn't want to forget Max or Madeleine, or Hodge, or the Inquisitor, or even Sebastian. Every moment was valuable; even the bad ones. — Cassandra Clare

For a year she found an exquisite pain - almost pleasure - in facing the world as if she didn't care. Look at me, she would say to herself in the middle of a trying day. Look at me: I'm surviving; I'm coping; I'm in control of all this. — Richard Yates

But here is the thing about anger: People hold onto it because letting go means dealing with pain. It is a coping strategy that seems to show strength and confidence, but in reality it shows how much you care about someone's actions, which leads to this question: Why is this person's respect so important to you? — Shannon L. Alder

May our spirit fill us with understanding of victory and defeat, the gift of collaboration, the wisdom to choose the right path, and opportunities that inspire hope. — Celeste Cooper

To be subjected to pain that threatens to exceed coping resources is not something that people choose. — David L. Conroy

After I read a good book, I have a hard time coping with reality. — Unknown

I am thankful for the warmth of the sun, for it makes my spirit shine. — Celeste Cooper

What it boils down to is that each person has his own ways of coping with trauma and grief, with the pain of life, and astrology was one of mine. Don't criticize me, I wanted to say, until you have stood in my place. This helped me. Nobody was hurt by it. — Nancy Reagan