Take Three

I cry, make a tea, get in bed under the blanket and stay there until it's hard to breathe. Then I pull the blanket off, drink the tea, probably cry some more.

No, it doesn't always help.

Bed. I can usually just go to sleep when I'm really upset but I'm happy to just lie in bed and watch comforting things for hours.

Yeah bed as well. That's the place I feel most comfortable. Usually a nap helps too. Up until about a year or so ago I'd just get drunk. Not anymore. I've realized it's unhealthy on so many degrees. If I was still using alcohol as a coping mechanism there would've been a lot of embarrassing drunk posts by me here still like back in the old Drank Funk days.

Getting really upset tires me. I tend to nap when I'm really sad. If I'm numb though, I tend to watch tv or play video games just to forget for a little while that life sucks.

I'll just drive somewhere that's decently far away to get something to eat that I don't normally have, like a gyro in Freehold or go down to the shore in the offseason and get an italian sausage sandwich, and I'll chain smoke. Sometimes it helps but honestly sleeping and time are the only things that really seem to do any good.

It depends on how bad it is, whether I'm angry, or sad, or both.

Bed is definitely one of the options.

When I had my car I would take off and drive nowhere really or to the beach.

The beach always seems to comfort me no matter what season or time of day. I can go there and walk or sit for hours just not thinking about the inevitable occurrences of life.

Writing was another mechanism I would use to get out my frustrations and I've written down some pretty horrible things but it was one of the few ways that would completely relieve me of whatever thoughts plagued me.

These days I go through those journals and read them when I get sad or depressed to remind myself how far I've come. Certain entries make me sadder and I cry but I realize that it doesn't hurt like it did before.

Currently working out is what helps me feel better about a lot of things. Back in my high school days, sports were what helped me cope with what I was going through. Batting cages were my favorite because I could just smack the hell out of something for hours without hurting anyone.

I have a hard time dealing with my anger(I've mentioned this before) because I've seen how people get when they are in a rage and I feel that inside of me and it freaks me out. The few times I lost control I broke a window, my mom's pager, and took a chunk off of our garage with a baseball bat. I also wrecked a car once(not my dui) this was sober, I was 14/15 years old. That was a bad day.

A few times I would cope by drinking and there were a couple years where I would just avoid going home as much as possible and hang out with friends to get my mind off the bullshit.

I'd like to think I have a come a long way from those days and have learned to cope a lot better than before. I still have more to work on and it's a forever healing process but seeing the progress makes me hopeful that there will come a day when I will no longer feel chained to these old wounds.

Wow. I can't sleep when I am upset. Not at all. I will stay awake for days if something is really bothering me.

I usually play games or read a fantasy book. Sometimes I will sit in a dark room and listen to very loud music. Usually Tool, the Mars Volta or Rage Against the Machine.

When I didn't have kids I drove aimlessly and usually ended up on the Parkway. If there was a beach nearby, I'd probably end up there too, like Jaz.
Nature. It's just so therapeutic for me to take a hike or walk and be surrounded by natural elements, especially some type of water source.

I never sleep when I'm upset I just lay in bed and yeah nature is definitely one of my favorite ways to calm down, feel at peace.

One of the many houses we lived at, I used to like sneaking out at night and go into one of the neighbor's backyard. This older lady who lived across the street had this real pretty backyard with weird flowers and beautiful roses. I feel kind of bad about sneaking back there now but I don't know, it just felt so magical in that little area. I felt like I was in a different world and I would imagine being rescued or starting a journey to some far of magical place.

When things get to be too much I isolate myself. I don't want to talk to anyone. I'll either sit on the porch with a drink and cigarettes, or I'll go to bed, or if it's especially bad I'll go to the shower.

Naps usually fix everything.

Oh and, as AudreyThirteen said- writing. I journal a lot. I like to go through old ones sometimes and my past problems seem not as bad as they used to be. I suggest a keeping a journal to anyone.

Thanks everyone for the replies, I guess I should reply to this.

I usually do all the the same sorts of things as you guys mentioned.

Go to bed, so I can lay there and think. Or find some quiet place out of doors where no one will bother me, so I can let my mind wander over everything. Find something I can get lost in, like painting. Try to drink my care away, at times.

When all else fails, I enter objective land. Read books on reasoning and discerning factual truth from subjectivity, if I must first, to remind myself how to think objectively. Perhaps things on psychology, and then head into the biological facts. Basically attempt to gather as much information as possible and translate it all until I make sense. Along the way I usually find some new interest about the world and next thing I know I am not only functioning like a reasonable person once again I have enthusiasm for life as well as so much new knowledge to investigate I couldn't possibly be depressed if I tried.

Sometimes I wait until it gets dark out and everyone is asleep, and then I turn the shower on as cold as it goes and the lights off, and I sit on the bathroom floor, on my housecoat, and listen to every sound the water makes, concentrating on nothing else, until I get so in tuned to doing that that I can't do anything else, and an hour or so will go by. Or I play a song I like and hold a twenty pound weight out for the duration, or I cook or eat something gross, like beans or sardines, and I eat them while looking rudely upon the world as if it and not I is at fault, and it should be ashamed of itself.

I usually go run or do push-ups or go to the basketball court or do some vigorous form of exercise. When I get upset or overwhelmed or pressured, I get annoyed, and when I get annoyed, I get energetic, and when I get energetic, I notice I should be in better shape, and when I notice I should be in better shape, I make fun of stupid commercials, and when I make fun of stupid commercials, I go upstairs and practice fighting with a bundled up Christmas tree standing against a wall in the attic. Don't fight a Christmas tree in the attic.

If you knew how much effort it takes to get into my attic... the day I go up there to fight the fake christmas tree someone better just call a doctor.

I have better creatures to fight in my attic actually, anyway. Ghouls and flying monkeys and others corpsey things.

I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned sex yet....

haha. I hope I never associate Sex and Coping with each other.

Even in the sense of using the one for the other.

This thread could get fun and evolve into the Weird Stuff You Do When No One Is Watching thread.

like pick my nose?

I read a book and then I read another book and then I read another book and when I'm tired of books I lock myself in the bathroom. I don't do anything in there. I just lock myself in a bathroom because no one bothers you behind a locked bathroom door for an hour or a few hours if you're lucky and then I think about how many times I've been locked in a bathroom and I feel an idiot so I leave. If it's really awful then I probably sit and think about how I don't have the balls to kill myself and fall asleep on the floor.

I think I do weirder stuff when people are watching than when they aren't.

Yeah I mostly just pick my nose when no one is looking directly at me. They can still see though.

When things get too much I usually ring my boyfriend or Mum and whine and cry down the phone. As a kid I used to snuggle up to my cat.

I go to fitness

I usually get very quiet and turn inwards. I live in my head until I've analyzed the situation to death. I don't eat or sleep well at these times. I also tend to get very busy doing cleaning, organizing and more cleaning. This keeping busy thing usually helps me to burn off the excessive nervous energy I feel when I'm down. I truly do torture myself with worry until I come to some type of answer for what is making me down, whether it be an argument with someone or just generally feeling down. So if I come to an answer, such as apologizing or that I'm in a rut or just feeling out of sorts, this is the time I will begin to fix me. If it is just a time where I am just having the general blues, which happens more than I like because I am a very feeling type person, I kick myself in the ass and put one foot in front of the other. I start pampering myself by doing things I enjoy, draw, photography, write, listen to all the musics, knit and just anything that makes me happy. I'm one of those people that gets mad at myself when I let things get to me, when I get down, cry, etc. I like to be in a good mood, have fun and be at peace ALL the time, so when this game of life gets in the way of that, I have a hard time. Maybe I'm too much of a dreamer to think you can be happy all the time, but I try my hardest to. I do believe a good cry is. Cry cleansing for your soul, (yes I believe in them) but I get mad at me when I cry.....I think I'm being weak if I cry, but don't think others are when they do it. Yeah, I know, that doesn't make sense. Well that's my coping.
Annnnnd, I too pick my nose when no ones around.

Since everyone is saying it, i pick my nose a lot. Mostly its to clear out my nosrils due to a bad chronic sinus infection. I do it to breath better. A lot of times it is out of bordome.

Also, i went and got drunk tonight, and it stll helps cope with things, but I realized its not the way to go about dealing with things, but fuck it makes things less shitty. At least while youre drunk.

Good times, shittin' pants.

Cool story bro

These things too! I was really upset today, I've slept a lot, called my mum and chilled with my cat. My cat generally makes me laugh and feel a lot better, he has funny ways.

I clean my house, clean out closets, clean the garage, clean my car, clean the cat, read a thousand short stories, exercise, do extra work for work, and/or take a long hot bath. I can't really stay in a tub for long though because I'm antsy when I'm upset (mad, irritated) so doing nothing makes me feel lazy and then I just start hating on myself for not doing something productive. I'm unreasonably critical of laziness.

If I'm sad enough, I want to get into bed and sleep but I never do and I never will succumb to that because again...the lazy thing.

Sometimes I think, think, think, and other times I don't think about it so it will go away.

I try really hard not to let these things impact my family. Everyone still gets smiles and hugs and lunch and clean laundry, even when I'm all fucked up inside.

This is what I do as well.