Quotes About Coping

Some people held grudges; Esperanza clutched them and tied them around her waist and used cement and Krazy glue to hold them steady.

Grief rarely attacks from the front. It prefers to sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Every day there's a lot of things I block out, because if I start visualising things, I tend to go completely insane. I've always had anxiety issues, and it can totally overwhelm me and suck me under if I'm not keeping focused. I just think and think until I have a panic attack, and then it dies down.

In 2002, my husband died very suddenly. My main concern that day was how to deliver the news to our daughter, then eight. Someone put me in touch with Judith Wallerstein, an expert in child psychology who coached me through what to say.

I had a slight touch of Tourette's, which means you talk to yourself and bark and cry out at night. I find myself talking to myself sometimes.

I think I've always been regarded as a mentally strong person and a tough character, but it took me a while to reach a point where I realised that internalising your emotions wasn't doing me any good.

The mark of the man is how he responds to situations. You're not going to avoid tough times. We're all over the barrel some of the time. What are you going to do about it?

I believe, as human beings, we sometimes indulge in self pity more than it's necessary. Over my life's journey, I have realised that overthinking about your problems and indulging in self-pity is not the answer to get through tough times.

I think there are moments when everyone feels a bit low or goes through tough times.

Yes, this is our job, but when we're having rough days and when we're going through tough times, we can all come to the gym and come to the locker room and let everything out.

It's extraordinary to hear from people who are bereaved, or gone through a divorce, and they still take the time to tell me how a certain track or album helped them through tough times, or kept them sane.

We always say in the Obama world, in the toughest times, you can laugh or you can cry, so you might as well laugh.

Book tours are super hard for me as a raging introvert. I love humanity, but actual humans are hard for me. So something like a book tour - where I'm constantly on the road - scares the hell out of me.

Food is not a means toward resolution. It can't cure heartbreak or solve untenable dilemmas.

Everybody needs a way out of that pain. Many people choose drugs and alcohol. Some people obsessively exercise or develop strange dietary habits, which is what I did. At least it got me toward a path of healthier living.

I've always turned my anger inwards towards self-destruction.

It's maybe hard to believe, but as a kid I really had a lot of self-doubts. My father was very ill - he was an alcoholic - so there were a lot of things that built up for me. And because I was going to a Catholic school in a small German town, a lot of it was suppressed. I was angry and didn't know how to get it out.

Bad things happen. And the human brain is especially adept at making sure that we keep track of these events. This is an adaptive mechanism important for survival.

Before the mind snaps, or the heart breaks, it gather itself like a clock about to strike. It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate.

Is it wrong to trust in a beautiful lie if it helps you get through life?

MentalHealth.gov

There are all kinds of addicts, I guess. We all have pain. And we all look for ways to make the pain go away.

Jack hit the floor and fired off push-ups until he thought he'd pass out. The spinning behind his eyes felt good. He'd gotten by with a half grapefruit (35 calories) at breakfast, because his mom was such an emotional wreck before driving him to the hospital. She didn't argue over the half cup of oatmeal (110 calories), which he dumped in the sink before polishing off the last of his red M&Ms, his go-to food when life got sucky.

Despite all her strengths, there was a certain brittleness to her. Sometimes she retreated into her keep. Sometimes she ran away. But she did not forgive and she did not forget.