Quotes About Coping

I ended up living in fear for most of my childhood.

I was a really bad single mum. I used to go to the supermarket just for somewhere to go.

A lot of emotional stress that people go through, some people figure out a way to handle it. They have a strong enough support system to keep going and keep moving forward. And some people, they feel like they don't have that outlet.

I got through with my ability to mimic others and make people laugh. I swaggered through life, but, in reality, I lived in fear pretty much every day. I acted like a completely normal person, and I suppose I was good at it. But, inside, it was a very different story.

Everybody laughs all the time, and some of the worst things that happen make you laugh 'cause it's a defense isn't it, I suppose.

I suppress stress to the point where it will force its way through my skin in the form of a large angry pimple because that's the only channel it has.

I used to suppress all my feelings, and it doesn't do anybody any good.

The longest I've gone without a panic attack is about two months. Even then I can feel it bubbling away under the surface.

I have had a struggle with anxiety, always, and as a proud Jew, that's not a surprising thing.

Illness can make us behave in the most surprising ways.

Meet your sorrows head on, and after you've wrestled with them, put them behind.

Davis calls PTSD living at the whim of your worst memories.

David Morris, in The Evil Hours, his remarkable book on trauma, notes, "Part of trauma's corrosive power lies in its ability to destroy narrative, and . . . stories, written and spoken, have tremendous healing power for both the teller and the listener.

Much of this is done through speech, through telling of one's plight, through being heard, through hearing compassion and understanding in the response of the people you tend to, whom you befriend. Not only women do this, but perhaps women do this more routinely. It's how I cope, or how my community helps me cope, now that I have one.

Vivre les malheurs à l'avance, c'est les subir deux fois.

I retreat from my bars, wondering why people who live outside choose such ugly words. Maybe that is what happens when you are outside, and the world clangs and barrels and shouts twenty-four hours a day, from your radio your television your wife your neighbor the lawn mower down the street and the scream of airplanes from the sky. Maybe then you use ugly words to tell life to shut up.

So sind die Dinge manchmal. Wenn alles am schlimmsten ist, dann wirft der Verstand alles in einen Papierkorb und geht für eine Weile nach Florida. Da ist ein Was-zur-Hölle-soll's?-Gefühl in einem, während man da-steht und über die Schulter zu der Brücke zurückblickt, die man soeben niedergebrannt hat.

When everything is at its worst, your mind just throws it all into the wastebasket and goes to Florida for a little while. There is a sudden electric what-the-hell glow as you stand there looking back over your shoulder at the bridge you just burnt down.

Your protectors' goals for your life revolve around keeping you away from all that pain, shame, loneliness, and fear, and they use a wide array of tools to meet those goals—achievements, substances, food, entertainment, shopping, sex, obsession with your appearance, caretaking, meditation, money, and so on.

It is in our lowest moods, when we are least equipped to do so, that we are tempted to try to solve problems or resolve issues with others.

Although airing your grievances with others may help you feel less alone and on rare occasions gets you good advice, more often than not it keeps you stuck in a bad mood.

The bombing started up again, with explosions all around us, in broad daylight, but no one in the restaurant even flinched. Iraqis seemed numb after a quarter century under Saddam's whip-hand rule. It was heartbreaking to see what a harsh dictatorship can do to the human soul. In less than a week, I had grown almost inured to explosions and fires.

I'm getting used to it now. His moods, his unpredictable explosions, horrible words and terrible things spewing out of his mouth. When he comes into a room, I go out, not to make a point or anything, not loud like, but quiet as a mouse, hugging the wall so that he will not notice I was ever there.

For a time after my divorce everything began to seem profoundly ironic to me. I found myself thinking of other peoples' worries as sources of amusement and private derision which I thought about at night to make myself feel better.