Quotes About Coping

The American sense of reality is dictated by what Americans are trying to avoid; and if you're trying to avoid reality, how can you face it?

a child's major attention has to be concentrated on how to fit into a world which, with every passing hour, reveals itself as merciless.

That's what the Blues and Spirituals are all about. It is the ability to look on things as they are and survive your losses, or even not survive them—to know that your losses are coming. To know they are coming is the only possible insurance you have, a faint insurance, that you will survive them.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

years. What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not the presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life. In

These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity—cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth—and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger.53

It's all shit," he had muttered in English, and felt better.

I have lived alone, I have fought alone, I have dealt with the pain alone. I will die alone. I think when I'm going to leave. I don't want to be seen and I don't want to be followed , I want to disappear quickly and quietly and without any drama , I want as much time in the darkness as I can possibly have . The darkness provides cover, the darkness provides places to hide and the darkness provides comfort.

Addicts, as a group, generally score far above average o intelligence tests. Why? You tell me. I guess maybe we're smart enough to have figured out how shitty things are and we decide addiction is the only way to deal with it.

Sleep is still difficult I sleep for three or four hours a day. Usually sometime in the afternoon. I walk in the cold, keep myself numb. I cry less, and less. (James Frey, pg.88)

There is, though, nothing that prepares us for the worst things in our life. There is nothing you can do to stop the shock, or buffer the pain.

I think God is something that People use to avoid reality. I think faith allows People to reject what is right in front of our eyes, which is that this thing, this life, this existence, this consciousness, or whatever word you want to use for it, is all we have, and all we'll ever have. I think People have faith because they want and need to believe in something, whatever that something is, because life can be hard and depressing and brutal if you don't.

The pain is immense, but I need it because it keeps me from going insane.

It's a skill to navigate uncertainty.

Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn't happen. If that's the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.

I think much of my own quest in life is to figure out how best to cope with my own uncertainties.

When people grow up with a family characterized by chaos and uncertainty and fragility, you look for a substitution for that.

Hillbillies learn from an early age to deal with uncomfortable truths by avoiding them or by pretending better truths exist. This tendency might make for psychological resilience, but it also makes it hard for Appalachians to look at themselves honestly.

That's how to make a stand-up comedian: You take a person who is uncomfortable and try to squirrel their way out of it through humor.

Choosing to avoid uncomfortable feelings offers immediate short-term relief, but avoidance can lead to long-term consequences.

I am actually going to two therapists right now. I don't know, I actually feel like therapy has just made me more uncomfortable.

I don't want a life without my mom in it, but I'm not someone who curls up in the fetal position and says, 'Mommy, take care of me!' I don't like people catering to me. It feels so awkward and uncomfortable.

I realise there are situations where I camp it up, make myself into a sort of novelty character to ease things along. Like, if I ever feel uncomfortable in a situation, I can just make myself into this funny Will-and-Grace-guest-star type of person, and maybe people will not pay attention to the deeper things going on.

I spend a good deal of time doing, for anxiety what's known as exposure therapy where basically you're supposed to confront things that cause you anxiety and learn to tolerate. It's all about learning to tolerate discomfort rather that avoiding anything that might make you feel uncomfortable.