Maladaptive coping: Breaking the cycle
We’ve talked a lot about how to build resilience thus far, but what do we do if we’ve already found ourselves in a cycle of poor resilience and maladaptive coping that we’re unable to find our way out of? In fact, this might already feel a little touchy if we’ve become accustomed to using alcohol to cope. This is often the case with those of us who find our way to Reframe.
We know, of course, that alcohol isn’t the only maladaptive way to cope. Perhaps we numb out to television marathons, eat our weight in ice cream, use other substances, use other people, scroll through social media, hide from the world, or get lost in hours of Tetris. These are all forms of maladaptive coping, and this kind of coping can vary by degree. Tetris is probably pretty harmless (at first, at least), but leaning into some forms of numbing out can wreck our lives by equal measure.
We learn how to cope in our earliest years on Earth—we see others in our lives (caretakers, siblings, peers, teachers) coping in various ways, and we may mirror them in kind. After all, when it’s all that we see, it makes sense that that’s how we deal. We learn to adapt to psychological and physical stress as best we can, and if we aren’t taught adaptive coping from the start, we’re just doing our best. (This is also why it’s so deeply important to practice compassion and kindness towards ourselves when we find that we’re not coping in adaptive ways—we’re all just out there doing the best we can.)
As we learn how to self-soothe from an early age, we pick up “tips and tricks” as we go along. Often enough, those maladaptive coping mechanisms seem innocent enough—none of us go into it thinking “I’m going to dive so deep into this thing that it creates a vicious cycle of maladaptive coping that I may never recover from!” Over time, we begin to build our “toolbox” as best we can. These resources come in a few different categories of coping mechanisms, as outlined by Dr. Martha Wadsworth:
Active coping mechanisms: like seeking out support, goal setting, problem solving
Accommodative coping mechanisms: like compromising, adjusting expectations, adapting as events unfold
Emotional coping mechanisms: managing stress reactions and emotional reactions
Behavioral coping mechanisms: using behavior to manage discomfort (this is often where the idea of “numbing out” comes into play)
Cognitive coping mechanisms: managing stress through mental activities (meditation, visualizing, etc.)
