The Complexity of Coping Skills

The other day, my 15 year old daughter was baking for my son’s birthday. She has always been an incredible baker and we often request, no beg, her to make some of her delicious cupcakes or cookies. I have so many memories of my child growing up and learning to love baking. She was 3 when the passion began and I can picture her sitting on the counter, wearing her blue, pink and white chef hat as she smiles and pours powdered sugar all over her pancakes.

Yet, this was different. I watched as she began getting stressed about the cookies not being perfect gorillas – a cookie her brother requested and deserved. Her anxiety began to rise and she began to look as if something was wrong. She noted that she has always loved baking and it has always been one of her biggest coping skills, but she hated it in this moment. She wanted to get out of the kitchen and not return.

This brought so many memories to my head, not only of myself but also my clients. One client in particular, who had just gone on a beautiful tangent about how terribly the mental health field teaches coping skills.

“They teach us to breathe” they noted. They continued to note the importance of breath work coping skills, but also noted how important it is to take this to a deeper level, especially for adolescents. When asked what they would like to learn, they noted they had been in and out of hospitals/PHPS/IOPS for years and what they wished they would have learned is that coping skills fail all the time.

I would have looked at them curiously if I had not experienced this myself the year I became a therapist. Running was and always has been the best way I can cope with anything. It clears my mind, helps me process, gets anxiety and anger out of my body and provides a space that is just for me. This space has been my safe space since I was 15, but that drastically changed in 2020.

2020 was an interesting year for everyone and I was no different. I worked full time from home, my mom and sister homeschooled my kids, I attended school full time and began my internship at the detention center. Not only was I overwhelmed with everything on my plate, I was learning to help support others navigate their lives all while it felt like the world was imploding.

I was never diagnosed with COVID, but right before the pandemic, I was the sickest I had ever been. The months following that were nearly unbearable. I could not stand up without my heart rate going from 75 to 130 in 15 seconds. I could not be outside for more than 10 minutes or I’d be in bed for at least 2 days after. My chronic pain got significantly worse and breathing nearly seemed impossible. No doctors could figure out what was wrong and I was left to simply manage.

Running was not an option any longer. My safe space was ripped from me during one of the most overwhelming times of my life. I worked with my therapist as I felt my mental health crumble and we focused on finding new “coping skills” to navigate this challenge.

But literally nothing helped.

My client was spot on. And to be honest, I’ve heard and seen this in many curriculums. We teach box breathing or other breathing techniques, tweak our client’s 504’s, and tell them they got this. And so many young people are feeling so frustrated.

Coping skills are great and absolutely necessary, but we cannot put this into a box. It’s not just breathing or carrying your fidgets. It is finding something that eases your mind and allows it peace during a storm. It is finding something that makes you feel confident and excited. And all to often, it is something that we must learn to navigate the evolution of.

Of course, as anything, we need to make sure that we are informed on what this looks like in a healthy and productive way. There are many valid coping skills that can negatively affect our lives as well as others. Yet, if we teach ourselves and others to identify our strengths and how to utilize them, we can more easily identify what we need in a moment we may not have been in before.

Some of the best coping skills I have experienced or heard of have been super creative and tie into a passion that a client has. However, some of the best coping skills that I have seen be shared is within a group therapy setting. As adults, it is often difficult to know what exactly is available for youth to use due to constraints at school and elsewhere.

All humans are navigating trials that we do not necessarily see. They also are learning to live through those trials in different ways. Additionally, connection is one of the biggest ways we make it through struggles as humans were made to need each other. Learning to openly discuss what helps us navigate our unique journeys and teaching youth and kids to do the same is so crucial.

We all have so many unique thoughts in our brains, aspects to our personalities that no one else has and a story that may impact others. We are all navigating life and a crazy world and if we can learn from each other, I think we all will feel a lot better. But never forget, that you are the expert in your own life and learning to listen to you is the greatest coping skill you can have.