Left To my Own Devices...

My roomie & I watch a variety of shows that address people & their coping devices.  There are those exercise, shop, do drugs or a variety of other things.  Coping is a means by which we deal with stress.  Our lives are filled with stressors.  Not all sources are stress are bad for us, some can motivate to do things in our lives.  However, some are either difficult to deal with or beyond our control.  So we develop coping mechanisms.

Coping mechanisms can come in many forms; action, emotional & harmful, but all can be detrimental to our lives.  Action based mechanisms can be that I'm stressed at home so I'll spend more time at work or go shopping.  Many people refer to these as defense mechanisms.  The emotional forms can lead us into daydreams, wishful thing or our happy place.  Harmful ones can be drugs, cutting or reckless behavior.  No matter how benign the mechanism, if over used it can be more harmful than beneficial.

Too much stress is a bad thing.  It is especially harmful to those who already have compromised conditions such as being +.  People blithely tell you, "You have to avoid getting too stressed."  Like everyone doesn't already know that.  What they leave out is, how to accomplish the goal of not getting stressed out.

When my roomie & me used to have better resources, we would drive around for hours.  It's something I grew up doing.  It let  you clear your head & be anywhere else.  Used to, having a car meant freedom, now it just means that it costs a lot of $$$.  We also used to go see a couple of movies a week & stop to get something to eat while we were out.  We'd take a weekend & go to Tulsa.  We'd rent a hotel room, go to clubs, see a movie, go shopping, etc... 

Now, most of that is gone.  We can't afford to drive around aimlessly.   For the most part, movies have become expensive crap-fests.  It would take almost four times as much $ to do a weekend trip to Tulsa now, then it did ten years ago.   There goes most of our destressors.

I used to read avidly, but since I've been +, I can barely focus on anything.  My roomie & both have this affliction when it comes to many things like reading or watching movies.  Between the economy & our illnesses our means of coping with stress have been severely challenged.

We do our best to avoid stress, but that doesn't always work.  We're having plumbing problems again  & that isn't fun. There are always $ & health issues.  So what to do?  Do we hoard like those people on TV?  No, those people freak me out.  Just watching those shows is stressful.  Do we get into drugs?  No, have $ issues already, remember?  So what do we do?  The answer is right now I don't entirely know.

All I can tell you is that I have to take things bit by bit.  Break down the big problem into to smaller, more manageable pieces.  I try to use the backpack philosophy, that I've mentioned before from Up In The Air.  The best I can do is to let go of most of the crappy things, situations & people as I can.  I have to try to eliminate those things that drive me bonkers.

How do you cope with stress?  Are your coping devices actually helping you or holding you back?  Can you still afford the stress mechanisms that used to help you?  I hope you have the tools to deal with the stress in your life.  May your days be stress-free.  As for me, well as usual I'm left to my own devices...